I do not doubt that many of the AIDS drugs have toxic side effects
yes, very toxic side effects...
(that
> could be alleviated with medicinal mj, ahem).
yes, but at the same time the practice of diminishing the toxic effects of one drug with another drug should give us considerable pause...
I also do not doubt that
> zealous doctors and pharmaceutical companies over-prescribe.
yes. drugs and high tech is what doctors learn and do. they get little to no training in preventitive medecine (nutrition, etc.).
And finally,
> I do not doubt that the political nature of the disease caused a lot of
> politicians and doctors to declare HIV as causal long before it should
> have been according to traditional standards.
>
in other words, some (gallo, montagner, etc...) company) in an ambitious rush to medical glory, jumped the scientific gun, first misleading lots of honest scientist doctors and medical researchers and then the public.
> However, the site Chris linked to is about 3 years behind the times. I
> only gave it a casual look, but I see no mention of the PCR based HIV
> assay.
it's there, just not mentioned, as it should be, in the index...
Granted, there were AIDS sufferers at one time where no HIV virus
> could be detected.
even if i agreed that the virus has now been detected, wouldn't it be an outrageous breech of public confidence to announce to the world that you found the deadly virus despite the fact that you have not, then market a highly toxic--and very expensive--drug to people who have been led to believe that this drug has been developed to counter the effects of the virus?
Hoever all of those make reference to the older
> immuno-reactive detection techniques.
is it not a little strange that the HIV test tested not for the virus itself but for the anti-bodies? but if the virus has been isolated, why not test for the virus itself, like doctors do when they test for every other virus known to man? simple. because the virus has not been isolated. indeed, how can one know for sure that the anti-bodies claimed as HIV anti-bodies are indeed that if the virus has never been properly isolated?
Since invention of the PCR based
> HIV assay every AIDS sufferer who has been tested with it has tested
> positive for HIV (rebuttal references welcome).
kary mullis, the inventory of the polylmerase chain reaction, has objected strenously to the way pcr has been used by AIDS researchers, calling it very bad science. the perth group in australia has done some very impressive lab work in an effort to disprove the existence of HIV (see virusmyth.com). Most impressive is the work of stefan lanka showing that what is being claimed as HIV are actually stretches of DNA manipulated to give an HIV positive result. he has described with slides how shifting only slightly the start point of the primers for pcr testing can result in turning an "HIV-negative" blood sample into an "HIV-positive" one. he points out that this is possible because the so-called HIV-specific protiens are in all of us and can be tweaked into existence by laboratory manipulation.
> It should be noted that Chris's assertions have only very recently become
> unlikely.
Doubts about the HIV and AIDS relationships were nothing but
> healthy skeptical doubt up until a few recent innovations.
well, my "doubts" are still robust but thank you for recognizing a basic legitmacy for those doubts.
It is
> certainly *not* tin-foil hat material.
>
> I can't speak with any knowledge regarding Pres. Mbeki's position. I
> would wonder if they are using immuno-reactive tests or PCR tests in their
> country.
>
i don't know but i doubt it. somebody earlier said that the reason the HIV test were not being used in africa is due to the impoverished circumstances there. i have no doubt of it. he went on to justify not testing africans as a legitimate optin given the circumstances. but there is a huge difference between tuberculosis, dysentry, slimming disease, etc. as "complications from AIDS" and those diseases as a function of poverty, for example. if the disease is a "complication from AIDS" it will kill you as there is no cure for AIDS yet. if it is a function of poverty, then you may still die, not because of a virus but because of, say, no medical intervention. in one case, you are destined to die. in the other case you can be cured if you receive the proper attention. now, if we eyeball an african with tb and declare him to be hiv positive without testing, are we not jumping to conclusions that could unnecessarily terrorize the patient into profound hopelessness? what if africans !
had "better access" to AIDS regimen drugs and as a result, we were able to prescribe HIV drugs for our tb sufferer that we ASSUME is HIV positive? would we not be contributing to his misery by giving him very toxic drugs that have nothing to do with his condition? in short, how the fuck does an AIDS worker decide which very sick people in africa are HIV positive and which are not?
he can't, of course. but since we are all accustomed to thinking of africa as a hopeless place, we are less likely to demand that good science be practiced there and more likely to cut corners in a way that would be absolutely intolerable anywhere else.
chris niles
>
> Matt
>
> --
> Matt Cramer <cramer at voicenet.com>
> http://www.voicenet.com/~cramer/
> If the jury feels the law is unjust, we recognize the
> undisputed power of the jury to acquit, even if its
> verdict is contrary to the law as given by a judge,
> and contrary to the evidence.
> -4th Circuit Court of Appeals, US v Moylan, 1969
>
>