Den Infektionsbehauptungen
des 19. Jahrhunderts, auf die sich heute der Deutsche Bundestag und der Landtag von Baden-Württemberg alleinig berufen, um das Impfen wissenschaftlich zu rechtfertigen, wird im Buch: “Impfen – Völkermord im Dritten Jahrtausend”, detailreich und umfassend der Boden entzogen. Ein Kapitel ist sogar mit “Täuschungen und Lügen” überschrieben. Allerdings tut Prof. Dr. med. Bartmann so, als ob es sich nur um ein kleines, internes wissenschaftliches Problem handelt und mahnt die heutigen Forscher zu mehr Methodik, und falls sie Methoden haben, sich auch an ihre eigenen Methoden zu halten.
Er verschleiert, dass aufgrund der betrügerischen Infektionsbehauptungen heute massenhaft geimpft, geschädigt, verletzt, getötet und gemordet wird (mittels Krebs, Hepatitis-, AIDS-, Ebola-Viren und mittels sich daraus entwickelter Gentests und Chemotherapeutika-Giftstoffen etc.) und unterstellt stillschweigend, dass heute alles in Ordnung sei und muntert zu noch mehr derartigem Fortschritt auf.
Viren wurden von Anfang an als scheinschlüssige Erklärung für Impfschäden, aber auch für die Folgen von extremer Armut, Hunger, Vertreibung, Vergiftung und Totschlag herangezogen, wie dies z.B. im Lehrbuch von Luhmann (1995) über das erstmalige Auftauchen des Krankheitsbildes Hepatitis-B beschrieben ist, welches zuerst 1885 in Folge von Pockenimpfungen und erneut 1938, als es schon wieder vergessen war, in Folge von Masern-Impfungen beschrieben wurde.
Ich wiederhole nochmals, dass Robert Koch und Mitarbeiter, Prof. Rush, Prof. Max von Pettenkofer, Prof. Virchow u.a. durch Versuche und die Einhaltung der Henle-Kochschen Postulate gezeigt haben, dass durch Übertragung von Bakterien, dem vermuteten Contagium vivum, experimentell niemals eine Krankheit, geschweige denn die gleiche Krankheit ausgelöst werden konnte. Und so hat Robert Koch das 3. Postulat seines Lehrers, des deutschen Anatomen Jakob Henle, abgeschafft, so dass zur Beweisführung der Behauptung der Krankheitserzeugung, sprich der Infektiosität eines Bakteriums, nur die Erzeugung eines “ähnlichen Symptoms” im Tierversuch ausreiche, um eine Infektiosität zu behaupten (nachzulesen in Großgebauer: Eine kurze Geschichte der Mikroben).
So wundert es auch nicht, dass Prof. Alfred Fischer in seinem Buch “Vorlesungen über Bakterien” (1897!) zusammenfassend schreibt: „Dass wie bei allen Infektionskrankheiten zu der Einführung der Bakterien auch noch das unbekannte Etwas der individuellen Prädisposition hinzukommen muss, versteht sich von selbst.“
Abschließend muss gesagt werden, dass die Vorlagen von Publikationen über die Existenz und Charakterisierung von Viren, die von der Zeit vor 1970 stammen, als Betrugsversuch zu werten sind, da die Biochemie erst in den Siebzigern die Techniken entwickelte, um den Beweis für die Existenz von Viren, die Isolation der Viren und die anschließende Charakterisierung der Eiweiße und Nukleinsäuren bewerkstelligen zu können.
Das weiß jeder Wissenschaftler, jeder Mediziner und jede Person, die sich ernsthaft mit diesem Thema beschäftigt.
Das weiß sogar die Welt-Gesundheits-Organisation (WHO), die in Bezug auf die Anfrage nach dem Beweis der Pockenviren korrekt antwortete:
1971, als sich die WHO auf die Kriterien zum Nachweis der Pockenviren einigte, waren die biochemischen Nachweisverfahren noch nicht ausgereift. Man einigte sich auf biologische Kriterien: DIE POCKENMORPHOLOGIE, DER CHORIOALLANTOIS-MEMBRAN, DES SICH ENTWICKELNDEN HÜHNEREMBRYOS!
Das bedeutet nichts anderes, als das Fleckigwerden, das Blasigwerden und das Absterben besagter Membran. Welches gleichgesetzt wird mit der Existenz der Pockenviren UND als Symptom der Pocken im Tierversuch! Besagte Membran ist die äußerste, der Schalenhaut anliegenden dreischichtigen Haut des bebrüteten Hühnereies, die dem Embryo unter anderem als Atmungsorgan dient.
Hier ist kein weiterer Kommentar nötig.
Milliarden an tödlichen Tierversuchen und Milliarden an menschlichen Opfern waren und sind immer noch die Konsequenz der Betrugstat von Robert Koch und all derjenigen, die sich absichtlich und fahrlässig am Impfen beteiligen und dieses stützen. Inklusive derjenigen, die es gut gemeint haben.
