"HIV and AIDS do not exist"
This Tuesday 14 August we discuss the controversial topic of HIV and AIDS. We look at the argument on the flip side of the mainstream understanding of AIDS, which postulates that HIV is non existent and that HIV does not cause AIDS. However, it seems dangerous to assert that line of thought as South African President Thabo Mbeki and Dr. Peter Duesberg, regarded as one of the world's top scientists realised when he had his AIDS funds stopped, and his laboratory taken away because he is said to have proved that HIV does not cause AIDS. Our guest this week, Hannilie Zulu notes that any evidence that challenges mainstream knowledge of HIV and is stifled and the people holding that view ostracised. The Andre Chad Parenzee trial in Australia provides an interesting case.
Zulu is a native of Zambia and is currently based in Denmark. She is the founder of AfriDAD a non governmental organisation that focuses on Debt, Aid and Development in Africa. She has studied international economies, has authored more than 400 articles on the world economy and how it affects Africa. She is the author of 11 books which include: "Negotiating Blood" a book about the world economy, 'The mother of the Matrix' the most oppressed and controversial case of the century, The Evacuation and others. Hannilie is about to launch her new book on HIV and AIDS titled: "Telling AIDS Stamped Relatives They Are Not Ill and Becoming Eternal Enemies with Them", this coming winter.
Listen live on 105.5 FM in Toronto or online on www.chry.fm worldwide as we discuss this issue. To contribute, call our studio number on +1 416 736 5656 or write to africanperspective@chry.fm
About African Perspective
African Perspective is a current affairs programme that reports and analyses news and events from an African viewpoint. It broadcasts on Tuesdays at 10am-11am Eastern Time/2pm-3pm Greenwich Mean Time on CHRY 105.5 FM in Toronto and www.chry.fm on the Internet worldwide. The programme provides Africans with a platform to articulate their experiences, challenges and celebrate their achievements to both the Canadian public and policy makers.
Presenters: Kuthula Matshazi and Shadya Yasin
11 comments:
HIV does not cause AIDS??? Well then let's inject Thabo Mbeki with HIV and see what happens. There are certain things in science that are simply no longer up for debate.
If I were to come out and say that I simply did not believe in gravity I would be laughed at, the same should be done with these people who suggest HIV does not cause AIDS.
I doubt you share the point of view of Mbeki Kuthula, but are only allowing a forum for discussion, so don't think I am expecting some long drawn out argument over this. Unles of course you have been convinced by these snake oils salesmen, I mean scientists.
I believe that people like this are either misguided or have an agenda to lull people into a false sense of security. Africans in particular are especially vulnerable to this type of propaganda due to the lack of freely flowing information. Wehn people begin to believe they are safer even after contracting HIV they will not be as careful in terms of determining a future course of action/treatment.
Dave,
I do not share any of these positions because I am uninformed on that matter. But what hannilie said was making sense. I hope you could have phoned in instead of making these general statements. It would have been great. I am not able to give you an informed response.
A lot of people though it made sense when Colin Powell sat in front of the UN and explained in detail how we knew that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. They even played a recording of Iraqis speaking about chemical weapons, we were also shown photos of supposed mobile chemical weapons labs. It all made sense until we got there and found nothing.
We always need to be wary of people making claims that seem to make sense against all evidence to the contrary.
I do agree I wish I had been able to phone in but oh well, it was not to be. I am however not totally ignorant, I have a friend who attended the conference in South Africa when Mr. Mbeki let his ideas on AIDS known to the world. There is no doubt in the scientific community about AIDS. I am however intrigued as to what the true motive of people who seek to cast doubt is. Are they simply conspiracy scientists? Are they seeking fame through controversy? Do they want Africans who are HIV positive to continue with their risky behaviour thinking that they are not passing out potential death sentences? I would be interested to know who this person works for and where exactly their funding comes from.
It would be interesting if in the future you might include your more interesting radio segments as pod casts.
DECIDE FOR YOURSELF, This guy is cited in the article so lets enlighten people to what his views are so we can all judge for oursleves.
