Kicking the Sacred Cow

by James P. Hogan

  Unlike the cases in New York and San Francisco, the conditions that are reported as AIDS in Africa affect both sexes equally, which should be an immediate indicator that what's being talked about in the two instances are not the same thing. This is hardly surprising, since "AIDS" in Africa is accorded a different definition. The unifying factor that makes all of the 30-odd disparate indicator diseases "AIDS" in the West is testing positive for antibodies claimed to be specific to HIV. But in Africa no such test is necessary. 249

  Virus hunters armed with antibody test kits began descending on the continent in the mid eighties because of three pointers possibly linking it to AIDS: a now-discredited theory that HIV might have originated there; the presence in Africa of an AIDS-related sarcoma (although it had existed in Africa since ancient times); and the presence of a small number of native Africans among AIDS cases reported in Western countries. 250And sure enough, they began finding people who reacted positive. Furthermore, the numbers were distributed equally between the sexes—just what was needed to demonstrate that AIDS was indeed an infectious condition, which statistics in the West refused, obstinately, to confirm. However, in 1985 a different, "clinical" definition was adopted, whereby "AIDS" was inferred from the presence of prolonged fever (a month or more), weight loss of 10 percent or greater, and prolonged diarrhea.

  The problem, of course, is that attributing these symptoms to a sexually transmitted virus invites—indeed, makes inevitable—the reclassifying of conditions like cholera, dysentery, malaria, TB, typhus, long known to be products of poverty and tropical environments. More insidious, funds and resources are withdrawn from the support of low-cost but effective traditional clinics and the provision of basic nutrition, clean drinking water, and sanitation, and directed instead on ruinously expensive programs to contain a virus that exists for the most part in WHO statisticians' computers. 251 Since it's decreed that "AIDS is caused by HIV," cases diagnosed according to the above definition are attributed to HIV presumptively. But studies where actual tests have been conducted show up to a third as testing negatively 252—making "AIDS" a catch-all that arises from the loosely interpreted antibody testing.

  For as we've seen, many factors that are common in most African regions, such as malaria, leprosy, parasitical infections, TB, can also test positive. This is a particular problem in Africa, where the population carries a naturally high assortment of antibodies, increasing the probability of cross-reactions to the point of making any results worthless. A study in central Africa found that 70 percent of the reported HIV positives were false. 253 Nevertheless, the official reports attribute all positives to HIV, making every instance automatically an AIDS statistic. Of the resulting numbers, every case not known to be a homosexual or drug abuser is presumed to have been acquired through heterosexual transmission, resurrecting tendencies to sexual stereotyping that go back to Victorian racial fantasies. Given the incentives of limitless funding, a glamorous crusader image, and political visibility, it isn't difficult to discern an epidemic in such circumstances. People in desperate need of better nutrition and sanitation, basic health care and education, energy-intensive industrial technologies, and productive capital investment are instead lectured on their morals and distributed condoms.

  With the hysteria in the West now largely abated (although at the time of writing—early 2003—a campaign seems to be gathering momentum, targeting blacks), the bandwagon has moved on to embrace other parts of the Third World too. This follows a pattern that was set in Thailand, where an AIDS epidemic was said to be raging in the early nineties. Now, it so happens that over 90 percent of the inhabitants of Southeast Asia carry the hepatitis B antibody. The figure for actual disease cases in this region populated by tens of millions was around 700 in 1991, and by 1993 it had grown to 1,500 or so. Perhaps what the reports meant was an epidemic of AIDS testing. Just like the inquisitors of old, the more assiduously the witch hunters apply their techniques and their instruments, sure enough they find more witches.

  "Side Effects" Just Like AIDS:

  The Miracle Drugs

  Liquid Plumber: AZT

  In the cuckoo land of HIV "science" anything becomes possible. To combat the effects of an agent declared soon after its discovery as being inevitably lethal after a dormancy of ten to fifteen years (now, how could that be known?), HIV positives, sick and symptom-free alike, were put on the drug AZT, which was billed as "antiviral." AZT was developed in the 1960s as a chemotherapy for leukemia but never released because of its toxicity. It's known as a "nucleoside analog" drug, or DNA chain terminator, which means it stops the molecule from copying. It kills cells that try to reproduce. The idea for cancer treatment is that a short, shock program of maybe two or three weeks will kill the tumor while only half-killing the patient, and then you get him off it as quickly as possible. You can't take something like that four times a day indefinitely and expect to live. (Although some people don't metabolize it but pass it straight through; hence the few long-term AZT survivors that are pointed at to show how benign it is).

  Chemotherapies are notoriously immunosuppressive. The "side effects" look just like AIDS. Officially acknowledged effects of nucleoside analog drugs include diarrhea, dementia, lymphoma (cancer), muscle wasting, and T-cell depletion, which are also AIDS-defining conditions. Christine Maggiore, director of the West Coast-based organization Alive & Well, who, after being given a positive diagnosis and sternly delivered death-sentence that turned out to be false, went on to research the entire subject exhaustively and became an activist to share her findings. In her highly informative book, What If Everything You Thought You Knew About AIDS Was Wrong? (2000) she describes these medications superbly as "AIDS by Prescription."