– Quelle: Auszug aus Auszug einem Artikel in der Zeitschrift Wechselwirkung, Dez. 1994 S.50, zit. nach der Infobroschüre Nr. 1: Macht Impfen Sinn? klein-klein-verlag Februar 2003, 1. Veröffentlichung März 2002, zit. n. klein-klein-aktion.de (offline), s. Waybackmachine. Hervorh. i. O., Rechtschreibkorrekturen und Hyperlinks von uns.
12.04.2000: Das Robert-Koch-Institut nennt die Isolation des Virus der Perth-Gruppe:
„… eine wissenschaftlich nicht zu rechtfertigende Messlatte“!
July 1998: 3 open questions to Luc Montagnier
1. Letter
Wissenschaft, Medizin und Menschenrechte Science e.V.
Medicine and Human Rights r.s.
Im Dreieck 8 Dortmund
To:
Prof. Luc Montagnier, who received this letter from Dr. Stefan Lanka during des World AIDS- Kongress, Geneva, July, 1998
1. In 1993 Dr. Papadopulos-Eleopulos (Australia) published a study about HIV-antibody tests in the journal Bio-Technology. It is claimed that prior publication the study has been approved by the Pasteur-Institute in which you are working. Based on existing literature the generally accepted scientific standard is discussed, according to which a virus-antibody test is only functioning when the virus has been completely isolated.
In accordance to the existing literature it is shown that the complete isolation of the HI-Virus has not been achieved at the time of publication of this study. In this study and on basis of these given scientific facts, Dr. Papadopulos-Eleopulos draws the scientific conclusion that the existing HIV- antibody tests, due to the lack of complete isolation are not reliable. On the basis of the existing literature Dr. Papadopulos-Eleopulos shows that all tests in fact are not reliable and may react positive to tuberculosis, malaria etc…
In 1995, the German Federal Health Authorities responsible for HIV-testing, the Paul-Ehrlich-Institute were stating that the facts named in the study of Dr. Papadopulos-Eleopulos already were known by the experts when the study was published. In the beginning of 1998 an interview with the AIDS-co-ordinator of the city of Dortmund, Georg Bühmann was distributed widely. Originally, this interview was published in the beginning of 1997 in a journal of official health care workers in Germany.
Mister Bühmann is stating here that his claims on HIV are based on the scientific information of the German federa1 AIDS-agency, the Robert-Koch-Institute. Mister Bühmann states that taking a photo of HIV is technically very difficult. This claim is in accordance with the statement that such a photo, due to incomplete isolation of the HI-Virus« does not exist. The lack of this photo which means the complete isolation of the HI-Virus is justified with the low concentration of the HI-Virus.
Professor Montagnier, is it true that your institute has approved the study of Dr. Papadopulos-Eleopulos prior publication or is this wrongly claimed? Since when one can be sure that scientifically , approved, developed on the basis of complete isolation of the HI-Virus, HIV-antibody tests are on the market and used?
2. In 1983, in Science Vol. 220 you published an article in which you claim amongst other things related to AIDS the isolation of a retrovirus.
Actually you only detected the activity of re- verse transcription.
In the mean time it is generally accepted that reverse transcription happens without the action of a retrovirus. Above this, reverse transcription is scientifically interpreted as a DNA repair mechanism.
Where have you proven and published in relation to what is named AIDS, that you detected more than reverse transcription? Where in relation to AIDS did you publish the definite proof and not only the claim of a retrovirus?
3. After your publication in the year 1983 in Science and thereafter, you pointed out that what you detected cannot, on its own, cause AIDS.
Again and again you pointed out that cofactors are needed for the generation of the clinical picture called AIDS.
In your opinion, these co-factors are to be searched for in the field of microbiology. Up to now, you have not been able to present satisfactory results in this regard.
Our humanitarian organisation »Science, Medicine and Human Rights« and the research group regimed (Research Group Investigative Medicine and Journalism) have been pointing out for a long time that it is required, in this regard to direct the scientific focus on the mitochondria.
For this purpose we have developed a research program, which unfortunately we cannot carry out as we do not have our own research institute.
Would you be willing to carry out these studies on mitochondria at the Pasteur-Institute?
Dr. rer. nat. Stefan Lanka, Dortmund, Germany
2. Letter
Prof. Luc Montagnier 24. November 1998
c/o Institute Pasteur
Paris, France
Dear Prof. Montagnier,
During a press-conference of the „World AIDS Congress Geneva 1998“, Dr. rer. nat. Stefan Lanka, member of the registered society „Science, Medicine and Human Rights“, has handed over a letter to you. The header was: „Three open questions to Prof. Luc Montagnier.“
In public, in front of cameras and witnesses, you promised to answer this letter.
Professor Montagnier, we are still waiting for your letter to come. The questions are not that difficult, that such a long delay can be indicated. Your answer is very important to bring back truth, uprightness and credibility into modern science.
