Reappraising AIDS Volume 2, Number 1

Volume 2, Number 1 November 1994

HIV Symposium at AAAS Conference

by John Lauritsen

The HIV-AIDS hypothesis was debated on 21 June 1994, at a day-long symposium in San Francisco, sponsored by the Pacific Division of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). The symposium, "The Role of HIV in AIDS: Why There is Still a Controversy," was organized by Charles Geshekter, Professor of History at California State University, Chico. Dissatisfied with previous AIDS sessions -- "consensual gabfests" in which only one point of view was presented -- he began in 1993 to put together an interdisciplinary panel of scientists critical of AIDS orthodoxy. The Executive Committee of the Pacific Division AAAS approved the symposium, including the list of speakers, at its January 1994 meeting, and the final program was reviewed by the Executive Director of the Division in early April.

Then, in mid-May, an intense flak campaign erupted. Two AIDS researchers, Warren Winkelstein and William Ascher in Berkeley, put pressure on the AAAS to cancel the program. The San Francisco Chronicle ran an article by Science Editor David Perlman, with the headline: "AIDS REBELS TRY TO STEAL SHOW: But Scientists Stymie Plan By Mavericks Who Deny HIV Link." A similar article appeared in the popular British science magazine Nature.

Control over the symposium was taken away from Geshekter, without his consent or knowledge, by other AAAS officials. Seven pro-HIV speakers were added to the program, along with two 90-minute panels composed entirely of defenders of AIDS-orthodoxy. Fortunately on the day of the symposium Geshekter regained control, and the final panel included all of the speakers.

Phillip Johnson

The first speaker was Berkeley Law Professor Phillip Johnson, on "The role of HIV in AIDS: Why there is still a controversy." According to Johnson, AIDS researchers themselves now admit they are at an impasse. They cannot explain how HIV could be responsible for the mass destruction of T4 cells, when it infects only a minuscule number of them. Official explanations of how HIV might cause illness have become ever more complicated and fanciful.

Johnson criticized the question, "What causes AIDS," as being overly general, and bearing with it the unwarranted assumption that all AIDS diseases, in all countries and all risk groups, are one and the same thing. Instead he proposed focusing on more specific questions, for example: "(1) What is the cause of Kaposi's sarcoma? and (2) What is really known about the role of HIV in causing disease in Africa?"

Johnson's salient points on KS were: 1) KS occurs not infrequently in gay men who are negative on the HIV-antibody test, and 2) Robert Gallo and other AIDS researchers now concede that HIV is not the cause of KS. He posed the question: "If KS is not caused by HIV, and if many other AIDS-defining conditions occur both in the presence of HIV and in its absence, should we not reconsider the definition of the syndrome, and hence the role of HIV in AIDS?"

With regard to AIDS in Africa, Johnson described the lack of testing in making AIDS diagnoses, the extreme unreliability of the tests even when they are used, the shoddy epidemiological studies conducted there.

He concluded: "For essentially political reasons, HIV science has been ruled by unexamined assumptions. It is time at long last to have the scientific debate that wasn't allowed to occur ten years ago. Let the politics be put aside, and let the science begin."

Harvey Bialy

Harvey Bialy, a molecular biologist and Research Editor of BioTechnology, spoke on "HIV-AIDS: A hundred thousand papers and no proof." He began by articulating and then demolishing a 1984 version of the HIV-AIDS hypothesis: "HIV, a new, mutant retrovirus, causes AIDS by killing CD4+ lymphocytes."

Ordinary retroviruses are not pathogenic; however, there is no evidence that HIV is mutant. Bialy showed a genetic map of HIV, and said: "For all intents and purposes this could be the map of 50 other retroviruses." Does HIV kill CD4 cells? "It certainly doesn't kill the T cell lines that are used to produce kilograms of the virus for the AIDS industries."

Since the 1984 version is clearly untenable, Bialy reformulated (with irony) the HIV-AIDS hypothesis: "HIV, an established, conventional retrovirus, causes AIDS by killing CD4+ lymphocytes by mechanisms previously and presently unknown to virology." Even so, the hypothesis is unable to explain the long and unpredictable incubation period between infection and disease, the biochemical quiescence of the virus, and its inability to cause any disease whatever in chimpanzees (who are nevertheless fully susceptible to HIV infection).

