What do you think of the so called aids denialists?

Question

They say that hiv does not necessarily cause aids. What do you think of scientists who feel the data supports this?

Answer 1

To date, more than 300 billion dollars has been spent on AIDS/HIV which a part there of keeps approximately 100,000 scientists in a job. With all this money (Tax payer funded research) there is still no cure(only treatments and highly toxic ones at that). There is still no vaccine's. So where has all the money gone and what has it been spent on??? For a disease that doesn't even rank in the top 10 killers in this country it certainly ranks top billing when it comes to money spent on it. More money is spent on HIV/AIDS than any other disease or illness such as heart disease/ cancer which is rather ironic given the fact that HIV/AIDS doesn't even rank in the top 10 of all diseases...Something is definitely not right here...

These are the biggest KILLERS in this country NOT AIDS.....SO WHY DOES HIV/AIDS RECIEVE THE MOST FUNDING? You don't thave to be a genius to figure that something is VERY WRONG here.
Stats are from the CDC website.


According to the current CDC statistics (1), AIDS killed 16,316 in 2005.

2004 deaths according to National Vital Statistics Report (2):

Cardiovascular Diseases 652,486

Cancer 553,888

Cerebrovascular (stroke) 150,074

Respiratory diseases 121,987

Accidents (including vehicle) 112,012

Diabetes mellitus 73,138

Alzheimer's disease 65,965

Influenza and pneumonia 59,664

Renal and other nephritic conditions 42,480

Septicemia 33,373

Suicide 32,439

Liver disease 27,013

Hypertension 23,076

Parkinson's disease 17,989

Homicide 17,357

Other causes 414,674
Influenza KILLS around 3,000, 000 people world wide each year and yet the money spent on it amounts to virtually NOTHING.......If you have a brain in your head than you must ask your self, why does a syndrome called AIDS recieves the BIGGEST chunk of funding from the NIH,Government agencies when it DOESN'T even rate in the TOP 15 of all time KILLERS in this country.

Answer 2

I saw the movie yesterday for the first time and it makes a lot of sense scientifically. It does not have the slightest tinge of religious propaganda. And the movie answers both your questions. However you claim married women who don't use drugs get aids. Being a person with an open mind I would like to see that study that claims none of the married woman used drugs. They would also have to not have taken AIDS drugs because the movie said it was the treatment that caused AIDS symptoms and not HIV. Also your study would have to include woman who had the same symptoms but did not have AIDS to prove that there was a difference between people with the disease in the two groups. I am all for scientific inquiry and both sides should present their evidence in an impartial court. I want to know the real answer not emotional opinions. Addendum: This has been interesting. Thanks for the feedback and I will eventually side with the group and does the best scientific studies. In the mean time I will listen to both sides and see how this very interesting controversy develops.

Answer 3

I don't agree with these people. It is proven that the AIDS is caused by HIV.

President of the south Africa, Thabo Mbeki is one the denialists, He didn't approve any medical or any other effort on AIDS prevention program. Now look what happen to this country. The prevalence rate of HIV in adults is now 20%. This number is scary..

Answer 4

A retrovirus only refers to the method that the virus uses to encode its genome. A retrovirus uses RNA and then translates it to DNA using a reverse transcriptase. This is part of what makes HIV able to mutate so frequently.

AIDS (Acquired immune deficiency syndrome) is a combination of secondary, or opportunistic, infections that affect immunocompromised people and eventually lead to death. This immunocompromise is due to the virus HIV (Human immunodeficiency virus) attacking helper T cells, macrophages, etc. Once these cells drop below a certain level, the body become susceptible to the opportunistic pathogens.

There is a lot of research done on this topic. I think that anyone who says that HIV does not cause AIDS needs to do some reading so that they can get their facts straight and stop misleading the public.

Answer 5

Hmm well this should be an easy task for barbie sporting a PhD in genetics. Find the paper that demonstrates the mechanism by which HIV is said to destroy T cells. Give one paper that demonstrates HIV is the sole cause of immune failure. Although Luc Montagnier toes the line, I think hes just as much a skeptic.