Duesberg has offered, in his 1996 book Inventing the AIDS Virus as well as elsewhere, an alternative hypothesis on HIV/AIDS, asserting that recreational and pharmaceutical drug use (especially AZT, a drug used in the treatment of AIDS) and not HIV are the primary causes of AIDS outside Africa (the so-called Duesberg hypothesis). He considers AIDS diseases as markers for drug use, e.g. use of alkyl nitrites among some homosexuals, pointing out a correlation between AIDS and recreational drug use. This correlation hypothesis is considered disproven, however, by evidence showing that only HIV positivity, not homosexuality or recreational/pharmaceutical drug use, predicts who will develop AIDS.
Duesberg asserts that AIDS in Africa is mostly misdiagnosed (he notes that the diagnostic criteria for AIDS are different in Africa) and that the breakdown of the immune system in African AIDS patients is explained by malnutrition, bad drinking water, and other infections. Duesberg also argues that retroviruses like HIV must be harmless to survive, because after reverse transcription from RNA to DNA, they depend on cell division to replicate (their normal mode of propagation is from mother to child).
Since Duesberg published his first paper on the subject in 1987, mainstream scientists have examined and criticized the accuracy of his hypotheses on AIDS causation. A number of scientific criticisms of Duesberg's hypothesis were summarised in a review article in the journal Science in 1994, which presented the results of a 3-month scientific investigation into some of Duesberg's claims.
In the Science article, science writer Jon Cohen interviewed both mainstream scientists and AIDS dissidents (including Duesberg himself) and examined the AIDS literature, including papers written by Duesberg. The article stated:
...although the Berkeley virologist raises provocative questions, few researchers find his basic contention that HIV is not the cause of AIDS persuasive. Mainstream AIDS researchers argue that Duesberg’s arguments are constructed by selective reading of the scientific literature, dismissing evidence that contradicts his theses, requiring impossibly definitive proof, and dismissing outright studies marked by inconsequential weaknesses.
The article also stated that although Duesberg and the dissident movement have garnered support from some prominent mainstream scientists, including Nobel Prize winners, most of this support is related to Duesberg’s right to hold a dissenting opinion, rather than support of his specific claim that HIV does not cause AIDS.
Yale University professor Serge Lang, Ph.D., a mathematician and author of many articles and a book on scientific controversies, criticized the Science article, claiming that it misrepresented many of Duesberg's claims, ignored most of the evidence he says supports his claims, and then argued against positions that Duesberg does not actually take.
In 2000 South African President Thabo Mbeki included Duesberg and other AIDS dissidents on a Presidential Advisory Panel on HIV and AIDS, which Mbeki scheduled to convene concurrently with the 2000 International AIDS Conference being held in Durban. The views of the dissidents on the panel, aired at the same time the mainstream AIDS conference was meeting, received renewed attention. Mbeki has since suffered substantial political fallout for voicing support for the Duesberg AIDS hypothesis and for opposing the treatment of pregnant South African women with antiretroviral medication. In response to the inclusion of dissidents on Mbeki's panel, the Durban declaration was drafted and signed by over 5,000 scientists, describing the evidence that HIV causes AIDS as "clear-cut, exhaustive and unambiguous."
I am not looking for an argument with you Kuthula on this topic only conversation. The more I research the more I find this Hannilie Zulu to be someone who simply has no business speaking to these issues. She is an accomplished writer and for that deserves some respect however your article would leave the casual reader to believe that Ms. Zulu has some further training or scientific knowledge that would lend credence to her argument. I find however that she has even less scientific training than I do. Ms. Zulu's education consists of "a diploma in Machine carpentry and she studied world politics and economy".
Her highest level of education is a diploma in Machine carpentry and she is discussing scientific issues outside of the realm of her training? Why did you not provide some sort of disclosure that this woman has no formal training in biology. In fact her opinions on the matter are as valid as my opinions on what it is like to be a woman.
I read an article written by her (http://www.aras.ab.ca/articles/legal/parenzee-zulu.html) and I have to say her arguments are weak at best. Her main argument is that the existance of the virus cannot be proven directly thus it does not exist (This is in fact not true, as early as 1986 the virus has been detected "http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=2420772&dopt=AbstractPlus"). There are many things in nature that we cannot prove directly and are still accepted as fact. In fact no scientist can explain to you why the placebo effect works but no one would say it did not exist.
