Breaking News!
visit these news pages
VirusMyth.com   AidsMyth.com

'Slow progressor'
By William Gilpin
Maclean's May 20, 2002 / Essay
In the 20 years since Canada's first case was reported in Windsor, Ont., Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) has devastated our gay communities, particularly in the larger cities. Since far fewer people with AIDS are dying now than a decade ago, it is tempting to conclude that current treatments have the situation under control. For a significant, but uncounted, number of patients that simply is not the case. ...

Selling sickness: the pharmaceutical industry and disease mongering
British Medical Journal  2002;324:886-891 ( 13 April )
A lot of money can be made from healthy people who believe they are sick. Pharmaceutical companies sponsor diseases and promote them to prescribers and consumers. Ray Moynihan, Iona Heath, and David Henry give examples of "disease mongering" and suggest how to prevent the growth of this practice

San Francisco Department of Public Health claim HIV infections among gay men have doubled.
How the San Francisco Department of Public Health turns a 30% decline in HIV infections among gay men into a two-fold increase. Dr. David Rasnick has provided an excellent analysis of the ongoing numbers game that San Francisco's Health Department has been playing with HIV rates. The truth is HIV numbers are down. HIV prevention workers are unable to tell the truth to young gay men for fear that their lucrative funding will be threatened.

The trouble with nevirapine*
By Anthony Brink
Advocate of the High Court of South Africa
[*also known as Viramune]
This article is divided into four parts:
Part One relates the history and licensing of nevirapine in the US and Europe, and outlines its pharmacology and its toxicities;
Part Two reveals the extraordinary circumstances in which the drug was licensed in Canada;
Part Three looks at a South African clinical drug trial involving nevirapine and other drugs, aborted by order of the Medicines Control Council in April 2001 after a spate of severe toxic reactions, several fatal;
Part Four provides a critique for non-expert readers of HIVNET 012, the Ugandan study of the effect of administering nevirapine to HIV-positive pregnant women conducted by Guay et al, on the basis of which the Treatment Action Campaign won an order from the High Court on 15 December 2001 compelling the South African government to supply the drug to such women and their newborn children.

PERTH GROUP PRESENTATION ON NEVIRAPINE
By Val Turner
View the 83 slides, and listen to the audio stream (Real audio, 65 min.), or read the transcript.
This presentation has been prepared by Eleni Papadopulos and the Perth Group and several other colleagues. The subject is an analysis of the data claimed to prove nevirapine an effective agent for the prevention of mother to child transmission of HIV. The presenter is Dr. Val Turner from the Department of Emergency Medicine, Royal Perth Hospital.

'A pill for every ill'
National Post April 12, 2002
Drug companies are "disease-mongering" in a bid to sell healthy consumers pills for a range of problems such as baldness and shyness, doctors say.

PM avoids criticizing Africans' records
By DANIEL LEBLANC
With a report from Melissa Leong
The Globe and Mail Monday, April 8, 2002 – Print Edition, Page A1
PRETORIA -- In his bid to forge a new partnership to improve the way African nations are governed, Prime Minister Jean Chrétien is avoiding many of the thorny issues that cause some of the strongest Western criticism of the nations he visits. Yesterday, Mr. Chrétien refused to comment on South Africa's slow distribution of an anti-AIDS drug to pregnant women, which even former South African president Nelson Mandela has criticized.

Mbeki may be right
By DAVID CROWE
The Globe and Mail LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Tuesday, April 9, 2002 – Page A14
Calgary -- It is good that Prime Minister Jean Chrétien did not criticize South African President Thabo Mbeki over his refusal to provide AIDS drugs to pregnant women. Mr. Mbeki is probably right.

A shocking shrug
The Globe and Mail EDITORIAL Tuesday, April 9, 2002 – Page A14
Confronted with one of the great human tragedies of the modern age, what did Prime Minister Jean Chrétien do and say? He shrugged and he mouthed platitudes. How African countries fight the terrifying AIDS epidemic is up to them, Mr. Chrétien told reporters Sunday in Pretoria. This from a prime minister who does not shy away from telling countries when, in his view, their foreign policies are wrong, their trade practices are wrong or even -- sometimes -- when their abuse of human rights is wrong.