In the years 1997/98 we and many other people in Germany failed, when we were trying to get proof for the reliability of the HIV- antibody- tests in form of a scientific publication from municipal health offices. The offices had to agree with the fact, that there is not such a scientific proof. We have documented, that official german health institutions have lied for a long time concerning the existence of a photo of the isolated HIV as a Gold Standard for the HIV- antibody–test.
Some semantics: The „Oxford Advanced Dictionary of Current English“ decribes the meaning of isolation as the following: ‚s.th. is separate, has been put or kept apart from all others.‘ A cell, containing a fixed and thin- cutted virus, cannot be an isolation: The isolated thing is neither separate, nor apart from others. With others it is content of a bigger unit, and this is an absolute fundamental contradiction to the term „isolation“.
We were very surprised to hear that Germany’s highest medical award, the ‚Paul-Ehrlich-Preis‘, will be given to Mr. Robert Gallo in March 1999. We all know, what ‚discovery‘ made him famous, we all know, that theft, fraud and lie were his means to reach his destination. And we all know, that his laboratory procedure was 100% identical to yours, with exception of the use of leukemia cells (instead of embryonal cells) and the use of hydrocortisone as an articifial stimulator. We all know that he characterised your discoveries as „laboratorial artefacts“, only a few moths before he claimed his theft to be the discovery of the aids-causing virus.
We are not willed to accept that stealing, to inform on somebody and to lie should be regular and fundamental elements of science. Science should be honorable, honest, deserving and upright, and we cannot see a drop of these attributes neither in the person nor in the activities of Mr. Gallo.
We ask ourselves why it is not you, receiving the „Paul- Ehrlich- Preis“?
But before we can start activities concerning preventing Gallo from getting just another award for the theft of LAV, we urgently need the answer to the „Three open questions“. Instead writing a letter to us, it will be possible to publish the answers in a scientific magazine or a newsmagazine of your choice, until the 14th of March, 1999, the day, Mr. Gallo will be again rewarded for punishable acts, regular people are put in jail for.
Best wishes to you
(Karl Krafeld)
1st President of MUM r.s.
As soon as there will be an answer, it will be posted right here, but there was no answer even in summer ’99.
The Isolation Question
By Paul Philpott
Reappraising AIDS, June, July, Aug. 1997
Does HIV exist? Do HIV tests indicate HIV infections? Here’s why some scientists say no. How an Australian biophysicist and her simple observations have taken center stage among AIDS reappraisers.
Of course HIV exists–I’ve seen pictures of it in text books and on the news–and scientists work with it every day. How could there be HIV tests if there’s no HIV? What those tests detect, that’s HIV…
So goes the typical response from physicians, biologists, and AIDS activists when faced with a very simple question: Does HIV exist? But like all questions fundamental to the HIV/AIDS model, nobody asked this in 1984, the year Robert Gallo published a group of four papers in Science (224:497-508, May 4) proclaiming the existence of a unique retrovirus, HIV, that causes AIDS.
Gallo’s HIV-AIDS model stood unquestioned in the medical literature for three years, until 1987, when UC-Berkeley retrovirologist Peter Duesberg published the first academic paper contesting the notion of pathogenic retroviruses (Cancer Research 47: 1199-1220). Although disputing the infectious AIDS model, Duesberg accepted Gallo’s claim of having prepared isolates of a unique retrovirus, HIV, and having abstracted from them proteins needed to construct tests for identifying people and cells infected with it.
By 1987 the plasma and T4 cells of thousands of AIDS patients had been tested for evidence of the proteins and genetic material from Gallo’s “isolates.” The AIDS reappraisal movement grew out of Duesberg’s critique of these data. HIV exists, but the blood contains so little of it, and it infects so few T4 cells, and replicates–harmlessly–in vitro with so much difficulty, and so many patients test negative for it altogether, that it is just too ineffectual, inactive, and imperfectly correlated with AIDS to explain AIDS.
Out of Australia: Questioning HIV’s existence
Before Duesberg’s 1987 paper made it to press, a second academic, authoritative deconstruction of HIV had already been submitted for publication in another journal. This one was written by Eleni Papadopulos-Eleopulos, a medical physicist at Australia’s Royal Perth Hospital. In 1988 France’s Medical Hypotheses (25:151-162) published her paper, “Reappraisal of AIDS: Is the Oxidation Induced by the Risk Factors the Primary Cause?” Papadopulos had independently reached many of Duesberg’s conclusions, but ultimately had quite a different take on Gallo’s claims: “Unlike other viruses [HIV] has never been isolated as an independent stable particle.”
What she meant was this: Electron microscope pictures, micrographs , of samples Gallo calls “HIV isolates”–and of all “HIV isolates” produced before by Luc Montagnier of France, or since by other scientists–show some objects that look like retroviruses (the “HIV”) plus lots of other things, including things that clearly aren’t viruses. So there’s no way to identify the origin of the “HIV” proteins and genetic material abstracted from these samples. Do the proteins come from the objects that look like retroviruses? Or do they represent some of the contaminants?