  Yet this is the treatment of choice. Nobody says it actually cures or stops AIDS, but the recipients have been told that they're due to die anyway—which could possibly be one of the most ghastly self-fulfilling prophecies in modern medical history. The claim is that it brings some temporary respite, based on results of a few trials in which the augurs of biochemistry saw signs of short-term improvement—although bad data were knowingly included, and other commentators have dismissed the trials as worthless. 254 In any case, it is known that a body subjected to this kind of toxic assault can mobilize last-ditch emergency defenses for a while, even when terminal. A sick chicken might run around the yard for a few seconds when you cut its head off, but that isn't a sign that the treatment has done it any good.

  In the fifteen years or so up to the late eighties, the life expectancy of hemophiliacs doubled. This was because improved clotting factor—the substance they can't make for themselves—meant fewer transfusions. The cumulative burden of constantly infused foreign proteins eventually wears down an immune system and opens the way for infections. Many also acquired HIV, but the death rates of those testing positive and negative were about the same. Then, from around the late eighties, the mortality of the HIV positives from conditions diagnosed as AIDS rose significantly, and a widely publicized study cited this as proof that their AIDS was due to HIV. 255 What it didn't take into account, however, was that only the HIV positives were put on AZT. Nobody was giving AZT to the HIV negatives. Peter Duesberg believes that AZT and other "antivirals" are responsible for over half the AIDS being reported today.

  Protease Inhibitors—Hype Uninhibited

  The AZT story of hastily rushing into print to claim miracle cures based on selective anecdotal reporting and uncompleted trials performed without controls seems to have been repeated with the new drug "cocktails" based on protease inhibitors (PIs). The theory that's proclaimed is similar to that of nucleoside analogs in that the aim is to disrupt the replication of HIV, but this time by inhibiting the protease enzyme crucial to assembling the virus. However, despite their "antiviral" labeling, these drugs have no way of distinguishing between HIV protease and the human proteases that are essential to the digestive process, resulting in a list of ill effects every bit as daunting as that pertaining to AZT, inc
luding kidney and liver failure, strokes, heart attacks, and gross deformities. 256

  Researchers who have worked with PIs all their professional lives state flatly that they are incapable of doing what the highly publicized claims say they do. 257 The efficacy of the drugs is assessed by measuring the reduction of the number designated "viral load," which has never been shown to correspond to anything defining sickness in the real, physical world. As a "control," the viral load of those given cocktails is compared with the former level when they received AZT. A decrease in the number is taken as meaning that the cocktails have reduced sickness. To me this sounds a bit like saying that beer cures hangovers because the headache you wake up with isn't as bad as the one you get from whiskey.

  One thing the cocktail drugs can be credited with without doubt is the resurgence to even greater heights of extravaganza of drug-company advertising, following a growing disenchantment with AZT. PIs are hyped as working the "miracle" of reducing AIDS mortality by 50 percent as reflected in the figures reported since the mid nineties. A closer look at them, however, shows the story not to be quite that straightforward. The greatest reductions occurred in 1995, which was before PIs had been approved for general use, and in 1996, by which time somewhere between 10 and 20 percent of HIV positive cases had been issued prescriptions for them. As mentioned above, in 1993 the definition of AIDS was expanded by the Centers for Disease Control, causing a large increase in the number of people qualifying as AIDS patients. One of the new diagnostic conditions was having a CD4 T-cell count of 200 or less at some point during a given year, no HIV positive condition being necessary. From 1993 forward, the majority of declared new AIDS cases were individuals with no clinical illness. When the size of a population hitherto consisting for the most part of people who are sick in one way or another is suddenly increased by the addition of large numbers of people who are illness-free, this must result in an increased survival rate for the overall population. It has to do with the restructuring and labeling of statistical groups, not with the effects of any treatment.

  A Virus Fixation

  Although not a lot is said publicly, a growing number of scientific and medical professionals are becoming skeptical of the received dogma but tend, especially in times of uncertainty over careers and funding, to keep a low profile. When you see what happened to Duesberg, you can see why. Maybe after his derailing of the previous gravy train by showing cancers were not virally induced, nobody was going to let him loose on this one. He was subjected to ridicule and vilification, abused at conferences, and his funding cut off to the point that by the end of the eighties he could no longer afford a secretary. In two years, he had seventeen applications for funding for research on alternative AIDS hypotheses turned down. Graduate students were advised to shun his classes or risk adverse consequences to their careers. Publication in the mainstream scientific literature was denied—even the right of reply to personal attacks carried in the journal Nature, violating the most fundamental of scientific ethical traditions. His scheduled appearances on talk shows were repeatedly canceled at the last moment upon intervention by officials from the NIH and CDC.