Health, human dignity and partners for poverty reduction
Letter from Thabo Mbeki published in this week's ANC Today. "This is especially important given the very unfortunate reality that some in our society and elsewhere in the world, seem very determined to impose the view on all of us, that the only health matters that should concern especially the black people are HIV/AIDS, HIV, and complex anti-retroviral drugs, including nevirapine."

News 24 Story: Mbeki slams AIDS lobbyists

Revolution is his trade – be it war or medicine
OPED, The Star, Johannesburg 4 April 2002
Former revolutionary Peter Mokaba played a leading role in the publication of the ANC’s controversial political document supporting the dissident view on HIV/AIDS which has the backing of President Thabo Mbeki but has been slammed by health professionals, writer Glynnis Underhill.

New study shows AIDS drugs equally effective as poverty and malnutrition.
Summary: Median time from seroconversion to AIDS and death in poor, starving rural Africans (without access to health care, purified water or electricity) living in the Masaka District of Uganda (where malaria, dysentery and measles are endemic) is no different than that observed in Europeans, North Americans, or Australians who have full access to proper nutrition, health-care, "life-prolonging" antiretrovirals, and prophylaxis against opportunistic infections (OI)!
Conclusion: These observations are consistent with the hypothesis that antiretrovirals are killing people just as fast as poverty and malnutrition.

Africa govt must provide AIDS drug - court
JOHANNESBURG, March 25 (Reuters) - A high court judge ruled on Monday that South Africa must provide women with an anti-AIDS drug that cuts the risk they will pass the deadly virus to their babies, an anti-AIDS group said.

Drug firm withdraws nevirapine
Business Day (South Africa) March 23, 2002
Problems which US officials said were "potentially quite serious" prompted the withdrawal of an application for approval to allow pregnant women and newborn babies to take an existing AIDS drug.

Jimmy Carter angers ANC
Business Day (South Africa) March 10, 2002
The African National Congress has reacted angrily to former United States president Jimmy Carter's statements on how President Thabo Mbeki should respond to the HIV and Aids pandemic. "We find it alarming that president Carter is willing to treat our people as guinea pigs, in the interest of pharmaceutical companies, which he would not do in his own country," the ANC said in media statement in Johannesburg.

Programmes and pitfalls
T.K. RAJALAKSHMI
Frontline, Volume 19 - Issue 06, Mar. 16 - 29, 2002
India's National Magazine from the publishers of THE HINDU
The National AIDS Control Organisation's programme to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV fails to take into account the serious side-effects of the drugs that are under consideration.

Blood-test bill a violation of privacy, Radwanski says
The Globe and Mail Friday, February 22, 2002
OTTAWA -- Canadians would suffer a ''massive violation of privacy'' from a bill that would force people to take blood tests for viruses such as HIV if it is suspected they infected a police officer or health-care worker, federal Privacy Commissioner George Radwanski warned yesterday. [...] Mr. Strahl's Tory-DRC coalition and the Canadian Alliance said they believe the balance of rights should favour people who fear they have been infected, and might choose to take toxic drugs.

The AIDS Lie In India: Back From The Dead
Outlook (India) / Magazine | Feb 25, 2002
The great Indian AIDS crisis now looks a case of statistical blunders and NGOs weaned on a share of the grants.

President Mbeki might have a case on rethinking AIDS
BMJ 2002;324:237 ( 26 January ) Letters
EDITOR - As a prison medical officer in South Africa, I partly agree with President Mbeki's sceptical view of current statistical research into HIV infection and AIDS. The research data tend to be formulated from actuarial models and short trials in pregnant women attending antenatal clinics. Pregnancy is known to cause a raised rate of false positive results on testing for HIV infection with enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). The results of such research lead to frightening statistics, giving the impression that the whole of southern Africa will be depopulated within the next 24 months. [Full Text]

When H.I.V. Made Its Jump to People
By GINA KOLATA The New York Times January 29, 2002
This NYTimes report takes us through the looking glass to visit the vanguard of HIV research. The image of HIV researchers conjuring "traces of the virus" out of the RNA cobwebs in urine and feces from chimpanzees has to mark a new height of absurdity. One can only try to imagine the gene-tech jabberwocky contrived to identify these "AIDS viruses", given what has been admitted about the so-called "isolation" of "HIV" (more on that subject here). It never seems to occur to HIV researchers that the ouija board they installed in their DNA sequencer may be getting everything disconbobulated.

