Why Has AIDS Research Failed?

[Sandi]

I'm not a doctor or scientist, and this post is simply what I believe, after loosing a friend to AIDS, and after several years totaling hundreds of hours, researching for my own knowledge and satisfaction. I don't ask that you agree with me, just that you read this with an open mind. And please watch the video linked at the bottom of this post. If you disagree lets discuss it cordially, and rebut my material instead of me personally. With links when possible. Thank you. 

HIV is a retro-virus that replicates by using reverse transcriptase with an RNA genome to make new copies of itself via a DNA intermediate. HIV is said to suppress the immune system by destroying more CD4-T cells than the body can replace. "But, even in patients dying from AIDS less than 1 in 500 of the T-cells 'that become depleted' are ever infected by HIV" Source: Page-8 (The chemical bases of the various AIDS epidemics: [pdf] Peter Duesberg, Claus Koehnlein and David Rasnick) Yet T cells reproduce at around 5 percent a day, so HIV cannot kill enough of the few T cells they infect—if indeed they kill any—to suppress the immune system. It is one of the hardest things for HIV=AIDS proponents to try to explain; why AIDS patients lack so many T cells if HIV isn't killing that many.

In a normal, healthy body, there are about 1,000 T4, or infection locator cells per microliter of blood, and about half that many T8 killer cells, that go after infections. Millions of these T cells circulate in an inactive state in our bodies. During an immune response stimulated by a virus, for example, T cells reproduce until there are billions of them; they destroy the virus-infected cell, and then they start dying themselves until a baseline level of inactive cells is reached, and the immune system goes back to a resting stage.

So if even in a patient dying from AIDS, only 1 in 500 of the T-cells 'that become depleted' are infected with HIV, it seems very possible that something else may be suppressing the immune system. On HIV=AIDS there are over 100,000 research papers published, yet not one, not a single one, has any direct proof that HIV causes immune deficiency. Their entire theory is based on correlation. This correlation started to fall apart in the early years of AIDS research.

Peter Duesberg, Professor of Molecular and Cell Biology at Berkley University Cal easily found over 4600 AIDS patients who were HIV negative. That caused adjustments to be made to the official AIDS definition to eliminate most cases of HIV negative AIDS. Doctors were pressured not to publish them, or publish them, but not in AIDS journals, and not as AIDS listings. Also unlike other microbes that cause specific diseases, HIV causes no specific disease at all. Not a single one. It supposedly suppresses the immune system so that one or more opportunistic diseases from a list of 33 can flourish. (note the list started at 14 diseases, but 19 were added) Therefore with the AID definition:

Kaposi's Sarcoma + HIV=AIDS
Kaposi's Sarcoma - HIV=Kaposi's Sarcoma

Cytomegalovirus + HIV=AIDS
Cytomegalovirus - HIV=Cytomegalovirus

Wasting Syndrome + HIV=AIDS
Wasting Syndrome - HIV=Wasting Syndrome

Tuberculosis + HIV=AIDS
Tuberculosis - HIV=Tuberculosis

And so on with the rest of the 33 diseases listed as opportunistic to AIDS. This makes it easy to correlate near 100 percent, but it's not objective, it's deceptive, and it isn't scientific. Science is designed to get around such deception. Yet the official definition was changed, based on a predetermined outcome. It is a self fulfilling prophecy, by simply removing what doesn't correlate.

Worldwide, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 28.1 million are HIV positive. The total officially reported AIDS cases is 1.4 million, or only 5 percent of those that have the HIV virus. In the US according to the CDC, 1 to 1.5 million have been infected with HIV since 1984. Approximately a half a million US AIDS cases have been reported after a 15 year latency period, and 62,000 of those were never tested for HIV. In Africa 14 million have HIV, but 97 percent do not have AIDS. There are 442,735 African cases of AIDS, or about 3 percent of those HIV positive. But yet those in the US infected with aids is 90/10 percent, men/women. In Africa although 97 percent are HIV+, AIDS is distributed 50/50 percent between men and women, with only 3 percent of them HIV+. How can this be explained to affect so differently by country and gender, or is there another cause?