Without actually listening to the broacast I not sure if Ms. Zulu was adamant that HIV and AIDS either do not exist or have no connection but either way she does not have the appropriate training to discuss anything more than her laymans opinion.
Dave,
She is coming again this Tuesday and you may want to call in and put forward those arguments. I am sure this would be an interesting discussion. Engaging me would be totally messing up the argument because I know very little. I am still learning about this topic.
I really wish you can call.
Unfortunately I have a job that kinda makes it difficult for me to carry on conversations like this out loud so calling in would not be possible. Maybe you could take some of my points and formulate them into more cohesive questions that you might present to her.
I'll send these questions to her and hope that we can discuss them. I will then post the programme on the blog.
But I wouldn't take lightly what Hannillie says. She is very informed. You might also want to view the DVD called AIDS Inc. and engage in the debate on this topic, which is a spinoff of our ptogramme. Access the story and then scroll down to the comments. There is a very sound discussion that is taking place there now of well informed people.
Apparently, it seems that they accept Hannillie's science, which you outrightly dismiss.
http://thesouthernafrican.com/news/world_news/does_hiv/aids_really_exist_20070814_1648_83.html
I did indeed go to the site and read some of the comments thanks for the link. I think one of the main issues we have to deal with in Africa is denial. The fact that an argument such as this is taken seriously is a major part of the problem. Whether AIDS/HIV was created in a lab or passed on from slaughtered apes although interesting is not an important issue. AIDS is HERE. What are we as a Africans going to do to prevent our people from dying from this virus at a faster rate that any other continent? The time for debate came and went as the first million people passed away. My first encounter with AIDS came when I was in maybe around form 3. There was a lab technician at our school who had once been very fit and healthy looking but once school began the next term we noticed he was losing a lot of weight, pretty soon he was literally bony. This was not a man suffering from malnutrition, this was not a sickly man who was living in the rural areas. Next a friend of mine had his father and mother taken away, they were not malnourished either. This notion that the only Africans dying are the ones who are underfed is insulting. There are many of us Zimbabweans especially those of us who grew up in the 80s and nineties who know that Zimbabweans were very well fed back then and yet AIDS/HIV has hit us very hard.
As a Zimbabwean I am insulted that someone would suggest that if only we ate more then we would not be dying. No, this desease is real and we must take it seriously by changing our attitudes toward unsafe sex.
It was mentioned on that web site that Idi Amin warned Africans of the "Gay Desease" that was coming back in the 70s. This is simply not possible since this desease was only associated with increased death among homosexuals in the 80s. Also it is mentioned that AIDS tests are only done for the antibodies and not for the virus in Africa, this is common procedure in most nations if not all, there are however tests done specifically for the virus that exist. I think I did include a link in my last post proving that indeed the AIDS virus has been isolated. The reason for the strength of this argument is not that it has any scientific merit because it has little, but more because as humans we naturally want to hear all sides of the story and give them equal consideration. The problem is that most people are not informed enough to be able to see through this argument and there is a lot of misinformation being circulated and taken as fact. I for one have recently been reading up on both sides of this issue. (Wikipedia is a great resource) This argument leaves out much of the research that has been conducted in recent years and will tell you all about studies done when knowledge of the subject was in its infancy.
Africa has the highest rate of infection and yet we are the only contient still seriously debating the existance of the desease. Something is wrong there.
By the way thanks for taking the discussions beyond the ZPF, MDC issue.
I discuss the issues beyonf MDC ZPF such as world trade, international economy and all the time people bring me back to ZPF/MDC through labelling. It seems anyone who criticises the West or the current economic system is Mugabe. In fact, I was intrigued by the amount of response I got for these subprime mortage and subsequent fallout in the international community.
If people were conversant with the subprime mortgages and its effect on the world economy and specifically the financial sector, in a way people would found a way round to criticise me and say I am lying for ZPF, there is nothing like the meltdown!!
I hope we could discuss many more of such issues that can transcend the ZPF/MDC discussion.
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