Nature Medicine | Spoonful of Medicine

Denying AIDS

My New Yorker mag arrived Monday with an article about a topic that’s all too familiar to us, here at Nature Medicine. Science reporter Michael Specter wrote about AIDS denialists — or dissenters as they like to call themselves — who say either that HIV does not cause AIDS or that antiretroviral drugs do more harm than good, and that most scientists are in the pockets of the pharmaceutical industry. That last bit may be debatable, but to us and to everyone we consider credible, there’s no doubt that HIV causes AIDS or that antiretroviral drugs are safe.

I’m happy the New Yorker gave this urgent and deeply troubling issue some much-needed attention, but I’m a bit disappointed with its tepid tone. If you get through the whole article — and I suppose many of the magazine’s readers do — you come away with the feeling that the denialists are certainly wrong. But the first few pages give so much space to Peter Duesberg, the most famous denialist, and to the potential benefits of South Africa’s traditional medicines that you might almost be tempted to think these people have a fair point. After all, who among us hasn’t thought that scientists can be too harsh on those who don’t agree with the reigning hypothesis or that they don’t pay enough attention to traditional therapies?

But this is not your average scientific disagreement. There is NO question that HIV causes AIDS and to follow the “he said-she said” school of journalism in this case, strikes me as tame and… well, I’ll leave it there. I hope the New Yorker piece goes some way to repairing the damage caused last year by an article in Harper’s by dissenter Celia Farber.

For our part, we’ve covered the resurgence of denialists and the activities, in particular, of one Matthias Rath, who markets multivitamins as a cure for AIDS. Scientists and AIDS activists have sued the South African government and Rath for conducting trials of the so-called vitamin cures.

These denialists like to distort scientists’ own statements to support their theories and have even misappropriated sentences from one of our scientific reports, which we explicitly countered in an editorial last year after the Harper’s piece appeared. And we hope more of the mainstream press steps up to cover this issue.

Update: We have decided not to accept any more comments on this post, as the discussion between the two camps is not productive. We don’t want this blog to perpetuate a discussion that has already received too much attention

Comments

  1. Report this comment

    John Moore said:

    Apoorva is right. Below is an email I sent to Duesberg last Sunday in response to his email to me stating that he felt the Specter article “could have been much more uncivilized than it is”. As he forwarded my email to his fellow AIDS denialist friends, who immediately posted my response on their websites, I no longer consider the interchange private and governed by the normal rules of professional conduct between academics.

    “It’s far more civilized than someone like you deserves. But one day, either before or after your death, the complete truth about you will be published, once all the senior scientists who really know you go on the record. It will be the final word on your wasted life in which you have contributed to the slaughter of tens of thousands of innocent people. What a legacy to leave behind, what a way to be remembered by the scientific community and the general public you have misled for too long. I’ve no more words to waste on you”.

    John Moore

  2. Report this comment

    Joanne Whitehead said:

    “There is NO question that HIV causes AIDS…”

    How can you state this so categorically? Clearly there are many unresolved questions surrounding HIV and AIDS. The work of Peter Duesberg brings up many inconsistencies and outright contradictions with the HIVAIDS hypothesis. Until all of these issues have been resolved, the question must remain open to promote honest scientific debate. It is only by following multiple alternative lines of research that we can hope to find humane and practicable solutions for reducing AIDS incidence in the west or in the third world.

  3. Report this comment

    apoorva said:

    I don’t think anyone would argue that we know everything there is to know about HIV/AIDS. But about whether HIV causes AIDS there is no doubt. “Honest scientific debate” resolved that particular question a long time ago.

  4. Report this comment

    James Putnam said:

    When scientific debate becomes emotional, it is no longer science based, and is usually about the adversaries not the subject.

    HIV, in fact, leads to AIDS in some, if not most people. HIV does not lead to AIDS, nor any malady in a small minority of people. Antiretroviral medications allow people with AIDS to experience remission in their symptoms, though not necessarily in the general immune deficiency syndrome (ie. chronically low CD4 counts even while on ART). This is what is self evident from the last 27 years. The details of these observations are still being worked out.

    There are natural substances that are antiretroviral, for instance Shikonin which is a CCR5 inhibitor available at greater than 50% w/w in Lithospermum erythrorhizon and effective at nanomolar concentrations. The fact that it is delivered as a tea and that in large part the gut associated lymphotrophic T-cells are the first to be decimated after infection and the last to recover after commencing ART makes this a relatively cheap and potentially viable way to alter the natural history of the virus in early infection if not prevent it entirely if ingested daily by high risk individuals. This has been known for over 10 years but nothing has been done to study it other than one non clinical laboratory study by the NCI. There are also polysaccharides in algae which have been shown to inhibit infectivity of the virus but these natural microbicides have not been studied nor have people who may benefit from the knowledge been educated. These substances should be studied either alone or in combination with vitamins and supplements in people who cannot afford to obtain pharmaceutical versions of antiretrovirals.