By now I hope it is starting to raise some red flags in your mind that say, that maybe AIDS research foundations should begin to look in other areas for the cause of AIDS. While there is no proof of other causes either, there are other correlations that are much better than the HIV=AIDS correlation. Not that we should ever accept correlation as science, but it certainly is a good basis to do research, to confirm or eliminate the suggestions correlation makes. Little of that was done with HIV=AIDS.

Early on there was research being done in another area of correlation, "behavioral research," such as drug use. However that model was abandoned for the infectious HIV=AIDS model. Ever since, AIDS research has had all of it's eggs in one basket.

Lets start with some statistics other than HIV, and see if HIV as the cause should be reappraised, and hopefully stop giving millions of people a misdiagnoses of death, with toxic drugs that are known to suppress the immune system, and can do what HIV hasn't been shown to do. That is that these toxic drugs can cause AIDS itself. How many more have to die?

First, I apologize for some sources below being aged. They are from a DVD, that this post is based on. Newer CDC figures are here and are close. Lets look at who gets AIDS, source CDC 1992:

Homosexual males  62%
IV drug users        32%
Hemophiliacs          1%
Transfusion            2%
                           ——
Total                   97%

Don't jump to the conclusion that if one is homosexuals they are more likely to get AIDS yet just because 62 percent of those with AIDS are homosexual, it is still a small percentage of the gay community, and believe it or not, all are not at risk. Further statistics show that almost all AIDS patients, are or were, drug users, and the homosexual community is a very substantial user of recreational drugs. So at the risk of being accused of gay bashing, when I hope to show that the underlying drug use (94% of cases overall, IV and recreational w/out regard to sexual preference) is the real risk, lets continue.

Drugs used by homosexuals with AIDS.
96%          Nitrite Inhalents (poppers)
35-50%     Ethylchloride Inhalents
50-60%     Cocaine
50-70%     Amphetamines
40%          Phenylcyclidine
40-60%     LSD
40-60%     Metaqualone
25%          Barbituates
90%          Marijuana
10%          Heroine

So if this correlation is worth testing, being homosexual shouldn't put one at risk, but drug use should. However recreational drugs are used substantially, especially as an aphrodisiac in the gay community. The other major group is IV drug users, and we have knows for decades that heavy drug use suppresses the immune system. Since 1909 we have observed the horrendous effects of heroine, morphine, speed, cocaine and other injected drugs on the immune system. Even antibiotics taken in large doses over time can suppress the immune system. Yet no government study has ever been done on the long term effect of hard drugs on the immune system.

Outside of the gay community as well, thousands of HIV negative drug junkies are loosing the same CD4 T cells as AIDS patients. But of course they are not counted as such, as long as they are HIV negative. How does the War on Drugs address this problem? They hand out clean needles and tell them to avoid HIV, leaving them to continue using harsh, highly immune suppressing drugs. Also 70 percent of babies born with AIDS are born to drug addicted mothers. If AIDS research were focused on extended use of hard drugs, as well as, or instead of HIV, could thousands of lives be saved? I think it is a very good possibility.

Please watch this Google video (1HR 13MIN) with an open mind. Yes it is long, but this is a important issue. If you want you can download or buy an inexpensive copy of it.

[Keira]

I always thought that AIDS was an opportunistict infection that was just more lethal than the rests. Yes, finding out why seemingly (I haven't checked the details like this), drug users are more likely to get it would be good. Maybe its the double suppression of HIV and drug use that allows AIDS a way in.

[Sandi]

I always thought that AIDS was an opportunistict infection that was just more lethal than the rests. Yes, finding out why seemingly (I haven't checked the details like this), drug users are more likely to get it would be good. Maybe its the double suppression of HIV and drug use that allows AIDS a way in.