Science Fictions: A Scientific Mystery, A Massive Cover-Up, and the Dark Legacy of Robert Gallo
by John Crewdson

Hardcover - 672 pages (February 19, 2002)
Little Brown & Company; ISBN: 0316134767

Amazon.com:

Science Fictions recounts the most notorious biomedical scandal of our times: the Robert Gallo affair. It is not, author John Crewdson says, "about AIDS. Nor is it really about science." Indeed. It is a tale of behavior most base in circles most rarified.

In 1983 Gallo, of the National Cancer Institute, and a group of scientists at Paris's Pasteur Institute announced their isolating of separate AIDS viruses. The stakes--moneyed prizes and patents, not to mention cures--were stratospheric. By 1985, the Pasteur Institute filed suit claiming that Gallo--whose discovery was actually a dead end--had appropriated "their" virus as his own. In 1992, the National Academy of Sciences agreed, accusing Gallo of "intellectual recklessness" and "essentially immoral" behavior.

This definitive, chilling book is also, unfortunately, a daunting one. Its sheer size--notes, glossary, and list of characters alone occupy 100 pages--and scientific complexity will defeat all but the most determined and scientifically informed reader. --H. O'Billovich

See: GALLO INVESTIGATED

From David Rasnick:

[Rasnick was a member of South African President Thabo Mbeki's expert AIDS Panel.]

After all these months, the Mail & Guardian has published (I think all) of my letters that were not published before in one big installment.

You can find them at http://www.mg.co.za/mg/letters/rasnick.html

The only reason I can think of for this sudden action is that the owners of the Mail & Guardian are looking for a buyer of the newspaper and may want to clean the slate.

Now, if only the Independent would publish all the letters I sent it over the last months, its slate would be clean too.

Dave

Please help support the effort to release David Pasquarelli and Michael Petrelis:
San Francisco AIDS activists Michael Petrelis and David Pasquarelli have been imprisoned on felony charges, and a combined bail of $1 million, resulting from their alleged participation in a phone, fax and email zap to bring attention to AIDS corruption and oppose the dangerous quarantine plans contained in the Model States Emergency Health Powers Act. Currently The Direct Action Civil Liberties Fund are raising money to assist them. The following provides some background on the situation:

The Globe bungles their World AIDS Day hype
In a clumsy mix-up of Health Canada's figures, a November 30th article in The Globe and Mail wrongly reported a recent increase in AIDS amongst gay men. The Globe then cast the blame on gay men for allegedly "returning to the risky sexual behavior that marked the first devastating years of the epidemic."

AIDS study could ease drug burden for patients
By ROD MICKLEBURGH
The Globe and Mail
Wednesday, November 28, 2001 – Print Edition, Page A1
"Published treatment guidelines are being rewritten as we speak," said Mr. Hillson, board chairman of the B.C. Persons With AIDS Society. He takes seven antiretroviral pills a day, plus about 20 others to combat side effects. "These drugs are not only debilitating. They can also be very dangerous. We've had 62 patients on the drug program suffer heart attacks," he said. "There are also high incidences of liver failure, diabetes, osteoporosis and fat accumulation. It's very good news that not . . . [taking] these drugs will do more good than harm."

AIDS in Africa: In Search of the Truth
The ground-breaking Rolling Stone article that takes a critical look at government and media reports on AIDS in Africa.
by Rian Malan
Rolling Stone (Issue #882; November 22, 2001)
Background: According to popular reports, South Africa is the epicenter of the global AIDS pandemic with estimated cases there currently hovering between 4 and 5 million. When South African president Thabo Mbeki shocked the world by questioning these numbers and inviting a panel of experts to critically evaluate the science and epidemiology of AIDS, Rolling Stone asked South African author and journalist Rian Malan to report on Mbeki's "genocidal AIDS policy". In the resulting article, Malan recounts his search for reasonable evidence of the HIV/AIDS pandemic in Africa, efforts fueled by his sincere desire to reveal the wrong doings of his country's leader. Malan's year-long investigation starts with failed attempts to find clear documentation of claims for massive increases in death, and ends without having ever found the substantiating facts. His article highlights many unanswered questions regarding AIDS numbers and raises concerns about the accuracy of HIV tests which are the foundation for all AIDS estimates in Africa.