    There is extreme bias against such studies in the scientific and medical community either through colllusion with pharmaceutical companies, laxity, or indifference. Obstruction of, or making such attempts illegal in an effort to help people who are otherwise without hope is cruel, asinine and unconscienable regardless of the stance of denialists.

    We are currently experiencing another wave of denialism with regard to global warming which has potentially more dire consequences. It is alarmingly reminiscent of the early days of Duesberg.

    Peter Duesberg made extraordinary contributions to the understanding of oncogenes and src kinases and inspired and mentored many, many scientists. While I disagree with his conclusions regarding HIV, I am offended by the disrespect of John Moore’s comments and would like to remind him that there are thousands of people who have been helped by subsequent work based on Peter Duesberg’s seminal studies regardless of his denialism, skepticism, or any negative or positive spin he may have with regard to other’s conclusions.

  5. Report this comment

    Christian Peper said:

    Safe sex is important because many many diseases can be transmitted sexually (including the flu). With that said, AIDS / HIV IS A HOAX!!! The drug companies make money off this hoax and the people pay. Safe sex is still important, if only to avoid the flu and herpes and other diseases.

  6. Report this comment

    John Moore said:

    Putnam writes:Peter Duesberg made extraordinary contributions to the understanding of oncogenes and src kinases and inspired and mentored many, many scientists. While I disagree with his conclusions regarding HIV, I am offended by the disrespect of John Moore’s comments and would like to remind him that there are thousands of people who have been helped by subsequent work based on Peter Duesberg’s seminal studies regardless of his denialism, skepticism, or any negative or positive spin he may have with regard to other’s conclusions.

    ——————————

    What is “offensive” here is that the University of California still employs a despicable individual like Duesberg whose sick, perverse and scientifically absurd views on HIV/AIDS have contributed significantly to the deaths of tens of thousands of HIV-infected people throughout the world, and particularly in South Africa, as a result of his influence on public health policy and the conduct of desperate and vulnerable individual men and women. Putnam seems to believe that we are involved in some kind of Ivory Tower discussion about science over tea and crumpets – we are not, we are involved in a war to crush people like Duesberg, once and for all. One earns “respect”, but unfortunately Duesberg has earned only the contempt he receives from all bona fide AIDS researchers, activists and health care providers who minister to the sick and dying. Those that choose to defend him either know nothing of the real world of HIV and AIDS, or do and don’t care. Go take a look at https://www.aidstruth.org and see what this is REALLY all about.

  7. Report this comment

    Michael Geiger said:

    John Moore, above, is an HIV researcher with big money at stake. He is funded by various pharma companies, and is the most biased guy in the world when it comes to HIV AIDS issues. Apoorva above, believes that there was ever a debate. The fact is, the virologists running the show never allowed any debate. When Duesberg tried to get anything debated, he was cut off from funding by his fellow virologists. John Moore was one of the biggest mouths back then in attacking and stifling debate, and he still is.

    John Moore sent me an email that said “This is a WAR there are NO RULES and we will DESTROY YOU DENIALISTS one at a time”.

    Does that sound like a rational scientist, or like an emotional wreck trying to cover up his own failed theories. After all, more than 100 billion spent, and ZERO cured. It is high time we allow Duesberg to be heard and properly debated, instead of censored and stripped of funding as he was when he threatened the financial coup that was had by those insisting on a viral answer for why gay men who do lots of drugs and expose themselves to extensive unprotected sex with all of the repeated STDs, not to mention the devastating emotional aspects that many gays suffer when their families disowned them, and ended up being physically ill.

    John Moore and the virologists use fear of AIDS to make sure the money keeps flowing for research that has never proved anything!

  8. Report this comment

    Richard Jefferys said:

    Giving someone an entire journal issue (Genetica) to edit is hardly stifling them. And by that point (1993), Duesberg was already deliberately misrepresenting the papers he was citing, a surefire way to get your paper rejected (a cardinal sin in science, in fact). A good example is the 1989 Kaslow paper he cites as containing “HIV negative AIDS” cases. The paper reports a lack of CD4 decline in HIV-negative drug-using gay men. Nevertheless, Duesberg counts these individuals as “HIV negative AIDS” cases, based on his own hypothesis that their drug use will cause their CD4 T cells to decline.