The infections are more lethal of course because the immune system is suppressed, and the body can't fight them, otherwise the 33 diseases that are said to be a result of AIDS, would be treatable. One thing I'm puzzled about, is why the limit to 33, when the body can no longer be able to fight any invasion. However, I suppose that those on the list are most likely to set in first (more opportunistic, ie a cold would develope into pneumonia). Besides I think more AIDS patients die of liver damage from the toxic anti-AIDS drugs, than from any of the opportunistic diseases.

Also the AIDS diseases that set in are different depending on whether one uses IV drugs (TB, Wasting Syndrome), or nitrite inhalants (Karposi's Sarcoma, Cytonegalovirus). When using either for a long time, the person isn't likely to be sleeping or eating much and Malnutrition often sets in too (another on the list of 33). But it hardly seems like the HIV virus would know what type of drugs the person was abusing. Therefore I am convinced that Dr Duesberg is right, that HIV is just a harmless passenger virus.

Just look at the long term effects of legal substances like lung cancer from tobacco, and Cirrhosis of the Liver from alcohol. We should expect more, not less consequences from harsher chemicals; IV drugs, poppers, cocaine etc. And BTW tobacco and alcohol do tend to weaken the immune system also.

[Elizabeth]

Failed? Are you kidding? It's a huge money maker. It costs well over a $1,000,000 to die of AIDS and about $10,000 a month to buy the cocktail of drugs to keep you alive, pretty much indefinitely now, as long as you have the money.

When I was a kid, I never dreamed people would still be dying of cancer in the year 2000. But there is no money in cures. Why spend all that money for a drug that you only get to sell one time, when you can create a drug that people need forever. I think as long as the drug companies and medical business dominate congress and the legislatures of the major western democracies, we will see no cures. The rate of increase of cost of medical just can not be justified. I had a mild heart attack and was in the hospital one day. Most of which was in the emergency room on a gurney or in recovery waiting for a room to become available. The bill? $70,000. Apparently I had to pay the wages of everyone working in the hospital that day. There is no way to justify the costs. It did not cost $70k to treat me.

So as long as HCA and Glaxo Smith Kline are running things, there won't be a cure for AIDS.

Love always,
Elizabeth

[Sandi]

Failed? Are you kidding? It's a huge money maker. It costs well over a $1,000,000 to die of AIDS and about $10,000 a month to buy the cocktail of drugs to keep you alive, pretty much indefinitely now, as long as you have the money.

Well, I certainly agree with you Elizabeth, AIDS is a multibillion dollar industry. Also drugs like AZT are only effective for a few months, but that the effect drops of sharply after that. T-4 cells rise for a while and then plummet. Probably because AZT although it certainly will kill HIV and other virus easily, it is also much better at killing T cells. Prolonged use can actually cause AIDS by itself.

AZT is a failed cancer drug that was first made in the 1950's and then abandoned. It was abandoned then because it was deemed way too toxic for human use. Maybe they decided to use it anyway because of the terminal nature of AIDS. What was a sick crime though (and I think the practice was stopped, except for maybe in Africa) was forcing mothers who were HIV+ to give AZT to their HIV+ children. If they refused their children were taken away. This chilling story of experiments on children in NY is just one example.

acklyn Hoerger's job was to treat children with HIV at a New York children's home.

But nobody had told her that the drugs she was administering were experimental and highly toxic.

"We were told that if they were vomiting, if they lost their ability to walk, if they were having diarrhoea, if they were dying, then all of this was because of their HIV infection."

In fact it was the drugs that were making the children ill and the children had been enrolled on the secret trials without their relatives' or guardians' knowledge.

As Jacklyn would later discover, those who tried to take the children off the drugs risked losing them into care.

