The Scientific Evidence for HIV/AIDS?

Question

The webist I read from http://www.aidstruth.org shows no evidence of HIV causes AIDS. If it does then why did they published this on there website 22 years later. To me that is no evedience that HIV is not the cause of AIDS. If HIV is the Cause of AIDS Show me the hard evidence from the science litrature, and journals that HIV is the Cause of AIDS?

Answer 1

The AIDStruth site was not created to prove that HIV causes AIDS. It was created to help people become aware of the lies and dirty tactics used by AIDS denialists to spread misinformation about HIV and AIDS.

Check out this example from Yahoo! Answers, with Paul King and his band fighting behind the scenes at the MSN Dissident Action group:
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http://groups.msn.com/Dissident-Action/general.msnw?action=get_message&mview=0&ID_Message=4421&LastModified=4675619472087250868

From: Paul King (Original Message) Sent: 4/21/2007 2:12 AM
Gumdrop who started the 'lets get dissidents banned from Yahoo campaign' has been banned herself (I lodged a complaint for advocating mass flagging, against her).

She looses her number one position in the std section (and picture on that section page) and all the hundreds of posts she has made.

As I said, two can Tango.

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From: Paul King Sent: 4/21/2007 2:22 AM
What is odd is I see now they have removed her from the top std posters list completely but not deleted her account or her posts.

Special treatment?

At least she is not top contributor in std's anymore.
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Answer 2

I've been banned? Golly, that's news to me!

Actually, I went to visit my parents last weekend, so I didn't log in (contrary to popular belief, I do have a life offline). As for my rank in the health forums, Alli was always supposed to be #1 in there. She's got 1100+ Best Answers (all very well-deserved!), but a Y!A profile glitch messed up the rankings in a few forums, bumping me up from #2 by mistake.

As for AIDS Truth, whether you choose to believe the information contained therein or not http://www.aidstruth.org/debunking-denialist-myths.php does give links to pages enumerating the pieces of evidence supporting HIV as the etiological agent of AIDS.

Answer 3

Uhhm, Go the website again and read it it carefully.
It clearly says that the evidence that HIV is the causal agent of AIDS is overwhelming and irrefutable.
I dont understand how you think that aidstruth.org says that HIV does not cause AIDS.
So, read it again...
As far as hard evidence? There is soooo much of it....

Answer 4

My adult son has HIV. When his Ct4 count goes down about 50 points, he will have AIDS. The hard evidence is in the numbers. When the numbers for the Ct4 count reach a certain number, the patient is considered to have AIDS.

Answer 5

A person has AIDS when their T cells reach a specific low (less than 200 cells/uL). Once you reach that point you can never go back to having HIV. HIV is what attacks the T cells and causes them to deteriorate.

You shouldn't trust what one website. Check various and then make a decision.

Answer 6

Hi

It is telling that the website you refer to as not proving evidence that HIV causes AIDS is none other than the most vehement defender of that selfsame dogma! You are obviously a very insightful person that you have picked up on the fact that the strongest defender of the faith is sadly lacking in evidence to back its claims up. That site is run by a Cornell University professor by the name of John P. Moore. He is currently leading a "war" against what he calls "AIDS denialists". Apparently he spends the rest of his time painting the pudenda of poor macaque monkeys with antiviral goo.

Anyhow, I digress. The point is that, according to people like Moore there is no ONE paper that proves that HIV causes AIDS. He claims that the mass of scientific evidence is good enough, the evidence taken in its entirety. He also relies on science by consensus. In other words because most scientists accept that HIV causes AIDS there is absolutely no reason to engage in debate with those who interpret the literature differently. There is also another person here who answers questions here who "will not answer denialists". Then all he goes on to do is spout definitions of what AIDS is - without offering any critical analysis thereof.

To date, the mainstream scientific researchers cannot explain HOW the virus causes AIDS. So you will look long and hard to find the evidence you seek. You must just "believe".

Many BILLIONS of $$ have been spent to try and find out how HIV causes AIDS. Correlation is the only evidence that HIV antibodies are related to future ill health. But as any decent scientist knows, correlation does not prove causation. There are far more believable causes of immune dysfunction than some mystery retrovirus.

You can ask until you're blue in the face for respectable and believable evidence. I've tried for years and never got it. Maybe my standards are too high. This is a possibility. Maybe us "denialists" should lower our standards for what we accept as proof. You know, things like expecting a valid hypothesis to pass the test of its predictions coming true, and for at least 23 years into researching this 9 kilobase genetic minnow there being some believable MECHANISM for disease causation.