And what about those retroviral-looking objects? Papadopulos pointed out that among the microbial objects that look like retroviruses are (1) microvesicles: non-infectious, unstable organelles that bud from cells; and (2) endogenous retroviruses: non-infectious, unstable retroviruses coded for by healthy human DNA. She noted that this presents a special problem for the objects called “HIV.” They can be observed only in cell cultures that have been stimulated by agents that induce the production of microvesicles and endogenous retroviruses.
Without true isolates of the objects declared “HIV,” there really is no way to determine if they constitute what HIV is claimed to be: a retrovirus of exogenous origin (an autonomous entity unaccounted for by a person’s inherent DNA library). There is no way to pull proteins and genetic material out of a heterogeneous sample and know that they came from one group of particular looking objects rather than another, or simply from the surrounding molecular soup.
Oxidative stress: Unifying AIDS, its causes, and “HIV”
In addition to introducing an HIV critique based on the principal of viral isolation, Papadopulos also unveiled in her 1988 paper an explanation for AIDS based on the process of oxidative stress. According to Papadopulos, the stimulants used to induce “HIV” phenomena (retrovirus-looking objects plus certain proteins that may or may not be affiliated with those objects) in cultures are oxidizing agents . As are the factors uniting American AIDS patients, including street drugs, hemophilia treatments, and rectally deposited semen. Papadopulos proposed that both “HIV” phenomena and AIDS conditions are consequences of these and other stressors she would introduce in later papers (such as blood transfusions, anti-AIDS pharmaceuticals including AZT, and antibiotics).
Duesberg drew on the 1988 Papadopulos paper (and even earlier writings by John Lauritsen in the gay press) in formulating his 1992 treatise “AIDS Acquired by Drugs and Other Non-contagious Risk Factors” (Pharmacology & Therapeutics 55:201-277). In that paper, Duesberg added to his HIV critique alternative explanations for AIDS. He agreed with Papadopulos that street drugs and hemophilia treatments caused AIDS, but dismissed rectal insemination as inconsequential. His 1992 paper was the first to implicate “anti-HIV” drugs such as AZT, and Papadopulos subsequently adopted them into her oxidative stress model.
That same year, 1992, Papadopulos formed a writing team with two University of Western Australia physician-professors, Valendar Turner of the Department of Emergency Medicine, and John Papadimitriou, Professor of Pathology. Together they published “Oxidative Stress, HIV, and AIDS” (Res-Immunol. 143:145-148), which restated her Unified AIDS Theory.
Virus tests without virus isolation?
In 1993 Papadopulos finally caught the attention of AIDS reappraisers. “Is A Positive Western Blot Proof of HIV Infection?” appeared in Bio/Technology (11:696-707), a major medical journal and sister publication of Nature.
The article debunked the validity of “HIV tests” on several grounds: (1) that they are constructed from the constituents of heterogeneous samples rather than true viral isolates; (2) that proponents of the purported virus (HIV) claim to observe it only in stimulated cultures, as opposed to fresh patient plasma; (3) that accuracies for these tests are established without an independent gold standard (isolation from fresh patient plasma); and (4) that these tests are assumed to be equally accurate for people with and without the risks associated with, and the conditions classified as, “AIDS,” a syndrome the purported virus supposedly causes.
Isolation, Papadopulos explains, is the only sure proof that a virus is present–the only direct, unambiguous evidence of a virus. And isolation from uncultured patient plasma is the only sure proof that a person harbors an active infection— the only sort of infection that can cause disease. She points out that the accuracy for even a properly constructed viral test (one made from true viral isolates) can be established only by answering the following question: In what fraction of people who test positive can the virus be isolated from their fresh (uncultured) plasma?
Instead, “HIV” test accuracies are established using circular logic; “accuracy” for HIV ELISAs is taken as the fraction of positive people who subsequently test HIV Western blot positive. And “accuracy” for HIV Western blot tests is nothing more than reproducibility (the fraction of positive people who test positive when retested).
These pseudo accuracies–each over 99%–are assumed for all people, even those free of the risks and symptoms associated with the syndrome that the purported virus supposedly causes. Yet among risk group members with blood that reacts with these tests–those who test positive–pseudo isolations (“HIV” phenomena in stimulated cultures) are achieved for only some of those with AIDS conditions, and for only a few who are symptom-free.
For example, of risk group members (gay men, drug injectors, and blood recipients) testing “HIV-positive”:
(1) Gallo achieved pseudo “HIV” isolations in 26 of approximately 63 (41%) patients with AIDS conditions (this is a generous figure that assumes Gallo’s isolations involved only the 88% of his 72 AIDS-diagnosed patients who tested positive) ;
(2) Piatak reported (a) “infectious HIV” (according to some of the same criteria as pseudo isolations) in only 29 of 38 (76%) patients with AIDS conditions and in only two of 21 (10%) patients with no AIDS conditions (Science 259: 1749-1754, 1993); and (b) in one of six (16%) symptom-free patients (Lancet 341: 1099, 1993);
(3) Daar reported “infectious HIV” in none of four symptom-free patients (NEJM 324[14]:961-964, 1991);
(4) Clark reported “infectious HIV” in none of three symptom-free patients (NEJM 324[14]:954-960, 1991); and
(5) Cooper found “infectious HIV” in neither of two symptom-free patients (Lancet 340:1257-1258, 1992).