    In his words: “But even if not all of these cases fit the current definition of AIDS-defining immunodeficiency exactly, they do so prospectively. This is because their T-cells typically continue to decline either because of risk behavior, such as the consumption of recreational drugs, or because of clinical AIDS risks, such as chronic transfusion of foreign proteins as prophylaxis against hemophilia (Duesberg, P.H., 1992, op. cit.).”

    This quote is from Duesberg, P. The HIV gap in national. AIDS statistics. Biotechnology, 11: 955-956, 1993. He is citing his own theory in order to try and turn a paper the directly contradicts his theory into one that supports it! It is this behavior that caused his peers to realize he was going off the rails.

  9. Report this comment

    Martin Delaney said:

    I get rather tired hearing denialists talk about the “work” of Peter Duesberg in regards to AIDS. Like other denialist “researchers” he has done no work on the subject, conducted no studies, presented no data. He has simply attempted to ridicule the work of others while making nothing but absurd assertions of his own. He sounds like he has no knowledge of the scientific process, though we know better. It is an enormous stretch of the imagination to suggest that this man’s work has benefitted anyone, in any disease. The name-calling and bitterness in this debate began in the 1980s with his widely circulated personal attacks on Robert Gallo, Anthony Fauci and other prominent AIDS scientists. He has been given every opportunity to make his case and he has, in 20 years, proven nothing. In contrast, AIDS researchers, including John Moore, have made massive inroads against the suffering and death we saw from HIV. Those of us who once buried friends, partners and associates on a weekly basis have deep gratitude for the advances from academia and the pharmaceutical companies. Yet the denialists simply dismiss the remarkable progress, instead claiming that the lack of an absolute cure means all else is a failure. What absurdity, and what a disservice to the people who have dedicated their lives to bringing this epidemic under control. It is a travesty that after 25 years we are still struggling to keep the denialists from misdirecting, to untimley death, an entire generation of HIV infected people in developing countries. What word other than genocide applies?

  10. Report this comment

    Michael Geiger said:

    Thank you for all of your comments Dr. John Moore. Are all HIV/AIDS scientists such obvious buffoons? No wonder after 100 billion has been spent, ZERO have been cured with such as you at the helm.

    But whatever anybody does, John Moore commands us all to NEVER look at what Duesberg has presented on HIV/AIDS!

    Why not John? Is it a bit too self damning for you to bear? I would suppose so considering the leading cause of death in HIV positive Americans is still side effects of the HIV drugs you promote!

    Fascinating that the years of high deaths attributed to HIV, from 1987 to 1996 are the identical years of high dosage chemotherapeutic AZT that was given to everyone testing HIV positive!

    Do you know the defintion of IATROGENIC DEATH?

    I would be concerned about Duesberg too, if I were you John. What he presents is more valid every day, and damns you to a deeper pit of posterity for not taking serious consideration of what he presented. After all, Peter knew retroviruses FAR better than anyone in the world in 1997. Far better than Bob-I found HIV in the mail from France-Gallo!

  11. Report this comment

    Michael Geiger said:

    It is wonderful to see the excellent piece in the May 2007 issue of Scientific American on “Chromosomal Chaos” and cancer by Dr. Peter Duesberg.

    It is also reassuring because Peter does not take any pharma or government funding (unlike John Moore above).

    A full copy of Duesbergs piece can be found at:

    https://barnesworld.blogs.com/Dues.Sci.Am.cancer.pdf

    I am glad Apoorva thinks the New Yorker piece is a work of science. Perhaps you should read more of Dr. Duesbergs work to know what integrous science, pure and free of any conflicts of interest, actually looks like!

  12. Report this comment

    Michael Geiger said:

    As the editor of Scientific American felt it necessary in the editor comments on Duesbergs piece on Chromosomal Chaos, to distance himself from Dr. Duesbergs position on HIV, I found it necessary and important to send this to the editor in retort:

    Dear experts at Scientific American, and dear Blog Editor, please forward this to your editor and publisher as well.

    In this months Scientific American May issue, you have a wonderful and astounding piece by Peter Duesberg on Cancer. Thank you for finally bringing this to the publics eye.

    However, the “editor” felt that he needed to put in a disclaimer that Peter Duesberg’s theories on whether HIV causes AIDS have been “thoroughly rebutted”.? Ohhhh Really??

    Peter Duesberg’s theories on HIV have been, are, and continue to be, outright rejected, and are not anywhere rebutted!

