Sorry, can’t resist.
So, I ask you,
And I ask those of us who believe that HIV does cause AIDS: what would constitute sufficient proof to convince us that it does not?
I would want controlled, independently replicated studies with the following results: People with both HIV and AIDS (to avoid issues of inherent HIV resistance), cured of AIDS without affecting the HIV levels in the bloodstream or cured of AIDS via methods which do not relate to the mechanisms specified by current theories of how HIV works (e.g. the nutritional therapy idea).
If you can’t come up with an experiment under which you can be proven wrong, you’re adhering to dogma, not science.
This sounds a lot like holocaust denial.
There is a striking parallel between the conventional mindset concerning AIDS – as exemplified by your statement – and the war on terrorism.
In both cases, there is a crisis situation that has and is still costing lives. There is an intellectually totalitarian majority that insists that its version of events, its identification of the cause and its prescribed course of action, is the sole, the whole and nothing but the truth, and that dissent is illegitimate on the grounds that it would cost lives. In both cases, this argument is circular and question-begging, since the minority does not deny that a crisis exists, simply that its cause is misunderstood and that the prescribed solutions only excacerbate and perpetuate the problem.
You might want to think about that before you effectively accuse people who desire nothing more than to stop AIDS of being monsters.
I don’t recall effectively accusing anyone of anything; I think you are presuming a lot of my thoughts and responding to me based on those presumptions. How, if you behave thus, do you go about distinguishing yourself from those who fight the so-called war on terror?
I hope that I just inadvertantly struck a bad chord with you; if so, I do apologize. If not….you might consider whether there are better ways to argue your point than the response you made to me.
Well, you did compare everyone who questions the conventional wisdom on AIDS to holocaust deniers.
Whether you have AIDS is a definitional problem in itself, and this definitional problem is the source of much of the disagreement. HIV is an indirect cause or cofactor for many, if not all, of the symptoms of AIDS, but some of the symptoms that sound like AIDS can be caused in the absence of HIV.
I’ve read much of what Richie has to say on this topic, and I also live with a Ph.D. biochemist who probably knows more about this topic than you, me, and Richie combined. I prefer a synthesis of views, in which both the medical model and the alternative models have powerful applications.
My own take on this is that infection with HIV does not always lead to a particular set of symptoms within a particular time frame. HIV appears to make it easier for other diseases and syndromes to arise, via harming or preoccupying portions of the immune system.
HIV can be attacked directly via particular anti-retroviral drugs, many of which have side effects. The effects of HIV can also be attacked directly via other drugs keyed to specific opportunistic infections or syndromes. The effects of HIV infection can also be attacked indirectly by supporting the immune system — the immune system requires proper nutrition, sanitation, exercise, rest, social support, and psychological health.
Well, I was an std medic for a bit. And I volunteered for the pittsburgh aids people for a bit. I won’t claim to know as much as by a long shot.
err, and what you said is a pretty good summary of my understanding.
Frankly, I recognize my limitations. I’m not a doctor, that’s why I pay for a doctor to monitor my condition and suggest treatments. That’s not me relying upon dogma, that’s me relying upon an expert opinion.
And my doctor is getting results — my t-cells have increased in number from 89 when I first was told I had HIV to 410, less than two years later. I have been on a cocktail of anti-viral drugs the entire time.
Say what you will about HIV, t-cells are measurable and a t-cell count of 89 proves a serverely compromised immune system. Any treatment that mitigates that is a successful one.
Well, first of all, it would have to be proven that the biochemical phenomena that mainstream AIDS research considers “HIV” (virus-like particles, certain proteins and genetic sequences) indeed represent an exogenously acquired, infectious virus- as opposed to biochemical symptoms of immune suppression produced by the body itself.
Here is a study that could test this, but it’s highly unethical, and I can’t think of an ethically acceptable variation.
Inject healthy, HIV negative volunteers with cocaine on a daily basis for an extended period of time – at least until there are clinical or laboratory symptoms of compromised immunity such as decreased T-cells. Make sure they couldn’t get infected with HIV in any way. If despite damaged immunity, they all remain HIV negative according to antibody and viral load testing, I would consider the hypothesis that HIV tests mistake biochemical symptoms of immune breakdown for the presence of a virus to be falsified.