[Melissa-kitty]

Back in the day, late 80s, I was involved in neuroimmunological research with HIV patients. There is a general activation of the antibody producing cells, in addition with suppression of other immune cells. Sometimes, it is difficult to tell what infections are raging, if you look just at antibodies, which is the usual approach.
Please do not insult the hardworking people in medicine and nursing, researchers, and advocates of many stripes by stating that research has failed, or that they are blocking a cure. That is paranoid and insulting. The research has been very active, with many many advances. Cure would be nice, but so many things are not at that point, not just with HIV.
Tara

[LostInTime]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helper_T_cell#HIV_infection
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apoptosis

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HIV

HIV differs from many other viruses as it has very high genetic variability. This diversity is a result of its fast replication cycle, with the generation of 109 to 1010 virions every day, coupled with a high mutation rate of approximately 3 x 10-5 per nucleotide base per cycle of replication and recombinogenic properties of reverse transcriptase.[67] This complex scenario leads to the generation of many variants of HIV in a single infected patient in the course of one day.[67] This variability is compounded when a single cell is simultaneously infected by two or more different strains of HIV. When simultaneous infection occurs, the genome of progeny virions may be composed of RNA strands from two different strains. This hybrid virion then infects a new cell where it undergoes replication. As this happens, the reverse transcriptase, by jumping back and forth between the two different RNA templates, will generate a newly synthesized retroviral DNA sequence that is a recombinant between the two parental genomes.[67] This recombination is most obvious when it occurs between subtypes.[67]

[Jonie]

Drug companies make money treating illness not curing it. If a drug company invented a pill that you could take once and you would never get sick again it would be bad for their bottom line.

[Sandi]

Please do not insult the hardworking people in medicine and nursing, researchers, and advocates of many stripes by stating that research has failed, or that they are blocking a cure.

More than 120 billion has been spent in the past 20 years, and we are no closer now than then. Not only was the 2 years to a vaccine never reached (which was way over optimistic), but we are no closer now than we were 20 years ago. In light of that, it isn't out of line, or an insult, to say that research has failed, it has.

Nor do I mean to insult all of medical science. There are tens of thousands of good people in medicine, and medical science. However there is also a lot of corruption. AIDS is a multi-billion dollars industry with all its eggs in one basket, categorically refusing to look at opposing views. Money talks, and truth walks.

The real insult is to Dr Peter Duesberg, Professor of Molecular and Cell Biology, Berkley University, CA; who probably knows more about retro-virus than anyone. He isolated the first so-called cancer gene in 1970, and had worked out the genetic structure of several retroviruses; the is a recipient of NIH Outstanding Investigator award; California Scientist of the Year Award in 1971; elected to National Academy of Sciences in 1986, and over a dozen other awards.

Other top scientists like Kary Mullis, the inventor of PCR, takes a dim view of the incorrect way in vitro PCR is used to to amplify HIV. The establishment does little but ridicule Duesberg, Mullis and other top scientists, instead of rebuttal, they call them flat-earthers, murders, and pseudo scientists. Why is the establishment so afraid to look behind the curtain?

[Elizabeth]

Back in the day, late 80s, I was involved in neuroimmunological research with HIV patients. There is a general activation of the antibody producing cells, in addition with suppression of other immune cells. Sometimes, it is difficult to tell what infections are raging, if you look just at antibodies, which is the usual approach.
Please do not insult the hardworking people in medicine and nursing, researchers, and advocates of many stripes by stating that research has failed, or that they are blocking a cure. That is paranoid and insulting. The research has been very active, with many many advances. Cure would be nice, but so many things are not at that point, not just with HIV.
Tara

Tara,

I am not insulting the good people who work in medicine. I am talking about the fact that this is business and when it comes to what drugs are going to be developed and which ones are not, it is not based on what is best for the public, but what will make the most money for the shareholders. As long as we fail to see health care as human right, we will continue to see these abuses. It's not about the good people who work in medicine, it's about the bad people in grey suits who pay them.

