Hiv, Aids And Conspiracy Theories

[Sheryl]

Since there have been a number of threads debating the HIV-AIDs connection, and will no doubt be more from time to time, the following references are posted. These are all legitimate scientific articles in respected journals and I have personally verified that the brief summary of what they contain is, in fact, what these articles contain.

All of these support both the HIV-AIDs link and the sexual transmission of HIV. Although there are people who believe otherwise, and whole websites devoted to an alleged "conspiracy"on this subject, I am not aware of any scientific articles in reputable journals presenting evidence to the contrary. Conspiracy websites oftebn cite articles but those that I have looked up did not in fact say what these sites implied they did. Other studies have been cited but without source provided, making them impossible to verify.

That said, in the interests of balance, if any reader has a scientific reference in favor of a dissenting view and provides me with it (including source so I can verify it says what it is claimed to say, often a problem with articles cited on conspiracy-theory websites), I will post it here as well. To date I have not received any that were on topic (topic being= HIV causing AIDs and being sexually transmitable). I am closing the notice since it was otherwise being mistaken for a thread inviting dialogue, whereas it is a pinned notice only. Purpose of closing it is to prevent it being used for that purpose; people are wecome to start threads on whatever they want to discuss. If someone has a reference they would like to see posted, send it to me by PM. As long as it is on topic, was published in a reputable scientific journal and actually says what it is claimed to say (i.e. has not been distorted) I will add it to this list.

List follows:

- re claims that drug use directly causes AIDs and not the HIV virus:

1. A 2008 study found that recreational drug use (including marijuana, cocaine, poppers and amphetamines) had no effect on CD4 T cell counts. Chao C, Jacobson LP, Tashkin D, et al (2008). "Recreational drug use and T lymphocyte subpopulations in HIV-uninfected and HIV-infected men". Drug Alcohol Depend.

2. Studies disproving the idea that amyl nitrate rather than HIV caused Karposi’s Sarcoma:

Morabia A (1995). "Poppers, Kaposi's sarcoma, and HIV infection: empirical example of a strong confounding effect?". Prev Med 24 (1): 90-5. PMID 7661947.

Kedes D, Operskalski E, Busch M, Kohn R, Flood J, Ganem D (1996). "The seroepidemiology of human herpesvirus 8 (Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus): distribution of infection in KS risk groups and evidence for sexual transmission". Nat Med 2 (8): 918-24

Martin J, Ganem D, Osmond D, Page-Shafer K, Macrae D, Kedes D (1998). "Sexual transmission and the natural history of human herpesvirus 8 infection". N Engl J Med 338 (14): 948-54.

-- re the claim that promiscuity or homosexuality directly cause AIDs (rather than a sexually transmitted virus):

A large prospective study of 715 homosexual men for 8 years found that, despite similar rates of drug use, sexual contact, and other supposed risk factors in both groups, AIDS developed only in those patients who were HIV-seropositive. Similarly, CD4counts dropped in the patients who were HIV-infected, but remained stable in the HIV-negative patients, in spite of similar rates of risk behavior. The authors concluded that "the risk-AIDS hypothesis... is clearly rejected by our data", and that "...The evidence supports the hypothesis that HIV-1 has an integral role in the CD4 depletion and progressive immune dysfunction that characterise AIDS." source: Schechter M, Craib K, Gelmon K, Montaner J, Le T, O'Shaughnessy M (1993). "HIV-1 and the aetiology of AIDS.". Lancet 341 (8846): 658-9

Two much larger studies which between them followed 8,000 people (the Multicenter AIDS Cohort Study (MACS) and the Women's Interagency HIV Study (WIHS)) found that the presence of the HIV virus was the only factor consistently associated with AIDs and that, absent the virus, neither drugs nor sexual behavior (nor anything else they could identify was).

The highly reputable journal Science, after devoting 3 months to a careful study of Duesberg's methods and claims, concluding that there is abundance proof that HIV causes AIDs and that, in fact, it fulfills Koch’s postulates, which are the scientific “gold standard”from proving an organism causes a disease. They further noted ample evidence against the idea that drug use and sexual behavior per se were causes, noting the high incidence in hemophiliacs who as a group rank low on those factors. Science Vol 266, No. 5191, December 1994

-- discussing relative risks of male to female and female to male transmission of HIV and effectiveness of preventive measures:

Heterosexual transmission of HIV in Northern California, Padian et al 1997, American Journal of Epidemiology

For a review of the HIV-AIDs link against Kochs postulates'(the "gold standard": for proving that an organism causes an infectious disease):

Curr Opin Immunol. 1996 Oct;8(5):613-8.