Reprinted from On Wilhelm Reich and Orgonomy, Pulse of the Planet #4, 1993. Copyright © 1993, All Rights Reserved by James DeMeo In the last issue of Pulse of the Planet (3:106-108, 1991) I reviewed a book by Michael Fumento, The Myth of Heterosexual AIDS. Fumento's book summarized evidence gathered by various scientists to the affect that there never was, nor is, a "Heterosexual AIDS Epidemic" taking place, either in the USA or overseas. Fumento documented how the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) had doctored the epidemiological data, unscientifically "adjusting" it here and there, in order to have it support a previously formulated and "politically correct" conclusion: that everyone, including relatively monogamous heterosexuals, and even non-drug-using heterosexual teenagers, were "at risk for AIDS". Fumento's criticism of this position was attacked even before the ink was dry, and his book was suppressed and sabotaged both by national book distributors, and by his publisher, who came under attack by homosexual activist groups. Fumento himself lost his job, and was subject to harassment and death threats by these same groups, who -- as demonstrated in his book -- have glaring sex-political agendas and economic motivations. In this article, I wish to add reinforcing, additional evidence on this same issue by presenting findings developed by Dr. Peter Duesberg, a pioneer in retrovirus research and Professor of Cell Biology at the University of California, in Berkeley. Duesberg is a top-notch scientist who has brought forth important criticism of the HIV hypothesis of AIDS to the podium of science. His research findings came to my attention around 1990, demonstrating that AIDS cannot be caused by HIV (or any other virus) and therefore is, as the term "AIDS" originally implied, an acquired, non-infectious immune system deficiency. Duesberg's most recent 77-page paper on the subject appeared in a British research journal (Pharmac. Ther., 55:201-277, 1992), and contains 17 pages of citations to the published scientific and medical literature. This article will summarize some of that evidence, and provide additional historical notes. For detailed citations to the published scientific literature, I refer the reader to the original works of Duesberg and his supporters, listed at the end of this article. If the reader is skeptical of my statements here, they must "go to the source" and review those citations prior to dismissing this summary of criticisms of the official HIV = AIDS propaganda. To begin, use of the term "AIDS virus" is completely suspended, as it presumes AIDS is an infectious disorder for which a viral causation has been identified. Neither supposition has been proven; both remain hypotheses. The diagnostic terminology "AIDS" does not by itself imply causation; it merely indicates severe immunological break-down and deficiency within an individual. We must also be clear about the differences between the virus HIV and the HIV antibody; these are not the same thing. This clarifying discipline in terminology is necessary, precisely because so many television and newspaper journalists, and many scientists and science editors as well, have abandoned rigor in their terminology, critical review, and research. AIDS remains a problem mainly for individuals engaging in identifiable and preventable high-risk behaviors which, over time, deplete and destroy the immune system. These factors include: promiscuous and unsanitary anal intercourse and anal object-penetration and trauma in association with the party-swinger, bath-house, anonymous-sex lifestyle; the associated or independent chronic use of aphrodisiac sexual stimulants, psychoactive drugs, amphetamines, alcohol, antibiotics and other immune-system depleting substances (legal and illegal); and malnutrition. To this list must be included also the taking of deadly, poisonous medications, such as AZT -- a DNA chain terminator -- which all by itself will produce the same "wasting" symptoms attributed to AIDS. I. The Virus HIV The claim that the virus HIV causes AIDS is an hypothesis which is not supported by facts or evidence, and which has demonstrated no usefulness for predicting or explaining the epidemiology of AIDS. A) The advocates of the HIV hypothesis suggest HIV is significantly different from all other viruses in that the presence of antibody alone is sufficient to predict the future development of deadly AIDS symptoms. In all other diseases, however, the presence of antibody in the absence of active virus is a clear sign that the individual's immune system has been exposed to the virus, but successfully responded to it, and defeated it. One is considered "immune" for development of the disease, or from further exposure to that infectious agent. With HIV, however, we are asked to suspend this well-known immunological response, and believe that the presence of antibody alone is synonymous to a death sentence. B) HIV=AIDS advocates counter that the virus goes