Assuming that HIV exists, a good experiment would be to inject volunteers with what the AIDS mainstream considers purified HIV and to observe their health. One half would have to receive a placebo (or rather, nocebo) injection. Unfortunately, this experiment is also highly unethical.
Let me think about this some more.
Here’s an ethically justifiable study that could prove me wrong.
Take a large number of people recently diagnosed HIV+. Give them both side of the story, i.e. expose them to both points of view, each argued as persuasively as possible. Then give them time to think and decide what they want:
a. antiviral treatment based on the hypothesis that they carry a lethal virus that is going to destroy the immune system
b. alternative treatment (based on nutrition and other complementary modalities) designed to build general immunity, plus treatment for specific medical conditions if the need arises. This would have to be administered by doctors who believe that people diagnosed HIV+ can lead healthy, normal lives without antiviral drugs and who would strongly direct the thinking of their patients in that direction.
If after, say, 5 years, mortality or progression to AIDS in the second group was as high or higher than in the first group, I would consider my views on HIV and AIDS refuted by evidence.
Your proposal for a study is definitely not placebo-double-blind, but you’ve already noted the ethical problems with those. It’s fair to try to equalize physician belief, but I do wonder how much of a population restriction that and/or the patient choice factor would cause. I’m surprised such an experiment hasn’t been conducted already. =)
I really don’t understand how AIDS is defined.
If your t-cells rise above 400, do you no longer have AIDS? If not, is there some cutoff where it is considered in remission?
“what would constitute sufficient evidence that HIV _is_ the cause of AIDS?”
*the* cause? I thought AIDS was “just” a set of symptoms. All you would need to disprove this is to replicate those symptoms.
“HIV is the cause of AIDS” and “HIV causes AIDS”, which you used later, are pretty different things.
last I heard, AIDS was basically “HIV-positive, with low t-cell counts, and one or more opportunistic infections”. But may know more, as he commented below.
Orthodoxy normally isn’t my strong suit, but I think I’ll play the superstitious caveman in this drama and see who comes out ahead.
necessary and sufficient
I’m impressed you opened your LJ up to this debate. I hesitated to participate because this kind of argument usually makes my head split open and green fire come out.
Questioning established science is a worthwhile activity – but why this conspiratorial pseudoscience that I see in the alternative-to-HIV community? I liken this to ‘intelligent design’ – perhaps it comes from the gay community’s history of persecution – we simply cannot trust or believe the establishment.
There is no real controversy (hysterical webpages not withstanding) – HIV causes AIDS – acquired immune deficiency syndrome – the name is a holdover from when we didn’t know that HIV existed. Many doctors are now using the term HIV disease. There are a few who don’t believe, some are even doctors.
You could argue, with the logic of the disputers, that Lupus Erythematosus is not a ‘real’ disease because there is no cause and no linkage of the symptoms – there are 10 or so qualifying symptoms and if you get more than a handful of them, you are usually diagnosed with Lupus.
It’s easy: Follow HIV as it inserts its DNA into the host genome, usually in a T cell – by experimentally verified processes. Watch as various stimuli cause those T cells to reproduce scads of HIV – which in turn infect and kill other T cells until there are few left. With few T cells, the immune system loses its proactive edge, and the B cell side can only defend so long. Then strange infections occur – bird tuberculosis, Kaposi Sarcoma, cytomegalovirus – and the host dies.
Experiments? Visit the Crew Club here in DC, I’m sure there are plenty of ‘experiments’ going on right now.
If you want necessary and sufficient proof, use Koch’s postulates – the standard by which all previous infectious diseases have been casually connected to their source
The microorganism must be found in all cases of the disease. (It is – in some cases only as DNA sequences in T cells)
It must be possible to isolate the microorganism from the host and grow it in pure culture (in the laboratory). (Tissue culture – seen it, done it)
The microorganism must reproduce the original disease when introduced into an experimental animal. (J. Virology, 1997, I think – injection of HIV, Opportunistic infection development and passage via blood to another chimpanzee)
The microorganism must be recoverable from that animal. (ibid)
Specifically:
1. HIV demonstrably infects and propagates in T cells
2. Blocking virus infection with receptor removal/alteration stops it
3. Chemicals that interfere with viral enzymes stop it
4. Similar viruses exist in other species – FIV, SIV
It IS true that early on Duseburg disputed the fulfillment of all Koch’s postulates – but it is now clear that all the conditions are satisfied. Celia Farber has a rich vein of journalism, per se, about this. Kery Mullis, when not high and surfing, wrote an introduction to the book ‘inventing the aids virus.’ Yes, he has a Nobel prize – but I personally know two other MD Nobelists who think HIV causes AIDS – their names are Blumberg (1976 – Hepatitus B vaccine) and Lederberg (1958 – Bacteria Recombination)
Doubt HIV? Then doubt hepatitis, CMV, Epstein Barr, herpes. Doubt all science. Everywhere – all the time.
