AIDS & HIV

1. AIDS & HIV

2. 1911 RSV Life Cycle

3. RSV Genome

4. Duesberg on AIDS "The important thing is to not stop questioning." Albert Einstein

5. Professor Duesberg

6. Peter H. Duesberg, Ph.D. • Peter H. Duesberg, Ph.D. is a professor of Molecular and Cell Biology at the University of California, Berkeley. • He isolated the first cancer gene through his work on retroviruses in 1970, and mapped the genetic structure of these viruses. • This, and his subsequent work in the same field, resulted in his election to the National Academy of Sciences in 1986.

7. Challenge • On the basis of his experience with retroviruses, Duesberg has challenged the virus-AIDS hypothesis in the pages of such journals as Cancer Research, Lancet, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Science, Nature, … • He has instead proposed the hypothesis that the various American/European AIDS diseases are brought on by the long-term consumption of recreational drugs and/or AZT itself, which is prescribed to prevent or treat AIDS.

8. Challenge • There are other scientists that support his views such as Kary B. Mullis. • Kary Mullis won the 1993 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his invention of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) technique for various DNA manipulations. • In particular, this technique is used to search for fragments of HIV in AIDS patients.

9. The AIDS Dilemma: drug diseases blamed on a passenger virus • In order to develop a hypothesis that explains AIDS we have considered ten relevant facts that American and European AIDS patients have, and do not have, in common: • AIDS is not contagious. For example, not even one health care worker has contracted AIDS from over 800,000 AIDS patients in America and Europe.

10. The AIDS Dilemma: drug diseases blamed on a passenger virus • AIDS is highly non-random with regard to sex (86% male); sexual persuasion (over 60% homosexual); and age (85% are 25-49 years old). • From its beginning in 1980, the AIDS epidemic progressed non-exponentially, just like lifestyle diseases. • The epidemic is fragmented into distinct subepidemics with exclusive AIDS-defining diseases. For example, only homosexual males have Kaposi's sarcoma.

11. The AIDS Dilemma: drug diseases blamed on a passenger virus • Patients do not have any one of 30 AIDS-defining diseases, nor even immunodeficiency, in common. For example, Kaposi's sarcoma, dementia, and weight loss may occur without immunodeficiency. Thus, there is no AIDS-specific disease. • AIDS patients have antibody against HIV in common only by definition-not by natural coincidence. AIDS-defining diseases of HIV-free patients are called by their old names.

12. The AIDS Dilemma: drug diseases blamed on a passenger virus • Recreational drug use is a common denominator for over 95% of all American and European AIDS patients, including male homosexuals. • Lifetime prescriptions of inevitably toxic anti-HIV drugs, such as the DNA chain-terminator AZT, are another common denominator of AIDS patients.

13. The AIDS Dilemma: drug diseases blamed on a passenger virus • HIV proves to be an ideal surrogate marker for recreational and anti-HIV drug use. Since the virus is very rare (< 0.3%) in the US/European population and very hard to transmit sexually, only those who inject street drugs or, have over 1,000 typically drug-mediated sexual contacts are likely to become positive. • The huge AIDS literature cannot offer even one statistically significant group of drug-free AIDS patients from America and Europe.

14. Duesberg’s hypothesis • In view of this, we propose that the long-term consumption of recreational drugs (such as cocaine, heroin, nitrite inhalants, and amphetamines) and prescriptions of DNA chain-terminating and other anti-HIV drugs, cause all AIDS diseases in America and Europe that exceed their long-established, national backgrounds, i.e. >95%. Chemically distinct drugs cause distinct AIDS-defining diseases; for example, nitrite inhalants cause Kaposi's sarcoma, cocaine causes weight loss, and AZT causes immunodeficiency, lymphoma, muscle atrophy, and dementia.