into "hiding" within certain cells of the body, and remains dormant for many years until such time that something triggers them into activity, after which symptoms appear. However, they fail to demonstrate this part of their hypothesis; the "hiding places" have not been demonstrated to any degree of significance. In fact, this absence of demonstrated "hiding viruses" was a major stumbling-block to the general theory of viral causation of diseases. The viral hypothesis of AIDS likewise suffers from this difficulty. C) The HIV hypothesis of AIDS does not satisfy Koch's postulates for the identification of a pathogen as the causative agent for a particular disease. These postulates have very successfully guided microbiological research for the last 100 years. They are: 1) The organism must occur in each case of a disease and in amounts sufficient to cause pathological effects; 2) The organism is not found in other diseases; and 3) After isolation and propagation in culture, the organism can induce the disease in an inoculated host. Failure to develop symptoms after inoculation is a sign the organism is not the active agent of the disease. The HIV hypothesis fails on all the above counts. There are many examples of people suffering from AIDS symptoms, but who do not show traces of HIV. There are additionally a large number of people in whom traces of HIV have been identified (virus or antibody), but who remain symptom-free for years. This difficulty has prompted some "HIV Fundamentalists" to assert that HIV is unique in the world of viruses, that Koch's postulates don't apply to HIV. Every year, the group of people identified as "HIV antibody positive" gets larger, partly because of expanded HIV testing programs, but also because so many previously identified antibody-positive people remain alive and healthy. Many have lived over 10 years without developing the predicted AIDS symptoms, or other health problems. And so, the CDC is continually redefining and lengthening the "latency period" for development of AIDS symptoms. For each year that passes, the latency period is extended by around one additional year. Not only does HIV "hide" in the body, it "sleeps". This is, of course, an unscientific attempt to salvage an hypothesis which fails to accurately predict observed pathology or epidemiology. D) HIV is a difficult and inefficient virus to transmit from one organism to another, either accidentally, by sexual means, or even through deliberate injection. Many attempts have been made to infect primates with AIDS diseases through direct injection of HIV -- when so exposed, primates may develop typical antibody responses, but do not sicken and die. Around 150 chimpanzees have been injected with HIV by the National Institute of Health, in a program which began ten years ago, and all are still healthy. Needle-stick injuries in hospitals, where hospital workers are accidentally exposed to HIV-infected blood, also fail to demonstrate any cases of AIDS. The virus simply does not "infect" so easily, and even when it does, produces only the well-known antibody response, but not the symptoms of AIDS. E) HIV does not readily or quickly kill the t-helper blood cells, which act as its host. It appears to infect those cells only with great difficulty, and once having infected them, lives quietly and uneventfully within those cells for their normal lifetime, without proliferating significantly to other cells and tissues. As Duesberg points out, this is the precise nature of a retrovirus, which does not kill its host cell, and leads a rather quiet existence in the organism. By contrast, viruses which produce deadly symptoms proliferate rapidly, infecting many cell types, and they kill the infected cells, thereby producing acute symptoms. Active virus is spread widely in such a virus-sickened organism and is not difficult to identify or locate. HIV does none of this, and for this reason, Duesberg suggests it is probably a perinatally-transmitted retrovirus which has been within a small percentage of the human race for generations, but without any associated pathology. HIV was observed for the first time only in recent years, because the technology to identify and search for retroviruses was developed in recent years. In a few cases, evidence suggests HIV might produce mild flu-like symptoms within 24-48 hours after infection to a new organism, but after that it has no additional affect upon the individual. F) Duesberg points to the fact that, before the retrovirus HIV was discovered, and before AIDS was identified and proclaimed as an infectious disorder, people in high risk groups were dying of the same disease symptoms and were diagnosed quite differently. Before AIDS, these same symptoms were diagnosed as candidiasis, tuberculosis, pneumonia, syphilis, anemia, dementia, sarcoma, and other diseases or infections well-known to attending physicians. Today, the diagnosis of "AIDS" is made whenever any of 25 different disease symptoms appear in the presence of active