Celia Farber

Celia Farber, whose AIDS column in SPIN has run for over six years, spoke on "AIDS as a mirage of modern media: How the media reconstruct reality in The Information Age." She discussed "totalitarian AIDS science," a "self- righteous campaign to stamp out debate," maintaining that people had become "hypnotized by the extremely powerful, red ribbon-wearing Zeitgeist," by "self-appointed 'AIDS professionals'."

Charles Thomas

Charles Thomas, head of the Helicon Foundation, spoke on "The marketing of AIDS and other apocalyptic visions." His premise was that AIDS needs to be understood in the context of "scary science" -- the offspring of mass psychology and the funding demands of specialized government bureaucracies. Among current Scientific Scares he cited nuclear power plants, pesticides, pollution, global warming, ozone holes, asteroids, acid rain, and AIDS.

Though one or more of these might have some basis in reality, they have certain common features. They are mysterious, they place everyone at risk, and they require highly specialized experts, powerful bureaucracies, and a national response with an abundant flow of tax dollars. All can be understood as requirements for getting funding: Maintaining that Scientific Scares are only partly, and dubiously, scientific, Thomas suggested an elegantly simple solution for the AIDS problem: cut off the funding.

These Scientific Scares are what might be named "political diseases" and they are not susceptible to scientific refutation. However, they can be cured by cutting off their supply of money. Consider the following "thought experiment": Imagine the present $6 billion that goes annually to AIDS research, education, treatment, etc. being reduced sharply to ZERO. There would be howls, of course, but AIDS would disappear in two weeks. In its place would be the component diseases that were swept under the common rug and given the name AIDS. These separate diseases would be treated as such, and the (former) AIDS patients and the rest of America would be much better off.

Peter Duesberg

Peter Duesberg, Professor of Molecular Biology at Berkeley, spoke on "The drug-AIDS hypothesis." After discussing the formation of belief systems, he posed a series of rhetorical questions: would we have accepted the HIV-AIDS hypothesis ten years ago if we had known then:

1. That AIDS would not explode into the general, sexually active population?

2. That prostitutes would not get AIDS from their clients, or vice versa? Or health care workers from their patients, or vice versa?

3. That not even one Kaposi's sarcoma has been transmitted through a blood transfusion?

4. That HIV replicates within 24 hours, very much like all other viruses, but allegedly causes a disease only ten years later?

Duesberg laid open the most fundamental premise of the AIDS construct, that all of the 29 (at last count) AIDS-indicator diseases are caused by a condition of "immune deficiency" caused by HIV infection. In fact, only about 61% of all U.S. and European AIDS cases have anything to do with immune deficiency.

As an alternative to the HIV-AIDS hypothesis, Duesberg presented his own DRUGS-AIDS HYPOTHESIS, which states: "AIDS in the U.S. and Europe is caused by the long-term consumption of recreational drugs and AZT." The remaining AIDS cases -- hemophiliacs, transfusion recipients, and other cases from non-risk groups -- reflect the normal incidence of these diseases, simply under a new name.

Jerold Lowenstein

Jerold Lowenstein, of the University of California Medical Center in San Francisco, was the first of the speakers added to the symposium to achieve "balance." He spoke on "The medical and scientific evidence for HIV being the cause of AIDS."

He did not, in fact, present a reasoned argument, backed by evidence, that HIV was the cause of AIDS, nor did he acknowledge the points made by the previous speakers. He stated: At the present time it appears that all AIDS patients throughout the world are infected with HIV, and nearly all HIV-positive individuals will eventually get AIDS -- although there does seem to be a small subset who escape that fate. This statement is completely untrue. Even Gallo and Montagnier now admit that most HIV-antibody-positive individuals will not get sick.

Lowenstein talked about "several different patterns of AIDS throughout the world" -- totally ignoring the arguments previously made by Phillip Johnson, Harvey Bialy, and Peter Duesberg, that European/American AIDS and African AIDS are clearly two different epidemics, with different epidemiologies, diseases, and causes.

And he talked about SIV (Simian Immunodeficiency Virus), which causes illness in monkeys in captivity. He did not, however talk about HIV in monkeys, which would have been relevant, but damaging to his case.

Lowenstein's conclusion consisted of unfounded assertions: "In conclusion: the reason why I and 99% of my colleagues are convinced that HIV is the cause of AIDS is that all AIDS patients are infected with HIV, virtually all HIV-positive individuals will get AIDS ... and finally, health care workers with no other risk factors get AIDS from accidental needle-sticks -- there are several dozen such cases."