15. Who doubts that HIV causes AIDS? • By far the most significant scientist to question the HIV/AIDS theory is Professor Peter Duesberg, • Other dissidents (often called "denialists") include the Perth Group of medical scientists from Australia. • Dissident arguments have received attention from the popular media, as well as from scientific journals. And with the rise of the Internet, alternative views have found a much wider audience, so that scarcely anyone interested in AIDS can have failed to hear of them. • However, the proportion of scientists who doubt that HIV causes AIDS is tiny, and shows no sign of increasing. Interest in dissident views

16. How can we prove that HIV causes AIDS? Koch's Postulates • In the nineteenth century, the German scientist Robert Koch developed a set of four "postulates" to guide people trying to prove that a germ causes a disease. • Koch 1: The germ must be found in every person with the disease • Koch 2: The germ must be isolated from someone who has the disease and grown in pure culture • Koch 3: The germ must cause the disease when introduced into a healthy person • Koch 4: The germ must be re-isolated from the infected person

17. How can we prove that HIV causes AIDS? Other evidence • Modern scientists are willing to consider a wide range of evidence. In particular, we can ask five key questions: • Do surveillance statistics show a relationship between HIV and AIDS? • How well does HIV infection predict illness and death? • Do drugs designed to combat HIV benefit people with AIDS? • Are there any credible causes besides HIV? • What can we learn from Africa?

18. האם אין קשר בין SEX לבין AIDS? • הבה נדון במנהגים מיניים באזורי אפריקה הנגועים באיידס בצורה מפחידה...

19. "Dry sex" worsens AIDS numbers in Southern Africa • Dry, abrasive vaginas are seen as desirable in sexual intercourse in the vast majority of southern African cultures. • Aversion to moisture in penetration has inflamed the HIV/AIDS epidemic in this region

20. Concern voiced over "dry sex" practices in South Africa • THE LANCET, Volume 352, Page 1292,October 17, 1998. • A  traditional southern African sexual practice−dry sex−aimed at pleasing men, could promote the spread of HIV-1, researchers warn.

21. Concern voiced over "dry sex" practices in South Africa • Many women in the region willingly insert herbal aphrodisiacs, household detergents, and antiseptics into their vaginas before sex, to ensure they are "hot, tight, and dry". This is the way their men like them, they say. • The agents increase friction during sex and although painful for women, they are prepared to forego their own pleasure to ensure their partners return to them. • Sub-Saharan women attain this dryness in various ways.

22. Concern voiced over "dry sex" practices in South Africa • Herbs from the mugugudhu tree are wrapped in a nylon stocking and inserted into the vagina for 10-15 minutes in a procedure that one woman described as "very painful." • Mutendo wegudo (dry soil where a baboon has urinated) is a traditional Zimbabwean recipe.

23. Concern voiced over "dry sex" practices in South Africa • A crushed stone called "wankie" is also utilized, reports the Oct. 23, 1998, World African Network, as are potions called chimhandara ("like a virgin" in Shona) and zvanamina ("taste me only" in Ndebele). • Shredded newspapers, cotton, salt and detergents are also used.

24. Concern voiced over "dry sex" practices in South Africa • Dry sex promulgates HIV/AIDS in three ways: • The lack of lubricant results in lacerations in the delicate membrane tissue, making it easier for the lethal virus to enter. • In addition, the natural antiseptic lactobacilli that vaginal moisture contains aren't available to combat sexually transmitted diseases. • Finally, condoms break far more easily due to the increased friction.

25. Concern voiced over "dry sex" practices in South Africa • South Africa has one of the fastest growing rates of HIV-1 infection in the world, prompting Deputy Presidend Thabo Mebeki's address to the nation on October 9, when he launched a multisectorial anti-AIDS campaign. In the live broadcast, Mbeki said that more than 3 million people are infected with HIV-1 in South Africa and 1500 people are infected each day.

26. Concern voiced over "dry sex" practices in South Africa • Neetha Morar (Medical Research Council, Durban) says dry sex has been reported in many countries. • Zairean women reports the use of traditional substances to tighten the vagina before intercourse. • A study in Zambia found that 86% of women interviewed practices dry sex.

27. Concern voiced over "dry sex" practices in South Africa •  Phillip Kubukeli, President of the Herbalists and Spiritual Healers Association in the Western Cape, says the use of dry sex is most prevalent in Kwazulu-Natal, which has the highest incidence of HIV/AIDS.

28. Concern voiced over "dry sex" practices in South Africa • In the first descriptive study of its kind in South Africa, Norar found dry sex to be prevalent among prostitutes in the midlands of Kwazulu-Natal. • At least 80% of a group of 150 prostitutes aged between 15 and 45 years who work at truck stops favour high, tight, and dry sex.