Love always,
Elizabeth

[Jonie]

Back in the day, late 80s, I was involved in neuroimmunological research with HIV patients. There is a general activation of the antibody producing cells, in addition with suppression of other immune cells. Sometimes, it is difficult to tell what infections are raging, if you look just at antibodies, which is the usual approach.
Please do not insult the hardworking people in medicine and nursing, researchers, and advocates of many stripes by stating that research has failed, or that they are blocking a cure. That is paranoid and insulting. The research has been very active, with many many advances. Cure would be nice, but so many things are not at that point, not just with HIV.
Tara

Tara,

I am not insulting the good people who work in medicine. I am talking about the fact that this is business and when it comes to what drugs are going to be developed and which ones are not, it is not based on what is best for the public, but what will make the most money for the shareholders. As long as we fail to see health care as human right, we will continue to see these abuses. It's not about the good people who work in medicine, it's about the bad people in grey suits who pay them.

Love always,
Elizabeth

...or is it about a system that brings out the bad in otherwise good people. Many companies sell stock and have a board of directors whose only job is to make the stock holders happy. Not to cure disease, or treat their workers fairly, or to make sure their product isn't sold at an obscene price that's not in the publics best interest. This system puts a buffer in between the investor and any accountability for company policy. A policy which encourages the bosses to behave as greedy or as sociopathic as they feel they need to because well, "it's what's best for the bottom line," and they are after all as they see it working for people whose only concern is to make as much money as possible by any means necessary.
I think investors should be required to list their email address at the companies website so they can be contacted and informed of all the decisions made in their name. Then maybe "the system" will have the oversight it needs, maybe it will develop a conscience.

[Chynna]

speaking as someone who tee ter toters between the two...the current definition or diaganoses is basically defined by 2 factors:

A person T-cell count CD4 and CD8 counts

VS.

A person Viral Load
(the amount of registered replicated copies of HIV virus per one drop of a unit of the petients blood)

So for example,
A person with a "T cell count" of only 100 (exetremely weak immune system) and Tuberculosis but with an "undectectable" Viral load would not be classified as having AIDS just HIV + .

However, A Healthy (meaning no other infections to speak of beside HIV) person Having a T-cell count of 110 and a viral load over 100,000 copies per unit would be considered having AIDS.

Most individuals do not realize that it takes more than 1 good white blood cell to kill just one cell of a Cold Virus. Usually, its more like a ratio of 1 infectionous cell "agent" per 50 or more White blood cells to comabat an infection effectively. Then you have to factor in the more T-cells (white blood cells) your immune system produces the more the HIV virus is stimulate to reproduce ergo killing or rather controlling more of them and creating more of themselves.

A doctors most famous line which ive heard OH SO MANYTIMES is this is not a death sentance....LOL but realistically as I always remind them it is eventually. The virus however small and fragile it actually is....
Is extremely clever and smart, constantly changing itself and adapting. So its not that we dont have a cure...almost any HIV med you can name is a cure its just that by the time the "meds" begin to work the virus as already adapted and changed its gentic code to adapt and overcome the treatment. Clever little buggers.

This is something I've lived everyday of my life for  sometime and this is how I've come to understand my illness through countless doctors and emergency room visits.

But hey do your own research if ya dont believe me.

Down but not out!! (yet)

[RebeccaFog]

    I think Chynna's answer makes the most sense concerning why AIDS research has failed.  I guess the 2nd reason would be Sandi's conclusion that some points of view are cut of the decision making due to being unaccepted by the mainstream, or better funded, establishment.

   My opinion as I said.

   The conclusion that it is money only that prevents cures from being discovered doesn't seem to apply to AIDS because the medical industry would make more money by providing continuous medication to patients who never die, and, if they could find a complete cure then they could certainly find a 'sub-cure' that promises a diabetes type situation where most patients have to purchase the equipment and medication for life.  The 'sub-cure' reasoning would also mean that, with the disease under control, the companies wouldn't have to spend so much on Research, thus making them even more money because they would have a lot less expenses overall. It would be cheaper to manufacture the 'sub-cure' and then throw tiny amounts of money at research just to give the impression they care.