The ‘anti AIDS drugs are toxic and cause disease’ thing? Yep, they are toxic – they passed through FDA screening fast, before some long term issues were resolved – liver toxicity, anemia, lipodystropy, etc. Better that then dead, for some. That’s a personal choice, not proof of alternate causes.
The ‘its chemicals’ thing? How about the lab workers, haemophiliacs, mother-to-child, monogamous partner of blood product recipient cases? Poppers are not huge in sub-Saharan Africa, nor is cocaine.
I’m part of the establishment on this one. I have a Ph.D. in biochemistry and molecular genetics. My thesis was on T cell development. I have also been an AIDS activist, a public health educator, an AIDS vaccine volunteer and a questioner of science. Where is the viable theory with experimental support for alternative causes? There simply hasn’t been one.
There are lots of web pages about HIV not causing AIDS. There are also lots of web pages about the great spaghetti monster – who created the universe.
Re: necessary and sufficient
The idea of a flying spaghetti monster was very intriguing, so I googled for anything about it. Here’s a nice reference:
http://www.venganza.org/
It’s on the Internet, so it must be true!
RAmen.
Re: necessary and sufficient
If it is that “easy” to follow HIV through the body and watch as it does all these terrible things, then I guess the disease causing mechanism of HIV is fairly well understood!
I wonder, then, why a mainstream paper published in 2002 in the Journal of Leukocyte Biology states that
“The mechanism(s) by which human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) causes depletion of CD4 lymphocytes remains unknown. “?
You go tell those clowns from the University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, that all they need to do is follow HIV through the body and watch!
And please, also write a long letter to Mario Stevenson, a professor of molecular medicine at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. This guy wrote the following blundering nonsense in Nature Medicine, July 2003 (“20 Years of HIV Science”):
“There is a general misconception that more is known about HIV-1 than about any other virus and that all of the important issues regarding HIV-1 biology and pathogenesis have been resolved”.
“..it is debatable whether lymphocyte damage is due to the direct killing of infected cells…”
“Despite considerable advances in HIV science in the past 20 years, the reason why HIV-1 infection is pathogenic is still debated.”
Unsuspecting scientists who read this might get the impression that the central hypothesis of the HIV-AIDS theory (namely that HIV kills T cells) remains unproven, while you of course know much better. Doesn’t that Stevenson fellow know that all you need to do is to vist the Crew Club in DC?
Re: necessary and sufficient
The first job of a critic is to know the subject he’s trying to criticize. While you seem to know some elements of the skeptical case against the HIV-AIDS theory, your understanding of the overall argument is severely deficient. You are not responding to what AIDS skeptics actually claim, just to a caricature.
For example, you seem completely unaware that AIDS skeptics do not recognize AIDS is a single disease. Rather, they claim that different diseases with different causes have been lumped together under this category. Specifically, they claim that African “AIDS” is a new name for diseases caused by poverty and malnutrition. They – correctly – point out that presumably HIV infected lab workers generally receive PEP immediately, which makes the observation that they developed AIDS unable to distinguish between the competing hypotheses that their illness was caused by HIV or by AIDS chemotherapy.
If you are unaware of the most basic features of the case that AIDS skeptics make against the conventional point of view, how do you expect to have any credibility in arguing against it? You’re demolishing straw men, nothing more.
Re: necessary and sufficient
Well, you certainly win the credentials game 😉
I’m okay with any color of fire you choose to erupt, so long as it sheds some light.