29. Concern voiced over "dry sex" practices in South Africa • Competition is tough and it is imperative the men return to them for economic reasons. • One woman explains: "men do not like loose vaginas. If sex is wet the man thinks that I have had sex with someone else and then he won't pay me."

30. Concern voiced over "dry sex" practices in South Africa • Morar say the substances used by the women could cause disruption of the membranes lining the vaginal and uterine wall. • In addition, excessive drying could lead to abrasive trauma during sexual intercourse. She says the study indicates the need for urgent public-health intervention in the women who use drying techniques, especially since the effective use of condoms may be compromised by intravaginal substance use.

31. A major policy shift in South Africa • President Thabo Mbeki's cabinet came on the heels of the government's go-ahead for health centers to start dispensing the anti-AIDS drug, Nevirapine, to pregnant HIV infected women. • Doctors say Nevirapine can reduce by 50% the chance that HIV infected women will transmit the virus to their babies.

32. A major policy shift in South Africa • The government was forced to dispense the drug as a result of a series of court rulings. • The government had wanted to pilot the drug in only 18 hospitals. • But the rulings expanded the program to include many more public health centers. Government lawyers have argued against the use of Nevirapine, calling it costly and potentially dangerous.

33. A major policy shift in South Africa • With one of the highest rates of rape in the world, the new policy is being highly praised by AIDS activists. One group - the Treatment Action Campaign - said the move gives hope after months of despair. • An estimated one in four South African adults carries the HIV virus. Activists have complained for years the government has not done enough to stem the AIDS pandemic.

34. Koch 1: HIV-1 must be found in every person with the disease • The only way by which dissidents have been able to come up with significant numbers of HIV-free "AIDS" cases is by using much looser definitions of AIDS. • Such definitions include many people with milder immune deficiency, which is generally not fatal.

35. Koch 2: The germ must be isolated from someone who has the disease and grown in pure culture • In May 1983, Luc Montagnier and his colleagues in France reported the isolation of a virus they named LAV, which infected and killed CD4+ cells. • A year later, the American Robert Gallo announced he had isolated a virus called HTLV-III and found a way to grow it in culture. • It was later discovered that the two viruses were genetically indistinguishable, and they were renamed HIV. • Researchers have been able to isolate and culture HIV from most AIDS patients whom they have examined.

36. Koch 3 and 4: The germ must cause the disease when introduced into a healthy person, and the germ must be re-isolated from the infected person • It's considered unethical to deliberately infect someone with pure HIV, so such an experiment has never taken place. However, there is no reason why the transmission has to be deliberate. • There have been three reports of lab workers developing immune deficiency after accidentally exposing themselves to purified, cloned HIV. • None of these people fitted conventional risk groups for the disease.

37. Koch 3 and 4: • Scientists have documented numerous cases of people developing AIDS after becoming infected with HIV as a result of blood transfusions, drug use, mother-to-child transmission, occupational exposure and sexual transmission. In such cases, they have recorded the development of HIV antibodies (seroconversion) using a series of blood tests, before progression to AIDS. Seroconversion is often accompanied by a mild flu-like illness or swollen glands. • Until the mid-1990s, nobody claimed that HIV had fulfilled Koch's last two postulates. • Even today, the proof is not quite perfect. But most scientists believe the evidence is now strong enough to put the case beyond all reasonable doubt.

38. Surveillance statistics • Of all countries, Thailand has one of the best records of HIV surveillance, with around 70 sites included each year since 1990. • The graph shows that during the 1990s there was a dramatic increase in AIDS case reports. • This increase came after a sharp rise in HIV prevalence, with a time lag of a few years (nearly 200,000 HIV tests conducted between 1985 and 1987 produced fewer than 100 positive results

39. How well does HIV infection predict illness and death? • At least half of people develop AIDS-defining conditions within 10 years of HIV infection, if they don't take antiretroviral drugs. Only a few do not develop AIDS within 20 years. • A study of female sex workers in Thailand found the death rate to be over 50 times greater among those who tested positive. All of the positive women died of conditions associated with immune deficiency, compared with none of the negative women.