HIV or HIV antibody. If they display symptoms and have traces of HIV in their blood, the physicians says they have "AIDS"; if no traces of HIV are found, they are diagnosed as having one or more of those original 25 diseases. Duesberg points out the incredible potency attributed to this one virus, HIV, which is said to produce such widely varied symptoms -- and yet, as discussed above, laboratory studies of HIV suggest its hidden nature, its non-toxicity, and its difficulty of transmission. G) The HIV hypothesis of AIDS is rooted in the general viral theory of diseases. However, historically, viral theories of disease have generally failed to bring forth either cures or advancements in treatments. This is particularly true for cancer and other degenerative, immunologically-related disorders. Funding for virus research had precipitously declined over the years. But AIDS changed all that. HIV was announced, not at a scientific meeting, but rather at a Washington D.C. press conference. In April 1984, Margaret Heckler, then Secretary of Health and Human Services, announced "The probable cause of AIDS has been found", and then introduced Dr. Robert Gallo, who presented his "discovery of the AIDS virus" to a story-hungry press. This political event was eventually overshadowed by the fact that Gallo had misrepresented "his" discovery of HIV -- in fact, he had acquired his samples of HIV on loan from the real discoverer, Luc Montagnier of the Pasteur Institute in Paris. A prolonged legal battle ensued regarding who would retain lucrative international patent rights to HIV-antibody testing, the so-called "AIDS Tests" which cost from $15 to $50 each. Both the French and American governments got into the legal dispute, backing their respective scientists. Later, in an out-of-court settlement, both Gallo and Montagnier agreed to split the royalties, and a new "official history of the discovery of HIV" was written and distributed, expunged of all unpleasant references to the unethical stealing of ideas, or the legal dispute. Fortunately, Gallo was later exposed and no credible individuals in the scientific community supported the "official history". However, Gallo has never been censured for his unethical conduct; he collects new awards and medals nearly every month, and his laboratory is very-well funded by tax dollars. By contrast, Duesberg, the major vocal critic of the entire shabby affair, has been censored and isolated for his criticisms, his research funding terminated. As hundreds of millions of public dollars are being shoveled into the research laboratories of the HIV=AIDS researchers, and into generally ineffective and counter-productive "safe sex" educational programs, no advancements in the treatment or prevention of AIDS has taken place. The HIV Hypothesis of AIDS has produced no public health benefits, and is a total failure, but it is quite a gravy train for a lot of special interests! II. Epidemiology of AIDS As mentioned in my prior review of Fumento's book, there is no epidemiological evidence demonstrating an "AIDS epidemic" is taking place outside of recognized high-risk groups. The high risk groups are certainly suffering badly from very serious disease symptoms, but the questions remain: Are the disease symptoms displayed by these groups a product of exposure to HIV infection? Or are they the product of more commonly known infectious diseases, overlapping and opportunistically flourishing within individuals whose behavior, lifestyles, malnutrition and medications have badly weakened them, leaving them exceptionally vulnerable and wasted? A) Homosexuals and bisexuals engaged in promiscuous "party-swinger" lifestyles remain the largest at-risk group for the AIDS syndrome. Here, one can speak of a group with a collective pool of shared body fluids, suffering from chronic, multiple low-grade infections. Minor epidemics of sexually transmitted diseases (STD's), including syphilis, gonorrhea, and herpes, as well as hepatitis have occurred within the gay communities in the USA. Bowel, bladder and urinary infections related to contamination are common (eg, the "gay bowel syndrome", the "drips", etc.). Chronic exposures to both infectious materials and organisms, and correspondingly high rates of exposure to antibiotic medications, may become an integral part of the gay man's lifestyle, with a great toll upon health and immune system functioning. Even before the discovery of HIV and identification of "AIDS", the bath-house, anonymous-sex lifestyles of gay men, who were increasingly coming "out of the closet" in the larger cities, became a public-health nightmare. And this "lifestyle" includes the concurrent widespread and abundant use of various immune-depleting drugs, both legal and illegal. Interviews with gay men and symptomatic AIDS patients demonstrate the widespread use of cocaine, amphetamine, marijuana, alcohol, sexual stimulants, aphrodisiacs, and amyl or butyl nitrites ("poppers"), often taken in various mixtures. From all of