Adverse Effects From HIV Drugs Found to Be Common
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - As many as two-thirds of patients on HIV drug combinations may suffer a medication side effect that could affect their adherence to therapy, new study results suggest.

Mad-cow link to humans disputed
Public-health expert calls for new look at theories behind 'the epidemic that never was'
By ANDRé PICARD, PUBLIC HEALTH REPORTER
The Globe and Mail -- Friday, October 12, 2001
So much for all the slaughtered cattle. As with HIV-AIDS, the epidemiological evidence is not consistent with the hypothesis of infectious transmission, but it seems that in the case of BSE-CJD such elementary points can be made publicly without eliciting a chorus of reflexive condemnation.

Medical journals set stricter rules for studies
In an unprecedented move, the editors of the world's leading medical journals have banded together and vow to no longer publish articles in which scientific objectivity is in question.

Mothering Issue #108 September/October 2001 Available at newstands or subscribe here (Look for the full text of these articles at mothering.com on October 15th!)

Skeptical About AIDS Vaccine -- Testing method questioned
By Laurie Garrett -- Newsday September 5, 2001
Even HIV careerists like reporter Laurie Garrett can't find much to commend in the high tech junk science of HIV vaccine research. Any apparent progress is "an artifact of the ways in which the vaccines were tested, critics charge. That's because the super-lethal, artificial monkey AIDS virus used in all of the experiments, called a SHIV, is so different from natural viruses that it produces a different disease, a different immune response and, therefore, "protection" against a totally artificial phenomenon."

Taking HIV to court
Lancet Volume 358, Number 9283, page 681 (1 September 2001)
(The Lancet links here are to pdf files for those with Adobe Acrobat Reader.)
This editoral, which ends on a high note of hubris, begins:

"The decision on how to treat people with HIV infection has never been a simple clinical matter alone. From the beginning of this epidemic each new treatment has been scrutinised, and criticised, as never before, by scientists, doctors, and people with AIDS. [...] Two cases currently underway in South Africa illustrate the extremes of opinion."

Also in the same issue, the attorneys may be interested in the letter on page 759 entitled "Liver failure after long-term nucleoside antiretroviral therapy". Here is the conclusion from that letter:

"In conclusion, we believe that our patient developed liver failure and portal hypertension in the absence of cirrhosis because of long-term nucleoside-analogue therapy without development of symptomatic lactic acidaemia. Gliclazide and metformin are not related to hepatocellular damage; however, tuberculostatic drugs used might have accelerated this process. This case suggests that even mild hyperlactaemia, which occurs in 15-35% of nucleoside-analogue-treated patients, can be associated with progressive liver damage."

ACT UP founder Larry Kramer is looking for a new liver after years on nucleoside-analogue therapy.

Questioning AIDS 
20/20 Friday: A Chat With AIDS Dissident Christine Maggiore

Aug. 27 — In 1992, Christine Maggiore tested positive for HIV after a routine medical exam. Believing she was terminally ill, she devoted herself to warning others about the dangers of AIDS. But a year after she was diagnosed, another HIV test came back indeterminate and a subsequent test was negative. Frustrated and angry, Maggiore desperately searched for answers. The more she read, the more questions she had. Maggiore's controversial book, What if Everything You Thought You Knew About AIDS Was Wrong?, questions the most basic medical and scientific findings about the disease. Activists and many AIDS experts have attacked her for her dissident views, but Maggiore's influence is growing, and her voice has been heard across the country and around the world. Read the transcript of our live chat with Maggiore.

	Christine Maggiore says she doesn't believe HIV causes AIDS. (ABCNEWS.com)	Unafraid of HIV Mother Defies Conventional Wisdom About AIDS Aug. 23 — Christine Maggiore is HIV positive, and experts say there's at least a one-in-four chance that her son and unborn daughter are, too. But she doesn't believe HIV can harm them.

       Go here for the complete transcript of the segment.