Discussion

In the discussion period, Lowenstein was reprimanded by other panelists and by members of the audience for having insinuated that AIDS critics were believers in "conspiracy theories." Time and again he was asked to provide references for assertions he had made, and he was either unwilling or unable to do so.

Molecular biologist Harry Rubin pointed out that Lowenstein's slides failed to distinguish between the spread of HIV and the spread of AIDS. Taking issue with Lowenstein's claim that 99% of his colleagues were convinced of the HIV-AIDS etiology, Rubin said that his own colleagues were "pretty confused and uncertain." Rubin stated that the rapid rise in heterosexual AIDS cases, claimed by Lowenstein, was merely "due to re-defining AIDS in order to maintain the public scare that Dr. Thomas was talking about, that AIDS is a threat to the heterosexual community." Lowenstein did not respond to these points.

Nor, in response to a question from Duesberg, could Lowenstein provide a reference for his claim that accidental needle-sticks had resulted in AIDS. Nor, faced with questions from Bialy, could Lowenstein explain why he had showed a slide with no basis in experimental reality -- nor could he provide support for his claim that HIV replicates in and destroys T-cells.

The morning panel

The morning panel did not include critics of the HIV-AIDS hypothesis. First was Jan Kuby, an immunologist at San Francisco State University. She talked about autoimmunity, T-cell activation, antigens, apoptosis, SCID mice, cytokines, Alzheimers, etc. She informed the audience, "98% of the T-cells are in lymphoid tissues, but most data is [/sic/] based on blood", and asserted: "The virus is infecting cells in the lymph nodes -- massive amounts of virus are being produced there ... even before we can see anything going on in the blood at all."

The above statement is simply not true. The lymph nodes do collect viruses and viral debris -- just as the lint filter in a clothes dryer collects lint -- but if "massive amounts of virus" were being produced anywhere in the body, there would also be massive amounts of virus in the blood.

Next came Michael Ascher, of the California State Department of Health Services, co-author, with Warren Winkelstein, of an article, "Does drug use cause AIDS?" (/Nature/, 11 March 1993). He ridiculed the nitrites-KS connection. He contended that saying AZT causes AIDS diseases is like saying insulin causes diabetes, apparently unaware of Duesberg's extensive analysis of AZT's toxicities.

Next came Robert Schmidt, a physician, who presented a multifactorial approach to diseases of the elderly. It was a thoughtful and interesting talk, but irrelevant to the central topic.

Peter Plumley

The first afternoon speaker, Peter Plumley, spoke on "An actuarial analysis of the AIDS epidemic in the United States." His central thesis was that official AIDS statistics, and pronouncements of the Public Health Service, have greatly distorted and exaggerated the epidemic, resulting in unrealistic perceptions of the relative risk of various sexual acts. The excessive fear of AIDS has adversely affected the lives of many people.

Kary Mullis

Kary Mullis, the 1993 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry addressed the enigma: "Why is there no monograph which marshals all of the arguments in favor of the HIV-AIDS hypothesis?"

Mullis asked dozens of AIDS researchers to supply him with a reference for the assertion that HIV is the probable cause of AIDS. Some of them became angry, and others said he didn't need a reference, because "everyone knows that." Some suggested a totally inadequate CDC report.

Finally, Luc Montagnier came to San Diego, and Mullis thought, "this guy will know." After the meeting I asked him, and he first mentioned the CDC report, and I said I had already looked at it, that it wasn't what I was looking for -- that I wanted a scientific paper that would support the notion that HIV is the probable cause of AIDS, not the consensus of a bunch of people who'd already begun looking at it. He said, "Well, why don't you quote the SIV work?" And I said to myself, "Oh my god! There really isn't such a paper, there can't be, or he wouldn't have to refer ... to a virus that might kill a monkey ... to illustrate the probability that HIV is the cause of AIDS!"

Harry Rubin

Harry Rubin, Professor of Molecular Biology at Berkeley, spoke on "The rush to simplification of complex problems in biomedical science: Cancer and AIDS." Rubin described his pioneering work forty years ago on the Rous sarcoma virus: "The first virus identified and characterized as a retrovirus -- the one that, at least until AIDS, was the one most studied and worked on." As viruses of this kind had been associated since 1910 with several types of leukemia in chickens, they were given the name, Avian Leukosis Virus.