    I am, to say the least, disappointed in the editors choice of words, as well as disappointed that he even felt the need to run such a “disclaimer” regarding one of the most astute and integrous scientists of our time, National Academy of Science member Peter Duesberg.

    1)Scientific papers still all currently show that HIV is never found in a quantity that can damage an immune system or body, let alone be even a contributing cause of death.

    2)They currently show that CD4 counts and viral load counts DO NOT predict AIDS.

    3)They show that no mechanism by which HIV affects the immune system has ever been found.

    4)They show HIV has never been found in T-Cells or infected tissues.

    5)They show that HIV has NEVER caused AIDS in any of the chimps that were given it – that DO get absolutely EVERY other human disease.

    6)They show that the symptoms of AIDS in Gays, hemophilliacs, heterosexuals, and Africans are ALL COMPLETELY DIFFERENT, and are ALL explainable by other factors!

    7)They show the leading cause of death in HIV positive Americans has been PROVEN by Dr. Amy Justice to be directly related to who takes the AIDS medications!

    8)Even Nancy Padian’s study showed HIV was NOT sexually transmitted in any of her 160 some sero-opposite married couples in the only and longest running study of heterosexual transmission.

    9)Look at the years of high HIV deaths. They are identical to the exact years of high dosage AZT monotherapy given to all HIV positives! This clearly shows that AZT caused the majority of deaths from 87 to 96 during the period of greatest death attributed to “complications” of HIV.

    10)The studies on HIV tests clearly show HIV tests are not verified against any isolated HIV virus, and they show these tests are notorious for false positives, including the Oraquick test that was found to be giving at least 1/4th false positive results in San Francisco last year.

    And furthermore, every passing year that there is no “cure” and no vaccine continually proves again and again that Peter’s theory is most likely to be correct! Even Bob Gallo admits since 1993 that he has NEVER FOUND HIV in any T-Cells, and he admits that he NEVER FOUND HIV in Kaposis Sarcoma.

    Pray tell?

    Why would Scientific American keep this information from the public?

    Would the SA editor et al continue to have people who have been diagnosed as HIV positive be unecessarily placed into the very well proven immune system destructive emotional states of extreme fear and panic and stress?

    Does the SA editor et al feel the need to enhance the pharmaceutical company sales of very poorly tested and proven toxic HIV therapies?

    Or does the SA editor et al feel the need to be the moral watchdog on the public’s sexual behaviors and choices?

    Bob Gallo, the so-called “co-discoverer” of HIV, who had been at one time found guilty of scientific misconduct, did quite a miserable job when he testified 3 weeks ago to the Supreme Court of Australia, in still trying to prove that HIV is the cause of AIDS. The opposing lawyer nailed him on some crucial facts, and in the trial transcript, Gallo himself admitted that he only found evidence of HIV in 40 percent of AIDS patients, he admitted that his Electron Microscope picture of supposed HIV was NOT HIV, he admitted that he never found HIV in any T-Cells or KS, and he admitted that there were a lot of problems with his supposed isolation of HIV. Read the transcript for your own self at:

    https://garlan.rethinkingaids.info/Cases/Parenzee/Gallo.html and

    https://garlan.rethinkingaids.info/Cases/Parenzee/

    In the piece by the editor “When Pariahs Have Good Ideas”, the editor says “Thus, as wrong as Duesberg surely is about HIV”. Oh is he really so wrong? And what evidence do you hold up as proof for such a supposed “statement of fact”? What seminal paper do you uphold as the proof that HIV is the cause of AIDS?

    So I beg the experts and editors please tell me.

    Where is this rebuttal to Peter Duesberg? By Who? In what Paper? When were Peter’s theories on HIV ever proven wrong? What and whose work establishes HIV as anything more than a possible, but most likely improbable cause of AIDS? When did Robert Gallo or anyone else ever debate Peter on this? When and who rebutted Peter’s work on this?

    How is it possible that the editor says that Peter’s HIV theories are “thoroughly rebutted” when in fact, they have never even been properly aired, debated, or tested, let alone ever proved wrong by anyone?

    If your magazine has some proof that Peter was wrong, please do share it with us, your public!

    Tony Fauci, Bob-’I found HIV in the mail from France’ Gallo, and all of the virologists that still run the NIH are all still avoiding Peter’s criticisms of HIV, because they have been, and are still, financially, egoically, and scientifically terrified that Peter is indeed correct that HIV is not, does not, and could not be the cause of AIDS.