40. How well does HIV infection predict illness and death? • During a 16-year, large-scale monitoring study of homosexual and bisexual men in the US, 60% of HIV-positives died compared with 2.3% of HIV-negatives. • In the UK between 1979 and 1992, death rates increased massively among In a European study of babies born to HIV-positive women, none of those who tested negative developed AIDS, compared to 30% of those who tested positive. By their first birthday, 17% of the HIV-positive babies had died. • Alternative theories cannot explain why HIV tests should be so effective at predicting illness and death in so many diverse groups of people from all parts of the world. • It is even possible to predict the likelihood that someone will soon develop AIDS by measuring the amount of HIV in their blood, which is known as "viral load".

41. What we don't know • There are still a few things we don't know about HIV and AIDS. • For example, we don't really know why both HIV and AIDS have become generally common in some African countries but not in Europe or the US – though we do have some theories. • Different patterns of sexual networking also have an effect. • Viral loads are especially high during the first few weeks after infection, so the risk of transmission is then much higher. This means that people who have several concurrent sexual partners are able to spread the virus very efficiently before they test positive or fall ill.

42. It is terrible! • Child rape: • A taboo within the AIDS taboo; • More and more girls are being raped by men who believe this will 'cleanse' them of the disease, but people don't want to confront the issue

43. Child rape • WHEN seven-year-old Sibongile saw Baba, her 62-year-old neighbour, standing in the doorway of her house, she trustingly invited him inside. • She knew the old man well - she used to play with his four grandchildren in the sand. • But while she sat at a table in her one-roomed house, he called her to the single bed she shared with her mother and told her he was going to show her his "toy".

44. Child rape • That night, when her 38-year-old mother returned from work, Sibongile complained of being "sore". • But it only after her mother took her daughter to a doctor did the little girl sob and blurt out her story. • Initially denying any involvement in the rape, Baba eventually told Sibongile's mother that he was HIV positive and had wanted to "cleanse" himself by having sex with a virgin. • Sibongile's story is by no means unique.

45. Belief • According to University of Durban-Westville anthropology lecturer and researcher Suzanne Leclerc-Madlala, it is an increasingly typical scenario, played out daily in hundreds of homes throughout South Africa as AIDS carriers target girls under eight years old for sex in the belief that it will cure them of the dreaded disease.

46. Belief • An in-depth investigation by Leclerc-Madlala, who is completing a doctoral thesis on AIDS and related gender issues, suggests that a popular myth that sex with a virgin is the cure for AIDS could be the root cause of this shocking upsurge in child rapes. • AIDS researchers in Zambia, Zimbabwe and Nigeria told her that the myth also exists in these countries and that it is being blamed for the high rate of sexual abuse against young children.

47. Despair • Leclerc-Madlala despairs at what she believes has become a taboo within the AIDS taboo. • "I feel sick in my stomach when I think of the number of young children who are raped by these men who claim that it will cleanse them of AIDS. But because it's such a sensitive issue with potentially racist overtones people don't want to confront the issue." • Leclerc-Madlala, who has also carried out a study on the responses of the Zulu youth to the AIDS epidemic, found that child rape is also committed as a preventive measure to avoid contracting the HIV/AIDS virus from older women.

48. Let them die with me • A 23-year-old male respondent told her: "The thing is everybody over 12 years old in the township might already have the virus. So your chances of not getting it are better if you go for the six- or eight-year-olds. Not 10-year-olds - some are already pretty experienced by that time. • A 20-year-old told her: "If I have HIV I can just go out and spread it to 100 people so we all go together. Why should they be left behind having fun if I must die?"

49. Small girls • Nono Simelela, the director of the national AIDS programme, agrees with Leclerc-Madlala that the myth that AIDS could be cured by having sex with a virgin is prevalent thinking in KwaZulu-Natal. • "But it's totally wrong and tragic, and it's putting lots of young children at risk. People need to really understand what the AIDS virus does to the body," she says. • Ubashany Naidoo, the deputy director of Childline, says the myth is causing huge problems.

50. Huge problems • "We are seeing more and more cases of young rape victims as a result. Some of these children have been raped quite violently. • "Also, a lot of people prefer having sex with children knowing that there is a big chance that the kid may not be HIV-infected."