Difference between revisions of "Scientific controversy over the cause of AIDS"

Revision as of 19:13, August 29, 2009

The scientific controversy over the cause of AIDS hinges on whether HIV is the cause or merely an indicator of the disease. As early as 1987 Peter Duesberg—a member of the National Academy of Sciences and whose research speciality was and is retroviruses—called the HIV/AIDS model into question. Such scientists as Peter Duesberg, Kary B. Mullis, and Henry H. Bauer hold that those people dying from AIDS will continue to do so until the research community becomes far more honest and intelligent about the underlying mechanism causing the disease. A simple, elegant response to their question remains to be seen. So far there has only been a rhetorically-biased labeling of these scientists as AIDS "denialists"—a mere ad hominem logical fallacy. A well-narrated documentary on this controversy is "HIV=AIDS: Fact or Fraud?". Another accessible source on this controversy is the 1994 video "The Great AIDS Debate".

In September 2000 Royal Society of London held an Origin-of-AIDS debate where the two positions were a monkey virus through (1) "natural transfer" or (2) contaminated polio vaccines. All participants appear to have assumed the current HIV/AIDS model to be valid.^[1]

List of scientists who were well-respected until they began questioning the HIV/AIDS model

View that the cause is HIV

This article/section deals with advance bioscience concepts appropriate for a student in late university and graduate school.

Koch's postulates are fulfilled by HIV as the cause of AIDS. Koch's postulates are used to prove the link between pathogenic (disease-causing) agents and disease. Koch's postulates have been variously interpreted by many scientists, and modifications have been suggested to accommodate new technologies, particularly with regard to viruses^[2]. However, the basic tenets remain the same, and for more than a century Koch's postulates, have served as the litmus test for determining the cause of any epidemic disease:

Koch's Postulates

1. Epidemiological association: the suspected cause must be strongly associated with the disease.
2. Isolation: the suspected pathogen can be isolated - and propagated - outside the host. Scanning electron micrograph of HIV-1 budding from cultured lymphocyte
3. Transmission pathogenesis: transfer of the suspected pathogen to an uninfected host, man or animal, produces the disease in that host.

Postulate #1, numerous studies from around the world show that virtually all AIDS patients are HIV-seropositive; that is they carry antibodies that indicate HIV infection.

Postulate #2, modern culture techniques have allowed the isolation of HIV in virtually all AIDS patients, as well as in almost all HIV-seropositive individuals with both early- and late-stage disease. In addition, the polymerase chain (PCR) and other molecular techniques have enabled researchers to document the presence of HIV genes in virtually all patients with AIDS, as well as in individuals in earlier stages of HIV disease.

Postulate #3 has been fulfilled in tragic incidents involving three laboratory workers with no other risk factors who have developed AIDS or severe immunosuppression after accidental exposure to concentrated, cloned HIV in the laboratory. In all three cases, HIV was isolated from the infected individual, sequenced and shown to be the infecting strain of virus. In another tragic incident, transmission of HIV from a Florida dentist to six patients has been documented by genetic analyses of virus isolated from both the dentist and the patients. The dentist and three of the patients developed AIDS and died, and at least one of the other patients has developed AIDS. Five of the patients had no HIV risk factors other than multiple visits to the dentist for invasive procedures ^[3].

Through December 1999, the CDC had received reports of 56 health care workers in the United States with documented, occupationally acquired HIV infection, of whom 25 have developed AIDS in the absence of other risk factors. The development of AIDS following known HIV seroconversion also has been repeatedly observed in pediatric and adult blood transfusion cases, in mother-to-child transmission, and in studies of hemophilia, injection-drug use and sexual transmission in which seroconversion can be documented using serial blood samples ^[4][5].

In a 10-year study in the Netherlands, researchers followed 11 children who had become infected with HIV as neonates by small aliquots of plasma from a single HIV-infected donor. During the 10-year period, eight of the children died of AIDS. Of the remaining three children, all showed a progressive decline in cellular immunity, and two of the three had symptoms probably related to HIV infection ^[6].

Koch's postulates also have been fulfilled in animal models of human AIDS. Chimpanzees experimentally infected with HIV have developed severe immunosuppression and AIDS. In severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID) mice given a human immune system, HIV produces similar patterns of cell killing and pathogenesis as seen in people. HIV-2, a less virulent variant of HIV which causes AIDS in people, also causes an AIDS-like syndrome in baboons. More than a dozen strains of simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV), a close cousin of HIV, cause AIDS in Asian macaques. In addition, chimeric viruses known as SHIVs, which contain an SIV backbone with various HIV genes in place of the corresponding SIV genes, cause AIDS in macaques. Further strengthening the association of these viruses with AIDS, researchers have shown that SIV/SHIVs isolated from animals with AIDS cause AIDS when transmitted to uninfected animals ^{[7][8] [9][10][11][12]}.

External links

Below are various information sources both pro and con the questioning of the HIV/AIDS model

For questioning model

• Virusmyth website
• The Perth Group - Group of Australian scientists arguing that the HIV virus has never been properly isloated.
• Rethinking AIDS - The connection between HIV and AIDS is invented by pharmaceutical companies in an effort to make enormous profits selling drugs (see HPV Vaccine)
• What Really Causes AIDS - Mohammed Ali Al-Bayati, Ph.D., a Toxicologist with 5 letters to the editor published by The British Medical Journal
• "HIV Pictures; What they really show" - Dr. Stefan Lanka, a German virologist.
• "HIV Does Not Cause AIDS, And The Man Who Said It Did Is A 'Scientific Gangster'" - May 29, 2006 press release (claims Koch's postulates have never been met)
• "Dr. Stefan Lanka Exposes The 'Viral Fraud' (claims Koch's postulates have failed to be met)

Against questioning model

• Denying AIDS (2009 Book)
• AVERT

References