Comments on: Harper’s: HIV Doesn’t Cause AIDS, Drug Use Does

By: James Joyner

James Joyner — Sat, 04 Mar 2006 00:24:42 +0000

Dean,

I didn't mean the description "math professor" to be demeaning, just that she is a profesor in the math department. The articles linked on the department website are indeed all about HIV although, judging only from the titles, all in the HIV=AIDS conventional mode.

By: Dean Esmay

Dean Esmay — Sat, 04 Mar 2006 00:16:35 +0000

Oh, and I might note, a very good source, with lots of data--including some primary source data that's never been available to the public yet, can be found right here. It's the single best and most up to date site on the issue. I don't intend to carry on the debate here any further, just thought I'd leave the info for anyone who's genuinely curious.

By: Dean Esmay

Dean Esmay — Fri, 03 Mar 2006 23:56:57 +0000

It's interesting to see Professor Culshaw being dismissed as a "math professor." Let's be clear: her specialty is mathematical biology and her entire published career is on HIV analysis. Indeed, you can go to Medline and look up her papers on it. Almost everyone I've dealt with on this issue over the last year has been a PhD level biologist with multiple papers in the peer reviewed literature. The notion that they are simply crackpots is just foolish. Calling them "AIDS denialists," intentionally invoking holocaust denialists, to imply that anyone's denying that countless people have died horrible death is outright hatemongering. I'm not sure why Anderson is "disappointed" if he liked Celia Farber's work in the 1990s, since this latest article isn't particularly different from her earlier work--it just involves a great deal more evidence of despicable behavior by the AIDS bureacracy at the National Institutes of Health. I suggest at least picking up the Harper's article and reading it. By the way, Kim doesn't bother linking any of the rebuttals to those rebuttals. Unsurprising. Tell me though: why is it okay for everyday people to question whether the science is sound on, say, global warming, but not okay for them to question whether the science is sound on HIV? And why is it okay to call people "morons" without bothering first to look in depth at both their backgrounds and their arguments, at least well enough to understand them? I leave it to you to decide what to think. I do recommend the Harper's piece.

By: m

Fri, 03 Mar 2006 19:22:44 +0000

In Africa, the presence of HIV antibodies is not required to diagnose AIDS, only secondary symptoms (unexplained loss of weight, yada, yada, yada) thus a huge number of "AIDS" cases, which are politically fashionable. If we were serious about combatting AIDS, we would be instituting effective public health measures such as quarantine and contact tracing. Promiscuity and drug use are dangerous, and glamorizing them only adds to the victim count.

By: Anderson

Anderson — Fri, 03 Mar 2006 17:49:28 +0000

Like I said ...

By: Russell Hamilton

Russell Hamilton — Fri, 03 Mar 2006 17:07:36 +0000

Dean Esmay has be doing a sober analysis on this question for over a year. I believe that it is important to read the other side of the debate before just declaring that it is foolish.

By: cirby

cirby — Fri, 03 Mar 2006 15:53:02 +0000

On the other hand, there is some pretty strong evidence that the African AIDS epidemic is nowhere near as widespread as you often hear. There's a bad tendency to look at some overly-skinny person and say, "Oh, yeah, AIDS," when the real problem is lack of food or a combination of other diseases. They don't have the resources to do actual HIV tests, so there's a lot of "eyeball diagnosing" going on. That said, HIV is pretty damned common over there (compared to the rest of the world), and there's not much of anything anyone can really do about it until there's an actual cheap cure that's easily administered outside of a complex medical sysem, instead of a drug therapy combination that merely holds the disease in check for the equivalent of a year's local pay per week.

By: Anderson

Anderson — Fri, 03 Mar 2006 15:09:33 +0000

Disappointing. I remember reading a lot of Farber's articles in the 1990s and enjoying her work.

Then again, people deny evolution, deny the Holocaust ... why not deny that HIV causes AIDS? Being a moron is A-OK in America. Proves you're not a liberal elitist.