  Duesberg has been accused of irresponsibility on the grounds that his views threaten confidence in public health-care programs based on the HIV dogma. But scientific truth doesn't depend on perceived consequences. Public policy should follow science. Attempting to impose the reverse becomes Lysenkoism. And in any case, what have those programs achieved that should command any confidence? After all these years they have failed to save a life or produce a vaccine. (And if they did, to whom would it be given? The function of a vaccine is to stimulate the production of antibodies. By definition, HIV-positive individuals have them already. If they are given the HIV negatives and they work, then everyone will presumably become an AIDS case. So, finally, the prediction of a global pandemic will have come true.) No believable mechanism has been put forward as to how HIV kills T-cells. And billions of dollars continue to be spent every year on trying to unravel the mysteries of how HIV can make you sick without being present, and how an antibody can neutralize the virus but not suppress the disease. Scientific principles that have stood well for a hundred years are arbitrarily discarded to enable what's offered as logic to hang together at all, and the best that can be done at the end of it all is to prescribe a treatment that's lethal even if the disease is not. Yet no looking into alternatives is permitted; all dissenting views are repressed. This is not the way of science, but of a fanatical religion putting down heresy.

  The real victim, perhaps not terminally ill but looking somewhat jaded at the moment, is intellectual honesty and scientific rigor. Maybe in its growth from infancy, science too has to learn how to make antibodies to protect itself from opportunistic infection and dogmatism. There was a time when any questioning of Ptolemy's geocentric model of the cosmos was greeted with the same outrage and fury. Perhaps one day Peter Duesberg will be celebrated as the biological Copernicus who challenged late-twentieth-century medical science's viricentered model of the universe. Just take viruses away from being the center around which everyone is trying to make everything revolve, let the other parts fall naturally into place, and suddenly the whole picture makes sense.

  Section Notes

  224 Oprah Winfrey Show, February 18, 1987

  225 Duesberg, 1996, p. 210

  226 Duesberg, 1996, Chapters 4, 5

  227 See Duesberg, 1992 for a full account of the theory

  228 Root-Bernstein, 1993

  229 Maggiore, 2000, p. 46

  230 Thomas, 1993

  231 Thomas et al., 1994

  232 Duesberg, 1996, pp. 174–186

  233 Papudopulos et al, 1993

  234 Science 224: pp. 497–500; 503–505; 506–508

  235 Duesberg, 1992, p. 210

  236 Ibid., p. 222

  237 Papudopulos et al., 1996; Lanka, 1995

  238 De Harven, 1998

  239 Lanka, 1995

  240 Ransom and Day, 2000, p. 71; Maggiore, 2000, p. 11

  241 Shenton, 1998, p. 164

  242 Papadopulos-Eluopulos et al., 1993

  243 Turner and McIntire, 1999

  244 Philpott and Johnson, 1996

  245 Craddock, 1995 and 1996

  246 See Malan, 2002, for the story of a journalist true-believer who became an apostate.

  247 Geshekter, 1998

  248 Quoted in Hodgkinson, 1993

  249 Papadopulos-Eluopulos et al., 1995

  250 Johnson, 2001

  251 Johnson, 1994, cites health care costs in Nigeria falling from $10–20 per person in 1974 to 3 cents in 1994

  252 Shenton, 1998

  253 Geshekter, 1998

  254 For example, Lauritsen, 1990

  255 Darby et al., 1989

  256 Maggiore, 2000, p. 34

  257 Rasnick, 1996

  AFTERWORD

  Gothic Cathedrals And The Stars

  The fact is, most 'scientists' are technicians. . . . Because their noses are often buried in the bark of a particular tree, it is difficult to speak meaningfully to them of forests.

  — Gary Zukav

  Radio has no future. Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible. X-rays will prove to be a hoax.

  —William Thomson, Lord Kelvin, English scientist, 1899

  If science is the quest to find out what's true regardless of how we might feel about the answers, then a sign of genuine science is a readiness to change a belief if the evidence seems to call for it. The topics we've covered represent a fair sampling of subjects on which I've held very different views in times gone by—see some of my earlier militant defending of Darwinism, for example. The exceptions would be mainly on environmental issues, where I never found the alarmist accounts very persuasive. Science as the ideal that exists in textbooks and the rhetoric of its popularizers would appear to be a very fine thing. But as is so often the case with this messy, distinctly non-Platonic real world that we inhabit, the actuality often turns out to be a
different matter. The same disposition to healthy skepticism would appear to be in order when receiving pronouncements made in the name of "science" as when evaluating the patter on a used-car lot or the story-of-my-life as related in a singles-bar pitch. People have ways of making reality fit their own aims, needs, and agendas.

  Every human society possesses its own cultural myths that help hold it together. Darwinian fixations on competition notwithstanding, humans are at heart a cooperative animal, and a commonly shared structure of belief in fundamental truths provides the social glue that binds a culture. The beliefs don't have to be true to be effective. Every culture believes itself to be unique in that its own beliefs are true, of course, and it appears that ours is little different. Well, yes, we do claim to be different in that we attempt to check what we believe against reality. But as we've seen, it turns out to be all-too-easy to proclaim the verdict as being what we "know" it ought to be, or would have it be, rather than what reality actually says, laying the idealized scientific paradigm open to the charge that some cynics have made of Christianity and socialism: A good idea; somebody should try it sometime.