So among people with AIDS risks, using pseudo isolations from stimulated cultures as an independent standard, HIV antibody tests are between 41% and 76% accurate for people with AIDS conditions, and between 0% and 16% accurate for those with no symptoms, a far cry from the 99% accuracies established using reproducibility and cross-checking.
What about people without AIDS risks? No one has compiled even pseudo isolation data for drug-free, blood product injection-free heterosexuals who test positive. HIV researchers simply assume that the data from risk group studies apply for everyone.
And what about the real accuracy of HIV tests? That is, accuracy established using the only valid gold standard: isolation from fresh plasma. The Australians reason that since isolation from fresh plasma has not been achieved under any circumstance, then the true accuracy for all “HIV tests” should be considered zero , and all positive results should be regarded as false. There is no basis for thinking that a virus observed only in stimulated cultures exists in the plasma of any humans, even those who test positive for it as determined by antibody, antigen, “viral load” or any other assay.
“HIV”: Normal cellular residents?
In the Bio/Technology paper, Papadopulos examined what are accepted as substitutes for true HIV isolation. These include “HIV proteins” (gp160, gp120, gp41, p32, p24, and p17), reverse transcriptase, “HIV” DNA and RNA, and retrovirus-looking objects. She suggests that they are each cellular constituents, some normal, some produced in response oxidative stress.
(1) HIV existentialists–those who think HIV exists–hypothesize that gp160 is made of gp120 stuck to gp41, and it decorates HIV, with gp41 embedded in the outer membrane envelope, anchoring gp120, which protrudes outward, ready to latch onto T4 molecules; Papadopulos cites references showing that gp160 and gp120 are oligomers of gp41 (four gp41s stuck together make gp160; three make gp120), and that gp41 might be the ordinary cellular protein actin. (She also cites references showing that cell-free objects considered to be HIV contain no gp120, and thus have no infectious capability, just like endogenous retroviruses.)
(2) The existentialists hypothesize that p17 lines the inside of the envelope, and p24 forms the hollow core; Papadopulos cites references showing that p24 and p17 might be the two constituent globs that form the ordinary cellular protein myosin.
(3) The existentialists hypothesize that p32 decorates HIV’s envelope, along with gp160; Papadopulos cites references showing that p32 is the “Class II histocompatibility DR” marker found on all human T immune cells.
(4) The existentialists hypothesize that reverse transcriptase is a constituent of HIV, and is used to make HIV DNA from HIV RNA; Papadopulos cites references showing that this enzyme is a normal constituent of all human cells, and even some ordinary viruses, like hepatitis viruses, which are common in AIDS patients.
(5) Papadopulos shows that no complete “HIV” RNA molecule or DNA genome has ever been identified, that what is claimed to be the “HIV” genome represents bits and pieces of genetic sequences cobbled together, that the “HIV” RNA and DNA haven’t been shown to code for what are claimed to be the HIV proteins, and that all the “HIV” genes are very similar to genetic sequences common to all humans.
(6) The existentialists hypothesize that the retrovirus-looking objects in electron micrographs of heterogeneous samples from AIDS patients are identical retroviruses, HIV, that consist of the “HIV” proteins and RNA abstracted from those samples; Papadopulos explains that since those samples are heterogeneous, there’s no way to match the retrovirus-looking objects to any material abstracted from the samples, that retrovirus-looking objects are common products of stimulated T-cells, and that such objects are not necessarily viruses of any sort and can be proven to be so only when examined as isolates.
HIV antibodies as autoantibodies
Although the “HIV proteins” haven’t been shown to be constituents of a virus, they are the constituents of the ELISA and Western blot antibody tests for HIV. If Papadopulos is correct that these are ordinary cellular proteins, why would humans express antibodies against their own cellular proteins, a condition called autoimmunity ? And why would such antibodies correlate (however imperfectly) with AIDS conditions and AIDS risks?
The Bio/Technology paper argues that antibodies against actin, myosin, and p32 indicate exposure to those proteins donated by other people via injected blood products, unsterile needles, and rectally deposited semen. These factors nearly unify all American AIDS patients, and they are oxidative stressors. So Papadopulos proposes that oxidative stressors cause AIDS conditions and positive HIV tests, thus explaining the correlation between AIDS conditions and positive HIV test results.
(Which is not to say that every positive “HIV antibody” test indicates autoimmunity or oxidative stress, or that autoimmune phenomena always cause disease, or that oxidative stress always causes “HIV” phenomena or AIDS conditions.)