these factors combined, one can readily see how a severely damaged immune system could result. Again, it is an Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. In particular, Kaposi's sarcoma has been identified as a by-product of nitrite exposure, even before the era of AIDS, and has specifically been linked to the use of the over-the-counter "poppers" -- this particular drug is a sphincter dilator, allowing the individual to tolerate the insertion of a fully erect penis, or even another man's fist ("fisting" techniques) into the anus. These vigorous assaults to the passive-receptive homosexual are correlated with tearing of rectal tissue, or even fistulas, all of which further breaks down protective barriers to infection. B) Illegal injection drug users whose social condition and lifestyle includes frequent bouts with addiction, malnutrition, and the introduction of foreign substances into the bloodstream, are also at risk for immune system depletion. Generally, the life experiences of such addicted people are those of poverty and neglect of personal health and hygiene, and the introduction of foreign substances into the blood stream by injection as a commonplace, every-day affair. Over the years, these groups also suffer and decline immunologically. Duesberg properly points out the incredible naivete of the so-called "clean needle" propaganda programs, which provide antiseptic needles by which unsanitary immune-depleting substances can be injected into the bloodstream. The cocaine, amphetamine or heroin which an addict injects might be harvested by hand in Asia or South America, be packaged and processed in dirt-shacks, thick with insects and soil, and likewise handled in unsanitary conditions by dozens of possibly sick people en-route to the USA, where it is purposefully cut with additional unsanitary materials of various sorts, in back-room or basement laboratories, etc. -- but for some reason, we are told that AIDS will be prevented if these people only inject such "junk" with a clean needle! Clearly, there is no science behind such politically-motivated assertions. There are good arguments for assisting drug addicts and decriminalizing illegal drugs, but "combatting HIV infection" is not one of them. C) HIV-antibody positive individuals may also suffer a health risk from AIDS medications routinely administered by physicians uncritical of drug-company propaganda. There are, for example, large numbers of HIV-antibody positive individuals who have for years remained completely free of any symptoms for AIDS or any other significant disease. When treated with medications like AZT, however, these people are observed to sicken and die from "wasting disease" in short order. The question is, do they die from HIV-induced AIDS, or from toxic AZT? Regarding AZT, it was an experimental cancer chemotherapy drug, but was withdrawn from testing and never approved for public use because of toxic side effects. Indeed, AZT is a DNA-chain terminator which suppresses immune-system functions and produces many of the same symptoms attributed to HIV! According to Duesberg and his associates, healthy people who are treated with AZT start developing AIDS-like symptoms within one year, gradually to waste away with mortalitiy rates ranging from 1/3 to 3/4 of all who are treated. No truly controlled studies have ever been performed with AZT, and so nobody knows for certain if the thousands of symptom- free but HIV-antibody positives who took the drug and died, died because of "HIV-induced AIDS" or because of AZT- poisoning. Many of the young people, and various Hollywood celebrities who were paraded on television talk shows, who preached the "safe-sex" and "sex can kill" propaganda to audiences, and who themselves later died from "AIDS" were treated with AZT from the very beginning, even though they showed no signs, or few signs of ill-health at the start of their program of AZT ingestion. Some examples: Arthur Ashe, the heterosexual tennis professional, and Kimberly Bergalis, who supposedly "caught AIDS" from her Florida dentist -- Bergalis had only a minor yeast infection at the start of her AZT program. In typical fashion, the news media focused upon and widely broadcast the details of their gradual degeneration and painful deaths, which exhibited all the classic symptoms of AZT poisoning. Meanwhile, Duesberg and other critics of AZT were routinely censored from media exposure, insuring the public heard only good things about AZT and the "progress in treatment of AIDS". D) Hemophiliacs and immune-suppressed infants are often identified as an "at risk" group for AIDS. But by definition, these are groups who already suffer from major health problems. Hemophiliacs receive multiple intravenous transfusions over the course of the years, repeatedly exposing them to foreign blood products, and other powerful medications may be given. Likewise with immune-suppressed… truncated (26,875 more characters in archive)
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