We live in hope for our BILLIONS of tax $$ to actually give us some useful information other than useless definitions. Can you really believe that they say you're fine if your Tcell count is 201, but the minute it's 199, you've got AIDS? Pull the other leg, it's got bells on it.

Answer 7

No, but there are some pretty stupid conspiracy theories about it.

Answer 8

ok how do u get HIV- by breathing?
It is sexually and blood to blood recieved

those with it -and not recieving health help time and again get AIDS and die

what is needed for prevention of either or both-regardless of what you believe-is Jesus salvation- a new way of living-repented of sin and born again-works for me--and even if u get the worst even by an innocent blood transfusion -you have Jesus as your best friend and even for one lie in your life your forgiven and get to go to heaven.

Answer 9

I wish that denialists would stop spreading lies and killing innocent people.

www.cdc.gov

Answer 10

Hi there,

I won't speak to denialist claims. Most denialists who reference a plethora of sites never seem to read information from other points of view and only spew one school of thought.

First the basics: what is AIDS? AIDS (acquired immune deficiency syndrome) is a condition caused by a virus called HIV. This virus attacks the immune system, the body's "security force" that fights off infections. When the immune system breaks down, you lose this protection and can develop many serious, often deadly infections and cancers. These are called "opportunistic infections (OIs)" because they take advantage of the body's weakened defenses. You have heard it said that someone "died of AIDS." This is not entirely accurate, since it is the opportunistic infections that cause death. AIDS is the condition that lets the OIs take hold.

And what is HIV? HIV is a virus, like the flu or cold. A virus is really nothing but a set of instructions for making new viruses, wrapped up in some fat, protein and sugar. Without living cells, a virus can't do anything – it's like a brain with no body. In order to make more viruses (and to do all of the other nasty things that viruses do), a virus has to infect a cell. HIV mostly infects T-cells, also known as CD4+ cells, or T-helper cells. These cells are white blood cells that turn the immune system on to fight disease. Once inside the cell, HIV starts producing millions of little viruses, which eventually kill the cell and then go out to infect other cells. All of the drugs marketed to treat HIV work by interfering with this process.

Now, whether a person who has HIV, then falls under the category of AIDS (cd4 cells drop below 200 or develops an OI) but then, through medical treatment is cured of the OI and the cd4 count climbs back above 200, are they considered to be HIV+ or to have AIDS is still under debate. Some schools of thought will say that the person is hiv+ and not having AIDS. It may be a matter of semantics however, if you are in that position the stigyma assocaited with being HIV+ is bad enough, add AIDS to the equation and things are much worse!

Cheers.


To Carter:

I do not deny a person the right to question whether or not virus A causes disease B. Once the medical establishment truly understands the disease perhaps different forms of treatment can be discovered. The problem I have with most denialists is that not only do they outright say HIV does not cause AIDS but they then like to say hiv is a myth. Some people have even said that people should not be even tested for the virus, that there is no point and that the medications people should just stay away from. Well then, explain to me how have I caught a "myth"? If it were not for meds, I'd be dead. I'd really like to see how many "change" their minds if and when they become infected. But then, they probably won't know that till it's way too late and then they would deny treatment since meds don't do anything anyway but make you worse.

Ok fine, I have something. For sake of arguememnt, let's not call it HIV. Call it whatever you want, I don't care. I have some disease or condition. If I leave it alone I have seen the amount of the virus grow exponentionally according to my counts from blood work. If I leave it alone more I have witnessed the number of cd4 cells decrease. Yes, they went from "healthy" (range of 500-1500 in a healthy adult) down to 170 and now back up to 650s. As the cd4s dropped, oh look, I got sick. Now that the cd4s are back in the healthy range, oh look, I'm not sick like I use to be. I take meds and wow! the amount of the virus drops and now it can not be detected anymore since there are not sensitive enough tests for such a small quantity. Am I still infected? Yes because if I stop I can watch the trend reverse. Would a denialist deny a person affected with cancer the right to chemo or radiation even though the side effects are very harsh and brutal and could possibly have long term effects? If not, then why would they deny a person the right to medication that stops cd4s from being depleted and that stops a virus from replicating in their system.