In non-industrial regions such as those in Africa where lots of AIDS patients reside, Papadopulos shows that HIV antibody tests (the only sort of HIV tests used there) cross-react with antibodies against numerous ordinary microbes and parasites that are rampant there due to extremely impoverished living standards. AIDS conditions in these regions, she says, result from those cross-reacting infections, other infections common among impoverished people, and poverty itself.
Proving causation: another need for isolation
Papadopulos’ group published another 1993 paper, “Has Gallo Proven The Role of HIV in AIDS?”, in the Australian journal Emergency Medicine (5:113-123). This paper presented much of the same data and arguments about the lack of HIV isolation offered in the Bio/Technology paper. But where that paper examined the absolute requirement of viral isolation for constructing and validating viral tests, this paper examined the absolute requirement of viral isolation for demonstrating a causal relationship between a virus and a disease.
The Australians focused here on Gallo’s 1984 papers, which they characterized as the most thorough to date. They argued that a virus can only be considered causal for a disease if:
(1) It can be isolated in every case of the disease from fresh (uncultured) plasma. Yet Gallo claimed to isolate HIV only from cultures, and only after stimulation with agents that cause inactive viral DNA (provirus) to produce viruses that might not be present in vivo . Furthermore, Gallo could only claim HIV isolation in 34% of the AIDS patients tested, and even then these claims were based not on real isolation, but on the observation of certain proteins, reverse transcriptase, and retrovirus-looking particles, though usually not all at the same time.
(2) Adding isolates of the virus to cultures of cells of the type affected in the disease in question results in behavior consistent with the disease. In the case of AIDS, that would mean adding HIV isolates to cultures of T4 cells and looking for either cell death (predicted by the original killer HIV model) or high rates of HIV activity (predicted by the new hyperactive HIV “viral load” model). But Gallo found neither. Cells declared “HIV-infected” lived happily ever after, and would produce HIV indicators only when prodded by artificial stimulants.
The Australians emphasized that no researcher since 1984 has improved on Gallo’s very weak case for HIV as a cause of AIDS.
All antibodies non-specific
The Bio/Technology paper presented a long list of non-HIV agents that can cause positive reactions on HIV ELISA and Western blot antibody tests. This is very bad news for those tests.
HIV antibody and antigen tests are constructed from heterogeneous samples rather than isolates, and validated against each other rather than the isolation gold standard. Therefore their validity requires that HIV proteins and the antibodies against them be specific. That is, the proteins must be exclusive to HIV, and the antibodies that react with them must react with no other proteins.
Gallo and the other existentialists, Papadopulos explains, simply assume that their “HIV proteins” – and antibodies against them – always indicate a virus made from those proteins, and nothing else. They base this assumption on no data, and no wonder. Only isolation – which none of them has achieved – can demonstrate this sort of specificity. Furthermore, Papadopulos’ list of cellular sources for each “HIV protein,” and her list of non-HIV entities that cause reactions with “HIV” antibody tests, absolutely falsify the specific antibody ideal for HIV.
False positives
Papadopulos explains that there is no such thing as specific antibodies against any microbial agent. All viral tests (including properly constructed ELISAs and Western blot tests for properly characterized viruses) “cross react” with entities other than their intended targets.
This is why test accuracies must be established for different groups (those with and without symptoms and risks associated with the virus) using the gold standard (virus isolation from fresh plasma).
Properly validated virus tests are not undermined by a list of cross-reacting entities. If the virus can be isolated from the fresh plasma of 99% of the people with certain symptoms who test positive in validation studies, then physicians would have a 99% certainty that a patient with those symptoms who tests positive has an active infection.
The existence of cross-reacting entities becomes important only in circumstances of low accuracy. In the world of properly constructed and validated viral antibody tests, that means symptom-free people, and people who have been exposed to cross-reacting factors.
Virus isolations are rarely achieved in symptom-free people who test positive, which means the accuracy is low for apparently healthy people. The only sensible interpretation for positive results in healthy people is that these people have experienced, sometime in the past, an infection that is no longer active (and is thus inconsequential), or they were exposed to cross-reacting proteins.
Before the introduction of HIV science, physicians did not test healthy people for viral infections, except for people with certain risks, such as recent exposure to someone with a confirmed infection. Validation studies can show a relatively high accuracy for positive tests in symptom-free people with such a risk. So it is rational to test such people. HIV tests are the only viral tests administered routinely to healthy people with no risks.
In the strange case of HIV and AIDS, though, even testing people in the AIDS risk groups is a dubious enterprise. This is because the official risks that define these groups (rectal intercourse, unsterile needle use, blood product injections, residency in impoverished nations), involve exposure to non-HIV factors that cause cross-reactions with these tests.
Virologist Lanka supports Papadopulos
The Bio/Technology paper influenced most reappraisers to question the validity of “HIV” tests, mostly on the grounds of cross-reactivity. Few seemed to appreciate that the isolation question was the real crux of the matter. The question of HIV’s actual existence seemed just too big for most reappraisers to tackle. Then along came a young German virologist, Stefan Lanka, co-author of an academic paper that properly established the existence of a marine virus, ectocarpus siliculosis .