    The supposed rebutters of Peter Duesberg and the defenders of HIV are simply still, after 20 years, running scared because they know they have NOT EVER rebutted or answered Peter. They are scared to death that Peter was and is right about HIV not causing AIDS. They are terrified of how the public would react after spending more than 100 billion taxpayer dollars betting on the wrong pony. And they are terrified of loosing this funding or admitting to the greatest and most costly error that medical science has ever made.

    ‘It should be fairly obvious to anyone who investigates this issue without bias, that Peter has not ever been rebutted. It is also fairly obvious, if one simply reads HIV research papers that HIV Does Not and Can Not cause AIDS! And to claim it does after 25 years with still no proof of how or why it possibly could, is a travesty of science unworthy of Scientific American, as well as a travesty of justice due to Dr. Peter Duesberg!

    Was your own editor simply afraid of the possible backlash by the terrified “experts” of HIV and do-gooder AIDS advocates if he was perceived as possibly even remotely backing Peter on the issue of HIV/AIDS?

    At least Harpers Magazine had the courage to stand up when they ran Celia Farber’s piece on Duesberg in March of 2006: “AIDS: Out of Control and the Corruption of Medical Science. https://www.harpers.org/archive/2006/03/0080961

    It is an unfortunate shame for the world today that other mainstream magazines such as our own Scientific American have not yet also been able to muster such courage or clarity.

    I beg the “experts” at Scientific American to respond! Please tell me and please tell the rest of the world how and where, and who, and in what papers Peter Duesberg’s theories on HIV have been thoroughly rebutted? Either respond and show us this rebuttal, or be ashamed of what must be your own magazines biased, willful, unscientific and unfounded misleading of the general public, as well as a lack of courage in dealing with this still very current issue and boondoggle of public health!

    You have done wrong to say Peter “is surely wrong on HIV”. But, either way, I sincerely DO thank you for running the current piece on Duesberg’s groundbreaking work on cancer.

    Sincerely,

    Michael Geiger

    HEAL San Diego

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    frummy said:

    IF people beleive Duesbergs and the few other scientists that agree with him are harmed they have no one to blame but themselves. If a scientist advocated drinking gasoline and a patient died, the patient deserves a large part of the responsibility.

    I do think more open debate is better and people like Moore acting like some kind of gatekeeper that decides what is debatable and what is not is insulting to me as a taxpaying American.

    I thought these hiv deniers were lunatics as well, but i am convinced AIDS is more complicated then we are told. I mean anyone that disagrees with Gallo’s correlation and his failure to meet Kochs postulates/ have an Animal model is crazy? Some wacky scientist whose cancer virus turned into the hiv virus overnight, just because his theory was endorsed by the Reagan admin. and brodcast on tv doesnt make it true.

    Dr. shyh ching Lo from the armed forces institute of Pathology is the most reasonable of all Aids researchers. He isolated a microbe called mycoplasma and monkeys sickened and died when injected with it. This microbe seems to be playing a role in many other diseases as well. We’ll never know about it because Gatekeepers like John Moore tell us what we can and cant hear about.

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    ChristianPeper said:

    After further research I have determined that while natural, holistic cures have a place in Aids therapy, HIV / AIDS is indeed dangerous.

    It takes a lot to admit one was wrong but I admit I was wrong. Again, Aids is indeed dangerous and I was wrong.

  15. Report this comment

    Seth Kalichman said:

    AIDS Denialism and Pseudoscience: Resurgent Threat to Public Health

    Paralleling the discovery of HIV and the rise of the AIDS pandemic, a flock of naysayers has dedicated itself to replacing genuine knowledge with destructive misinformation. The origins of AIDS dissidents’ disclaimers during the earliest days of the epidemic have established their permanent place in books, the popular press, and the Internet. AIDS denialism has become a cottage industry that poses considerable harm to HIV testing programs, HIV prevention efforts, and HIV/AIDS treatment. Recent research in the US has shown that a significant number of people at-risk for HIV/AIDS doubt the existence of HIV and believe that AIDS is a government conspiracy. No where has denialism done more harm than in South Africa, where the former President and Health Minister embraced AIDS denialism at the cost of hundreds of thousands of South African lives. AIDS denialists hijacked the South African health policy where pseudoscience and quackery were inseparable from science and medicine. AIDS denialism and pseudoscience persuade people to avoid HIV testing, doubt the validity of HIV test results, and avoid antiretroviral therapies. Until recently, AIDS scientists have mistakenly ignored AIDS denialism, allowing pseudoscience to gain unchallenged credibility and political influence.

    Visit https://denyingaids.blogspot.com/

    https://www.springer.com/medicine/book/978-0-387-79475-4