And I’m glad to see someone who knows his stuff talking about this. The science of HIV never was my interest. Policy and sociology, sure. Microbiology, not so much. I get that some sort of protein sticking out of the surface of some sort of immune cell lets hiv viri climb in & take over the nucleus where they start making lots more little viri. But that probably distinguishes it from other viri only by the word “immune” =)
Find competing theories of what causes AIDS, find people who would not be exposed to the causes under these theories, and then infect them with the HIV virus.
If a significant majority of them get AIDS, then getting the HIV virus is strongly causally correlated to AIDS.
I guess this is “unethical”, but I was looking at a post about holocaust denial as I was trying to think of an experiment.
On a related note, I’ve read the page of the ex-berkeley microbiologist who thinks the epidemiology of AIDS matches a lifestyle choice disease rather then a microbe-borne disease, and it seems more likely that the factors he says might “cause” AIDS (drug use, malnutrition, etc) might instead be factors influencing resistance to the HIV virus. Note that statistical models of transmissability per-sex-act appear to vary widely depending on whether the study was done in a place like the US or on Thai prostitutes.
So lot’s of issues flying around here, I still come back to a definitional issue:
Things that need a working accepted definition for any such experiment:
(1) What it means to test HIV+. (There is no international scientific consensus AFAIK)
(2) What it means to have AIDS. (Again, there is no international scientific consensus AFAIK, for example people diagnosed as having AIDS in the USA might NOT be considered to have AIDS in Canada)
Given (1) & (2) + the fact that we have an existing hypothesis, I would start by rigorously trying to track outcomes using the common definitions sort of along the lines of what suggested in one comment. At a minimum this will help us tease out whether our definitions and the treatments are having the results we think they are having and open up avenues for deeper study.
Besides tracking, holding (1) & (2) constant, I think some informed consent experiments of intentional alternate treatments would be helpful. People considering drug treatments upon diagnosis with (1) to prevent (2) should have the benefit of knowing more explicitly how they might fair if they do nothing or try some homeopathic remedies.
As for being able to be “proven wrong,” the two items I’m suggesting are not geared towards answering the “final question” definitively, but rather towards helping individuals make (better) informed data based choices about outcomes given clearly defined diagnoses.
One separate point:
So, I ask you, [] elo_sf and anyone else who is convinced that HIV does not cause AIDS: …
You ascribe the above to me; I do want to state that is at best a radical oversimplification of my position. My concern is less about big science and what is right/wrong/etc, and more about wanting better information and choices for thinking about what to do if I’m (or a loved one is) given such a diagnosis.
That said, it would be fair to state that my viewpoint why that is relevant and the knee jerk acceptance of drugs has been tremendously shaken/altered by reading materials from people who hold the view that HIV does not cause AIDS.
Sorry, I was conscious of my inferring a bit there, but I didn’t mean to overstep and put words in your mouth. I wasn’t trying to present the full tapestry of anyone’s (let alone everyone’s) beliefs, but rather to distill out a central issue, the causative nature of HIV.
Not a problem, just wanted to point that out.
Here’s another experiment. This one is not unethical, it’s just something that no scientist who values his career and funding would do, because it would be considered scandalous. Nevertheless, here it is.
Take a bunch of confirmed HIV- volunteers and put them into a resort without outside contact for an extended period of time (months). Their sole job in there would be to screw each other silly in as many ways as they can, without condoms. Or, to put it scientifically, to have as much anal sex with as many different partners as possible. Recreational drugs such as poppers and cocaine would be provided and their use encouraged. All these men would have their HIV antibody status, viral load and t-cell counts evaluated on an ongoing basis.
I predict that after some time, there would be spontaneous seroconversions in many of the bottoms, as well as decreased t cell counts and nonzero viral loads, even though they could not have contracted HIV through sexual transmission. I would accept the absence of such events as falsification of my opinions concerning the nature of the correlation between receptive anal sex and HIV seroconversion.
Fucking idiots…Let’s see: powerful anti-viral “cocktails” are introduced as the preferred line of treatment in the mid 90’s, and the number of yearly deaths from AIDS plummets. I think I see a correlation here.
I think these people just enjoy being contrarians for the sake of it, in the face of overwhelming evidence that supports HIV as being the cause of AIDS. And that strikes me as a form of pathology.