The British AIDS reappraisal magazine Continuum published in its April/May 1995 issue Lanka’s exposition, “HIV: Reality or Artifact?” This was the first article for a popular audience explaining Papadopulos’ contention that HIV simply does not exist, and that the phenomena considered to indicate its presence have non-viral explanations, such as artifacts of the lab procedures applied to cultures made from the blood of AIDS patients.
The next issue (June/July) included a fiery and detailed exchange between Lanka and Steven Harris, a physician who advocates the HIV-AIDS model. That article displayed two electron micrographs of properly isolated viruses: Lanka’s ectocarpus siliculosis, and adenovirus type 2 (which cause common colds). Those two micrographs exclusively contained identical virus-looking objects. Harris presented a micrograph of what he called an “HIV isolate.” Lanka pointed out that this micrograph contained, in addition to retrovirus-looking objects labeled “HIV,” lots of microvesicles and “macromolecular debris.” Therefore it was not an isolate.
This exchange created such interest – and Continuum ‘s editorial board was so persuaded by Lanka’s argument – that the magazine in its January/February 1996 issue posted a 1,000 “Missing Virus Reward” for anyone who could produce a micrograph of a proper “HIV” isolate.
Papadopulos answers the first challenge
In April, 1996, the National AIDS Manual (NAM) Treatment Update published an editorial answering the Continuum challenge. NAM made no claim on the prize, conceding an absence of the micrograph specified by the reward. Instead, NAM argued against the need for such a requirement in establishing the existence of a virus.
Specifically, NAM rejected the Papadopulos/Lanka objections to contaminating material in the available “HIV” micrographs. “…It’s like saying that it is impossible to identify a German shepherd dog by its unique appearance,” the article reasoned, “if it happens to be surrounded by poodles.”
In the May/June issue of Continuum, Papadopulos’ team responded to the NAM critique with a remedial lesson in microbiology: “The analogy with HIV is more like someone who does not know what a German shepherd is but who looks at an aerial photograph of a zoo,” and notes that some of the objects look like dogs, then “mince[s] up all the objects in the zoo,” and presumes to know which teeth, claws, hair, hearts, and stomachs came from the objects that looked like dogs, and claims that those objects are some new breed deserving of a new name.
Instead, German shepherds have been carefully studied on their own, which is why they can be identified merely by their image, even in the midst of other dogs. Certainly a new breed of dog could not be declared–and identified by aerial photographs (the human scale equivalent of an electron micrograph)–without first studying one up-close (the human scale equivalent of viral isolation).
If isolates were obtained of the objects labeled “HIV” in micrographs of heterogeneous samples, and those isolates were shown to consist of a unique, exogenous retrovirus, then there would be a basis for pointing out these objects in heterogeneous samples and declaring them to be “HIV.”
Until then, nobody knows what the objects purported to be “HIV” are in any of the “HIV micrographs.”
Duesberg demurs, Lanka descries
By the July/August issue, Continuum ‘s reward had increased to 25,000, and none other than Peter Duesberg wrote in to claim the prize. Conceding that there existed no such micrograph as that sought by Papadopulos and Lanka, Duesberg argued that existing data “exceeded the [Papadopulos/Lanka] criteria” for virus isolation: the isolation of “infectious full length HIV DNA” from “HIV-infected cells,” and the detection of this DNA in some T4-cells of nearly 100% of people who test positive for “HIV antibodies,” but in nearly 0% of those who test negative.
In the same issue Continuum published rebuttals by both Lanka and the Australian team, which now included a fourth member, David Causer, Senior Physicist at the Department of Medical Physics at the Royal Perth Hospital.
Lanka surprised everyone with his “Collective Fallacy: Rethinking HIV.” Leaving it to “the distinguished Australians” to provide “a detailed reply to the Duesberg claim,” he leaped past that dialogue and into a novel assertion: all retroviruses are fictions, artifacts of the contrived laboratory conditions invariably used to find them. He described Duesberg as:
limiting his objections to the relatively minor aspect of whether HIV could cause AIDS or not, whereas he really ought to have smelt a rat regarding the whole concept of retroviruses. …Indeed, the extraordinarily artificial and circumscribed conditions under which reverse transcription could be induced in the laboratory should have alerted everyone to the extreme improbability of such exclusively laboratory conditions having any bearing whatsoever on naturally occurring phenomena.
The Papadopulos treatise
Papadopulos’ rebuttal was an exhaustive exposition entitled “The Isolation of HIV: Has It Really Been Achieved? The Case Against,” included as a 24-page supplement. She asserted that until a virus has been isolated according to the criteria required by the Continuum reward, its constituents–including genetic material and proteins–cannot be cataloged. So there is no basis for a viral explanation for this correlation.