If the terminology does not go in sync with the disease, then fix it: find the right words. But don't say that it does not exsist simply because perhaps the wrong terminology is being used to describe what is PHYSICALLY happening to people.


The HIV Life Cycle

"Copied and Pasted directly from www.aidsmeds.com" just so that I am not accused of not referencing my material in the body of my text. I chose this site for the main reason that things are explained without too much "medicalese" which can be confusing to people not familiar with the language.
This would be the AIDS profiteerists view point based upon what the medical field accepts, even if it is only by consensious. Yes, I realize that doctors do not fully understand the disease; there are many things that still illude them.

Introduction
In order for viruses to reproduce, they must infect a cell. Viruses are not technically alive: they are sort of like a brain with no body. In order to make new viruses, they must hi-jack a cell, and use it to make new viruses. Just as your body is constantly making new skin cells, or new blood cells, each cell often makes new proteins in order to stay alive and to reproduce itself. Viruses hide their own DNA in the DNA of the cell, and then, when the cell tries to make new proteins, it accidentally makes new viruses as well. HIV mostly infects cells in the immune system.

Infection: Several different kinds of cells have proteins on their surface that are called CD4 receptors. HIV searches for cells that have CD4 surface receptors, because this particular protein enables the virus to bind to the cell. Although HIV infects a variety of cells, its main target is the T4-lymphocyte (also called the "T-helper cell"), a kind of white blood cell that has lots of CD4 receptors. The T4-cell is responsible for warning your immune system that there are invaders in the system.

Replication: Once HIV binds to a cell, it hides HIV DNA inside the cell's DNA: this turns the cell into a sort of HIV factory.

Step 1: Binding
A virus consists of an outer envelope of protein, fat and sugar wrapped around a set of genes (in the case of HIV, genetic information is carried as RNA instead of DNA) and special enzymes.

HIV has proteins on its envelope that are strongly attracted to the CD4+ surface receptor on the outside of the T4-cell. When HIV binds to a CD4+ surface receptor, it activates other proteins on the cell's surface, allowing the HIV envelope to fuse to the outside of the cell.

Entry can be blocked by entry inhibitors.

Step 2: Reverse Transcription
HIV's genes are carried in two strands of RNA, while the genetic material of human cells is found in DNA. In order for the virus to infect the cell, a process called "reverse transcription" makes a DNA copy of the virus's RNA.

After the binding process, the viral capsid (the inside of the virus which contains the RNA and important enzymes) is released into the host cell. A viral enzyme called reverse transcriptase makes a DNA copy of the RNA. This new DNA is called "proviral DNA."

Reverse transcription can be blocked by: Nucleoside Reverse Transcriptase Inhibitors (NRTIs), and Non-Nucleoside Reverse Transcriptase Inhibitors (NNRTIs).

Step 3: Integration
The HIV DNA is then carried to the cell's nucleus (center), where the cell's DNA is kept. Then, another viral enzyme called integrase hides the proviral DNA into the cell's DNA. Then, when the cell tries to make new proteins, it can accidentally make new HIVs.

Integration can be blocked by integrase inhibitors, a new class of drugs that are in the earliest stage of research.

Step 4: Transcription
Once HIV's genetic material is inside the cell's nucleus, it directs the cell to produce new HIV.

The strands of viral DNA in the nucleus separate, and special enzymes create a complementary strand of genetic material called messenger RNA or mRNA (instructions for making new HIV).

Transcription can be blocked by antisense antivirals or transcription inhibitors (TIs), new classes of drugs that are in the earliest stage of research.

Step 5: Translation
The mRNA carries instructions for making new viral proteins from the nucleus to a kind of workshop in the cell. Each section of the mRNA corresponds to a protein building block for making a part of HIV.

As each mRNA strand is processed, a corresponding string of proteins is made. This process continues until the mRNA strand has been transformed or "translated" into new viral proteins needed to make a new virus.

Step 6 - : Viral Assembly and Maturation
The final step begins with the assembly of new virus. Long strings of proteins are cut up by a viral enzyme called protease into smaller proteins. These proteins serve a variety of functions; some become structural elements of new HIV, while others become enzymes, such as reverse transcriptase.

Once the new viral particles are assembled, they bud off the host cell, and create a new virus. The virus then enters the maturation stage, which involves the processing of viral proteins. Maturation is the final step in the process and is required for the virus to become infectious.

With viral assembly and maturation completed, the virus is able to infect new cells. Each infected cell can produce a lot of new viruses.