However, Rubin subsequently found that these leukemias could and would occur in the absence of the retroviruses. Further, among the chickens that were infected, whose every cell was infected and constantly producing virus, only 15% developed the leukosis. "In spite of these findings, these viruses are still called Leukemia or Leukosis viruses, as they have been for 85 years."

Rubin then discussed cancer, concluding: "Cancer can only be understood at the level of the complex dynamics of cellular interaction with the aging process and other such considerations as diet, smoking, lifestyle, etc." The same basic process is at work in AIDS. "If there ever was a case of multifactorial disease occurrence, in my estimation, AIDS is the case."

Bryan Ellison

Bryan Ellison is a graduate student in molecular and cell biology in Berkeley. His talk, "Drug use does cause AIDS: A reappraisal of the San Francisco Men's Health Study," was a severe critique of the article by Michael Ascher, Warren Winkelstein, et al. The Ascher report claimed that AIDS and T-cell depletion occurred only in the men who were HIV-antibody-positive, and that drug use had no effect on either T-cell depletion over time or the development of AIDS.

Ellison and his colleagues obtained the raw data, and found that Ascher /et al./ had seriously misreported the data: By ignoring huge gaps and striking selection biases in the database, Ascher et al. reached the unsupportable conclusions that HIV-positive and HIV-negative men used similar amounts of drugs and that levels of drug use were not related to the risk of developing AIDS. In contrast, we found that HIV-positive men used significantly more heavy drugs than did HIV-negatives, and that drug use was more highly correlated with AIDS-related diseases than was HIV. Ellison characterized the misreporting of data by Ascher and Winkelstein a "serious breach of scientific ethics," and called upon them to retract the paper.

Charles Geshekter

Charles Geshekter, spoke on "rethinking the AIDS epidemic in Africa." Official statistics, he maintained, have been unreliable to the point of absurdity. Africa is supposed to be saturated with HIV, its population ravaged by the AIDS epidemic. And yet, since 1981 -- thirteen years -- there have been only 151,000 confirmed AIDS cases in all of Africa. Most AIDS cases are diagnosed on clinical symptoms alone. The HIV antibody tests, ELISA and Western Blot, are almost useless, as they cross- react with antibodies to many diseases that are endemic to Africa. Furthermore, the symptoms attributed to "AIDS" are indistinguishable from those that have plagued Africa since the beginning of the 20th century. Geshekter debunked the media myth that the African AIDS catastrophe can only be averted through the intervention of Western science. Particularly dangerous is the pressure to use AZT on HIV-positive Africans.

Warren Winkelstein

Warren Winkelstein, Professor of Public Health at Berkeley, spoke on "Inferences from epidemiological data." His brief talk mostly presented points from the report he had co-authored with Michael Ascher. He showed a slide, in which none of the HIV-negative men developed AIDS, whereas those who were either HIV-positive upon entry into the study, or became so later, did.

Winkelstein addressed Bryan Ellison's accusation, that at least 45 HIV- negative men had developed AIDS-diseases. This was ridiculous, said Winkelstein, because if these 45 men had really had AIDS, then 36 of them ought to have died, according to the latest AIDS projections. However, only [ONLY!] 7 of them had died.

Winkelstein's logic is faulty. No matter how sick the 45 HIV-negative men were, they could not officially have been diagnosed as having "AIDS." Therefore, they would not have received a prognosis of death, and they would not have been prescribed AZT! One could use Winkelstein's data to argue that an AIDS diagnosis is deadlier than AIDS itself.

The Final Panel

For the final panel, all of the speakers came on stage. None of the pro-HIV speakers even attempted to rebut the dozens of arguments that had been advanced against the HIV-AIDS hypothesis. On the whole the event was a triumph for the side questioning the AIDS orthodoxies. The AIDS-skeptics achieved a critical mass, and spoke with confidence and authority. Those who attempted to defend the official dogmas were confused and defensive; they failed to rebut or even acknowledge the points made by the skeptics; and in short, they put on a very poor show. It is clear that the official AIDS experts cannot compete in a free and open debate. The principle of "balance" should be applied to all future AIDS programs. Never again should only the HIV-AIDS point-of-view be represented.