Yet Duesberg has a point. How can Papadopulos and Lanka explain the high correlation between particular proteins (and antibody reactions to them) and the detection of particular DNA/RNA sequences? This can not be a chance occurrence.
Papadopulos agrees. But she points out that isolating DNA does not equal isolating a virus, and certainly does not “exceed the criteria” specified by the reward, which represent, in fact, an official standard procedure for retroviral identification which was discarded only to accommodate “HIV.” Logically, there is no basis for concluding that an RNA molecule abstracted from a heterogeneous sample (even one containing retrovirus-looking objects), or a strip of corresponding chromosomal DNA, originates from a retrovirus. Such an assumption can only apply to RNA abstracted from a retroviral isolate (and only if that RNA is shown to code for the proteins abstracted from the same isolate).
To explain the “HIV” protein-RNA/DNA correlation, Papadopulos referenced studies showing that the correlation between the proteins and the genetic material was not quite as high as in the study Duesberg cited. Then she proposed that the “HIV DNA” in cellular chromosomes might result from the rearrangement (transposition) of a few normal cellular DNA sequences in response to oxidative stress caused by both the AIDS risks (street drugs, etc.) and the laboratory agents required to observe “HIV” phenomena.
Duesberg says this would require an improbable number of nucleic acid rearrangements (“recombinations”), one for each of the 9,150 bases said to constitute the HIV genome. Papadopulos says the number of required rearrangements is actually much lower, since each of the supposed HIV genes are already very similar to recognized normal human genetic sequences.
Is Papadopulos certain that oxidation-induced recombination explains the HIV protein-RNA/DNAcorrelation? No. She’s simply convinced that this is more likely than the Duesberg-Gallo explanation, which is that the “HIV” genetic sequences originate in a retrovirus that carries with it the “HIV proteins.”
To her, the viral explanation is fatally undermined by several facts: (1) heroic attempts to isolate such a virus always fail, de-spite huge financial incentives and numerous attempts to do so by an enormous army of scientists dedicated to “HIV,” whereas far less interesting viruses are routinely isolated by much smaller, less-funded groups of virus hunters; (2) what is called HIV RNA and DNA comes in many sizes and varieties that always differ from each other (no two are alike, even when abstracted from the same patient), whereas viral RNA and DNA should be of uniform length and composition; (3) the lethargy that characterizes what is considered “HIV replication” excludes the possibility that replicative mutation can explain the wide HIV genetic variation; and (4) no one has produced a whole “HIV RNA” molecule or a complete “HIV DNA” strip, offering instead as the “HIV genome” cobbled together bits of genetic material.
Papadopulos notes that when “HIV DNA” shows up, it does so in only a tiny fraction of T4 cells. Duesberg’s explanation is that this means HIV simply infects too few cells to explain any disease. But if HIV is so lethargic as to infect only a few cells, how can its amazing variability be explained? Papadopulos’ hypothesis predicts wide variability: if “HIV DNA” originates from the rearrangement of normal cellular DNA sequences, then each one originates independently and separately in each cell where it is found. Various points of origin would result in a variety of recombination products: DNA strips of varying lengths and composition, and corresponding RNA molecules transcribed from that DNA.
Papadopulos stresses that her argument against the existential hypothesis of HIV does not require that her alternative hypothesis be correct. Since the existence of HIV is not a default hypothesis, we are not obligated to assume that HIV exists in the absence of a better explanation. To the contrary, until unambiguous evidence is provided for HIV–in the form of a proper viral isolate–explanations for the data are open to suggestions. As far as the Australians are concerned, the viral model has been thoroughly examined, and it comes up empty. It’s time to propose and study some new ideas.
The Duesberg-Papadopulos dichotomy
Papadopulos’ advocacy of a non-viral explanation for microbiological phenomena labeled as “HIV” remarkably resembles Duesberg’s advocacy of a non-HIV explanation for pathological phenomena labeled as “AIDS”: (1) Duesberg explains that the HIV-AIDS correlation is not as high as it’s made out to be; Papadopulos makes the same claim about the HIV protein-DNA/RNA correlation; (2) Duesberg shows that the microbiological data unqualifiedly exclude a role for HIV; Papadopulos shows that the microbiological data unqualifiedly exclude definitive evidence of a virus; (3) Both say we should therefore consider non-viral explanations; and (4) Duesberg says that even if the alternative hypotheses are ultimately falsified, the HIV-AIDS model is not consequently resurrected, because it fails all on its own; Papadopulos says the same thing about the HIV existential model.
The February/March 1997 Continuum carried a second appeal from Duesberg responding to the Papadopulos and Lanka rebuttals. The editors entitled the article, “Near Enough Is Good Enough?” reflecting their sympathy for the non-existentialist position. Duesberg restated his conclusions that rearrangement of normal chromosomal DNA sequences was less likely than the viral explanation, and that the traditional virus isolation requirements advocated by Papadopulos and Lanka were outdated and, in any case, less rigorous than those which he said had been achieved by HIV.