Im still waiting for those papers Barbie. Tell us how HIV causes immune failure. This is a VERY crucial point.

BCJ, the perth group would butcher your response. Ask Brian Foley how stupid they made him look in the BMJ debate.

Answer 6

I believe them. Also, I read that HIV is a retro-virus..or something like that. and they said that retro-virus's arent transmitted sexually. So im thinking HIV is really only transmitted through blood exchange. I think they just say its transmitted sexually to keep people from having sex to prevent pregnancies and other STD's

Answer 7

maybe they will beleive it when they GET it

Answer 8

Question for "theetruscanreturn"... do you deny that HIV causes AIDS? If so, that would qualify you as an HIV Denialist. Just sayin'.

A "denialist" is a person who stubbornly denies a fact that has been proven beyond any reasonable doubt even though overwhelming evidence proving the fact is readily available and independently testable by anyone who wishes to do so. Examples include moon landing, Holocaust, HIV causes AIDS, and round Earth denialists. Denialists ignore evidence published in peer-reviewed scientific journals and fail to publish evidence of their own.

30,000 pages???? Interesting. Which peer reviewed scientific journals (the ones that are reviewed by peers in journals which must include methodology so that anyone wishing to recreate the study can).

I have limited patience for people spreading lies resulting in people putting their lives at risk.


Here are some of the common HIV Denialist "talking points" and the corresponding medical and scientific documents to prove them wrong....dead wrong.

Myth: HIV DOESN'T CAUSE AIDS:

Proof that HIV is the cause of AIDS is overwhelming. National Academy of Sciences, CDC, Institute of Medicine, NIH, AMA, Canadian CDC, Pasteur Institute, UNAIDS, and WHO all agree. Google "HIV and AIDS Myths Debunked" to find a page at AIDSvideos with data and references from research studies published in peer-reviewed scientific journals showing that HIV causes AIDS and debunking common myths. Or watch educational videos such as "The Top Ten Myths About HIV/AIDS."

Responsible scientists agree that HIV causes the disease AIDS. People who are HIV negative do not develop AIDS. We have seen people go from HIV negative to HIV positive to clinical AIDS countless times. There is a correlation between the viral load in a person's blood and the drop in the patient's CD4 count and increase in severity of disease symptoms. When antiretroviral drugs are used and cut the patient's viral load, the CD4 count can rebound and AIDS symptoms can improve.

NIAID: By 12/31/94, "CDC had received reports of 42 health care workers in the United States with documented, occupationally acquired HIV infection, of whom 17 have developed AIDS in the absence of other risk factors .... These individuals all had evidence of HIV seroconversion following a discrete percutaneous or mucocutaneous exposure to blood, body fluids or other clinical laboratory specimens containing HIV." [CDC, "HIV/AIDS surveillance report, 1994 year-end edition," 1995a;6(no.2).]


Myth: HIV HAS NEVER BEEN FOUND/ISOLATED:

NIAID "Relationship Between HIV and AIDS:" "Improvements in co-culture techniques have allowed the isolation of HIV in virtually all AIDS patients, as well as in almost all seropositive individuals with both early- and late-stage disease." [Coombs et al, "Plasma viremia in human immunodeficiency virus infection," N Engl J Med 1989;321(24):1626-31. Schnittman et al, "The reservoir for HIV-1 in human peripheral blood ...," Science 1989;245(4915):305-8." Also Ho et al 1989, Jackson et al 1990]

(Source: http://www.niaid.nih.gov/publications/hi...

NIAID "Relationship:" HIV has been "isolated from the brains of children and adults with AIDS-associated encephalopathy, which suggested a role for these viruses in the central nervous system disorders seen in many patients with AIDS." [Levy JA et al. "Isolation of AIDS-associated retroviruses from cerebrospinal fluid and brain ..." Lancet 1985;2(8455):586-8. Ho DD et al. "Isolation of HTLV-III from cerebrospinal fluid and neural tissues ..." N Engl J Med 1985;313(24):1493-7.]

