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Out of
Print
Part 2
Following the
publication of the article by John
Lauritsen on the HIV/AIDS hypothesis
in G&LH in 2003, we received enormous
criticism. We published some of this
and responses to it in a subsequent
issue and we have reproduced it
again here. The original article,
Death Cult, is also republished as
Out of Print, Part 1. |
AIDS: A Live
Debate
John
Lauritsen’s article
AIDS:
A Death Cult in the last issue,
arguing that HIV does not
cause AIDS, provoked more
correspondence than any other single item in
the magazine’s history. Letters submitted
for publication appear below, followed by a
reply from Lauritsen himself. Finally,
G&LH’s editor,
Andy Armitage, explains and defends his
decision to publish the article.
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G&LH, Winter
2003 |
G&LH, Spring 2004 |
A classic
of misinformation
John Lauritsen’s
centre-spread feature in the Winter 2003
issue of G&LH was
a classic of misinformation. He and his
fellow “AIDS dissidents”
totally reject the well-established
scientific evidence that the chief vector in
the spread of AIDS is a
retro-virus transmitted by unprotected sex
and blood products. He highlights the role
of drugs and unhealthy gay lifestyles –
which probably have an influence in relation
to susceptibility to opportunistic
infections – but clearly regards the
existence of an infective viral agent –
HIV – as a “myth”.
Likewise, he regards all anti-AIDS
drugs as “toxic and worthless”.
How, then, does he
explain (1) the huge spread in sub-Saharan
Africa of AIDS among
predominately heterosexual persons and (2)
the enormous reduction of mortality among
North American and European gay men
diagnosed as HIV-positive
who have been treated with an increasingly
sophisticated cocktail of antiviral drugs?
Lauritsen recommends
works by fellow AIDS
dissidents, like
Peter
Duesberg, but quite fails to mention the
highly cogent critique of their views by
reputable scientists. Those interested in
such critiques could do worse than start
with Chapter 7 of Paul R. Gross and Norman
Levitt’s
Higher Superstition (2nd edition,
1998), pp. 180-96.
–
Dan O’Hara,
Saltburn, Cleveland, UK
New kids
on the block
We are all used to
evolution deniers, holocaust deniers and
moon-landing deniers. The last are so barmy
and easy to refute they can simply be
laughed at. The second group are sick and
offensive but, again, not difficult to
discredit. The first are different. Whilst
what they say is bollocks, they have
developed the art of lying to near
perfection. The scientific degrees that many
possess give them an apparent credibility as
they go about being selective with data,
fabricate data, misrepresent their
opponents, construct straw men, redefine
evolutionary concepts to suit themselves,
quote eminent academics out of context, etc.
Consequently, it can take considerable
specialist knowledge to dismantle some of
their more sophisticated arguments.
Now there are new kids on
the block and they look set to replace the
creationists as the new masters of deceit.
AIDS deniers employ all
the same tactics as creationists but the
subject matter can be so technical that the
ordinary layman must feel overwhelmed by it
all. At least the basic concepts of geology
and biology are not too hard to grasp and an
understanding of them should be enough to
immunise the average person against the more
common creationist arguments. But how many
people know the biochemistry behind protease
inhibitors? How many know how to carry out
HIV tests, or even the
history of their development? How many
understand the technical difficulties in
isolating a delicate virus, or detecting it
in the bloodstream when it spends most of
its time hiding inside cells?
AIDS
deniers have exploited public ignorance to
bamboozle people into buying their bullshit,
and bullshit it is. All of John Lauritsen’s
article, and the websites he refers us to,
are full of falsehoods, half-truths and
nonsense. HIV does pass
Koch’s first postulate (and the second, and
the third), it has been isolated (Koch’s 2nd
postulate), infection has been demonstrated
and the HIV tests
currently used are more than 98% accurate.
Whether Kaposi’s sarcoma
is a cancer or not is irrelevant – cases
jumped from a handful per annum to thousands
in the 1980s with practically all of them
HIV+ patients. The
rampant pandemic in Africa is
disproportionately hitting the middle
classes, so cannot be dismissed as the
result of poverty. The AIDS
drugs that Lauritsen dismisses as “toxic and
worthless” are spectacularly effective at
slowing the progress of the disease, there
have even been cases of people getting up
from their death beds, regaining their lost
weight and returning to work. Odd if the
virus they are designed to specifically
target does not cause their disease.
