Biochemist describes AZT as poison
Henry Hess There is no proof that the human immunodeficiency virus causes AIDS, and treatments based on that theory are putting people's lives at risk, a Nobel-Prize-winning biochemist told a Toronto audience last night. Describing the AIDS drug AZT as "a poison which has been prescribed by doctors... for a disease supposedly caused by an organism no one has isolated." Kary Mullis said people should be skeptical of scientific orthodoxy. Dr. Mullis, who shared the 1993 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for his invention of the polymerase chain-reaction technique for replicating DNA, said his skepticism about HIV started in the late 1980s when, in filling out an application for research funding, he was unable to find a scientific reference to support the idea that HIV caused AIDS. "A lot of people think that we have that [proof] when we really don't." Not only has HIV never been isolated in the way that other viruses, such as polio, have been, he said, but researchers have also been unable to prove a causal link between HIV and any of the diseases associated with AIDS. Nevertheless, he said, AIDS is defined as HIV infection, a situation he described as "one closed, tight circle of stupidity." By Dr. Mullis's account, the discovery of HIV owed more to politics and economics than to science. By the mid-1980s, he said, 10,000 scientists who had spent the last decade in a fruitless search for a virus that caused cancer were about to lose their jobs. At the same time, pressure was mounting on then U.S. president Ronald Reagan to do something about the AIDS epidemic in the United States. In short order, he said, a French and an American researcher who were specialists in C-type retroviruses announced that they had isolated such a virus in material taken from the lymph nodes of a Parisian decorator, and the rest is history. Despite his credentials as a scientific heavyweight, Dr. Mullis is equally famous as an iconoclast and intellectual daredevil. His recent autobiography, Dancing Naked in the Mind Field, deals with, among other things, his belief in flying saucers. His lecture was sponsored by HEAL (Health Education AIDS Liaison), a group challenging the scientific link between HIV and AIDS. In its published literature, HEAL asserts that the so-called drug cocktails aimed at eradicating HIV "harm far more patients than they help" because they are toxic to the immune system, do not address the underlying problems of immune deficiency and do not allow for the possibility that many HIV-positive people will not develop AIDS.* //////////////////////////////////////////////// The Toronto Star Oct. 19th 1998 Nobel scientists questions cause of AIDS U.S. chemist says he doubts HIV to blame
By Theresa Ebden Ten years ago, Kary Mullis asked a question he says no one could answer: What causes AIDS? He still hasn't gotten an answer that gives him the proof he needs. ``That's pretty scary,'' the U.S. scientist and Nobel prize winner saidto a crowd of about 150 at University of Toronto's OISE auditorium on Bloor St. W. last night. Mullis, 53, was invited to speak by the AIDS dissident group HEAL (Health Education AIDS Liaison), which claims to have 500 supporters in Toronto and Vancouver and 10,000 worldwide. He has lent his voice to this small minority who believe that the medical research community is wrong in claiming that HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) is the infectious agent that causes AIDS. AIDS dissidents claim AIDS is the result of a weakened immune system due to sexually transmitted diseases like syphilis, as well as multiple viral infections and lifestyle factors, including nutrition and drug abuse. The group he spoke to was made up mostly of AIDS dissidents - a label he told them he despises. ``It's like we're starting a revolution, but we're just asking a question,'' Mullis said. Mullis first began to ask what caused AIDS while writing a proposal for funding for a research project to test for HIV- tainted blood. At the time, he was working for the U. S. National Institutes of Health. ``I could not write that HIV was the known cause of AIDS,'' he said, because he could find no research that backed up that claim. He said that for the next 10 years, he attended conferences, searched libraries and the Internet and did not find one incidence where it had been proven that HIV causes AIDS. Mullis urged members of the audience to look up ``AIDS and cause and HIV'' on the Internet. ``You won't find thousands of medical research papers,'' he said. ``No one has ever isolated HIV. No one has a bottle in their lab called HIV.'' It has certainly never been found in animals, he said, although some scientists say a similar virus, SIV (simian immunodeficiency virus) appears in monkeys. But if the monkey disease were really all that similar ``we would be testing cures, not in willing people, but in unwilling monkeys.''
`No one has ever isolated HIV. No one has a bottle in their lab called HIV.' - Chemist Kary Mullis Carl Strygg, co-founder of HEAL Toronto, says he invited Mullis to show that scientists are questioning current AIDS research and also to inform people of the dangers of AZT, which Mullis opposes as a treatment for AIDS because it is highly toxic and has severe side effects. Mullis, who is known for being a hard-drinking, thrice-divorced surfer and a fan of psychedelic drugs, has been attacked by critics for his views as well as his lifestyle. ``Critics who attack someone's lifestyle are just as guilty as the people who suppress the questions in the first place,'' said Leslie Anthony, a scientist at the Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation of Biology at the Royal Ontario Museum. He likened Mullis to Vincent Van Gogh and Sigmund Freud, both geniuses of their time who used illicit drugs, he said after Mullis' speech. Mullis received the Nobel prize in chemistry in 1993 for developing the polymerase chain reaction method, a technique that allows researchers to produce millions of copies of a single microscopic strand of DNA within hours. At the time, it was cutting-edge in AIDS research - touted to be a way to seclude HIV, which scientists then theorized was the cause of AIDS. He later used his research for more bizarre causes. In 1995, he bought the rights to extract DNA from a lock of Elvis Presley's hair, and using his ``gene amplification'' method that won him the Nobel Prize, he was to make millions of copies of Presley's genes and preserve them inside artificial gemstones, to be made into a line of jewelry. More recently, Mullis assisted O. J. Simpson's defence team as a DNA expert. ////////////////////////////////////////////////
Monday, October 19, 1998 'Danger' in HIV theory By JACKIE BURNS, Toronto Sun Arguing his theory that HIV doesn't cause AIDS, Nobel prize-winning chemist Dr. Kary Mullis last night angered local doctors who say his message removes incentives to safe sex. "I think it's dangerous," said Dr. Meb Rashid, a family doctor who has travelled to Africa to work with AIDS patients. "If he discredits the idea of a virus, it takes away incentives for people to practise safe sex." "He's telling people not to take their medication," said Dr. Steve Strigler of Toronto. Speaking at the University of Toronto's OISE auditorium, Mullis, who claims that there is no reference to be found that HIV causes AIDS, dared anybody to prove him wrong. "Go to the Internet and find that reference. Find that person who told the world that HIV causes AIDS," he challenged the packed auditorium. The eccentric 53-year-old Californian, who has a PhD in biochemistry and admits to having endulged in hallucinogenic drugs and pot, left many in the crowd either doubled over in laughter or too angry to talk. The forum was set up by HEAL, (Health Education AIDS Liaison), a dissident AIDS group, which claims 500 supporters in Toronto and Vancouver and 10,000 worldwide.
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