"HIV can be isolated from AIDS patients and grown in laboratories. PCR tests can count the amount of HIV in blood. The virus is easily, and has been on numerous occasions, photographed using electron microscopes." (From aidstruth web site's article "Errors in Celia Farber's March 2006 article in Harper's Magazine")

(Source: http://www.aidstruth.org/errorsinfarbera...


Myth: AIDS IS CAUSED BY Antiretroviral Medications:

Antiretroviral medications (ARVs) DO NOT cause AIDS. Clinical AIDS including all of its symptoms has been diagnosed in countless people who were never previously treated with ARVs. On average, people who are diagnosed with clinical AIDS and put on ARVs live longer than those diagnosed with clinical AIDS who are not put on ARVs. ARVs treat AIDS, not cause it. HIV is the cause of AIDS.

(Source: http://www.avert.org/evidence.htm)...

Myth: ARVs MAKE PEOPLE SICKER:

ARVs do sometimes have unpleasant side effects. But remember: (1) often people are put on ARVs because they're already becoming sick with a low CD4 count and/or clinical AIDS symptoms, and they're no panacea, so it's no surprise if people on ARVs still look sick, and (2) they might be sicker or dead if they weren't on the ARVs. Studies have proven that ARVs are safe and effective for treating clinical AIDS. The death rate is lower for those on ARVs than those not treated.

Myth: HIV TEST IS INACCURATE:
Testing is specific & accurate. "A large study of HIV testing in 752 U.S. laboratories reported a sensitivity of 99.7% and specificity of 98.5% .... and studies in U.S. blood donors reported specificities of 99.8% and greater than 99.99% (46, 47). With confirmatory Western blot, the chance of a false-positive identification in a low-prevalence setting is about 1 in 250 000 (95% CI, 1 in 173 000 to 1 in 379 000) (48)." (Chou et al, Annals of Internal Medicine, 5 July 05, vol 143, #1, p 55-73)

(Source: http://www.annals.org/cgi/content/full/1...

"The performance of four enzyme immunoassays, manufactured by Abbott, Diagnostics Pasteur, Genetic Systems, and Organon Teknika, for the combined detection of anti-human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) and anti-HIV-2, was examined .... Sensitivity estimates in the four assays were 99.71, 99.94, 99.49, and 99.68% .... Specificity estimates from blood donations were 99.92, 99.46, 99.67, and 99.85% ..." [Silvester et al. J Acquir Immune Defic Syndr Hum Retrovirol 1995;8:411]

Myth: HAVING ANTIBODIES MEANS YOU ARE IMMUNE:

Having antibodies to a virus does not necessarily mean that your body is now immune to that virus. It only means that your body has been exposed to the virus (or to a vaccine) and has generated antibodies in response. The immune system is able to develop protective immunity to some viruses but not all viruses. Unfortunately, HIV is one of the viruses that the body is able to fight but not to eliminate and develop protective immunity against on its own.

NIAID: Many viruses are pathogenic even after antibodies appear [Oldstone MB, "Viral persistence," Cell 1989;56(4):517-20], including polio [Kurth R, "Does HIV cause AIDS?" Intervirology 1990;31(6):301-14], measles [Gershon AA in Principles and Practices of Infectious Diseases, 3rd ed. NY: Churchill Livingstone, 1990, pp. 1279-84.], cytomegalovirus, herpes simplex, and varicella zoster [Weiss & Jaffe, "Duesberg, HIV and AIDS (commentary)" Nature 1990;345:659-60.].

CLAIM: HIV Test Bottles or Documentation Say There's No Standard for Being HIV Positive

Those are only standard legal disclaimers. "A large study of HIV testing in 752 U.S. laboratories reported a sensitivity of 99.7% and specificity of 98.5% .... and studies in U.S. blood donors reported specificities of 99.8% and greater than 99.99% (46, 47). With confirmatory Western blot, the chance of a false-positive identification in a low-prevalence setting is about 1 in 250 000 (95% CI, 1 in 173 000 to 1 in 379 000) (48)." (Chou et al,Annals of Internal Medicine,5 July 05,v143#1,p55-73)

(Source: http://www.annals.org/cgi/content/full/1...