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I could go on for pages,
as the evidence is enough to fill a library.
Rather than use up more limited space, I
will refer your readers to two websites
[National Institute of Allergy and
Infectious Diseases (NIAID)
and AIDS Education Global Information System
(AEGIS), respectively] that give all the
detailed argumentation, with references to
primary sources, needed to totally destroy
the pernicious nonsense of the AIDS
deniers. These are at [this
NIAID web page (Note:
NIAID seem to have removed the page from
their site since this article first appeared
– ed.)], and [this
AEGIS web page].
Finally, rather than
waste time engaging with these cranks, why
not subject them to a simple challenge
instead? Either, they are right and
HIV is harmless (or even
nonexistent), or they are malicious liars
endangering people’s lives with
misinformation. I challenge Lauritsen,
(indeed all AIDS
deniers), to inject himself with the blood
of an HIV-positive person
and to then refuse to take the “toxic and
worthless” drugs he denounces. If he is
right, he has nothing to fear, and no reason
to refuse. If he is a liar, he will look for
excuses to avoid it. Go on Lauritsen, I dare
you!
–
Stephen
Moreton, Warrington,
Cheshire, UK
Challenging the mainstream
I found the John
Lauritsen article quite good even though I
feel incompetent to judge his views on
AIDS and HIV.
Still, I support the expression of
thoughtful views that challenge the
mainstream.
Your excellent magazine
should be commended for publishing such
criticisms. You and your colleagues deserve
the strongest praise for contributing such a
quality publication. I am a proud
subscriber!
–
James
McGregor, Las Vegas, Nevada,
USA
An
increasingly bizarre idea
We applaud the excellence
of much of the material published in the
Gay & Lesbian Humanist. The
magazine plays a vital role and it is with
reluctance that we raise a critical note.
However, we wish to draw attention to a
number of disturbing inaccuracies in John
Lauritsen’s article on AIDS
published in the last issue.
The article advanced the
dissident thesis that AIDS
is not linked to the presence of the
HIV virus and that
antiviral combination therapies are,
“without exception, toxic and worthless”, to
use Lauritsen’s words. It is a view not
shared by the vast majority of scientists
working in the field, some 5,000 of whom
signed the
Durban Declaration debunking it. In view
of the success of therapies based upon the
orthodox hypothesis the idea is increasingly
bizarre and not, as the editorial claims,
“controversial”. Are, for example, telepathy
and astrology “controversial”, or even
Holocaust denial, to which the dissidents’
views have been likened?
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Durban Declaration logo |
Lauritsen claims that the
real cause of AIDS is a
combination of “drugs, alcoholism, venereal
diseases and powerful psychological
factors”. The millions dying of
AIDS in the Third World would be
delighted to hear that and it would be cruel
nonsense to abstemious victims in developed
countries, many of them children. What he
asserts to be the cause of the illness has
always been with us, so how does he explain
the sudden onset of AIDS
in the 1980s? Many readers of G&LH
will know from their own experience that he
is profoundly and dangerously misguided. If
he were right, how is it that with the newer
drugs our friends and relatives make
spectacular improvement in their condition
and are restored to relative health? Despite
what he says, proper trials have been
conducted on the newer combination therapies
and they undoubtedly show huge beneficial
effects.
Having given the
Lauritsen view the undeserved dignity of
space in the magazine, the editor suggests
that his readers might be moved to “rethink”
their ideas. This is in the context of an
editorial in which the religious are
described (fortunately!) as “nuts”, “nutty”
or “barmy”. One might infer that he thinks
Lauritsen is not “crazy” or a “twat” [This
word was not used. – Ed.] and that he may
even have his endorsement. He emphatically
does not have ours, but we avoid such
terminology. There was perhaps in the early
days scope for widely divergent views on
AIDS, but hardly now. We
note that explicit additions to the list of
dissident scientists on the “virusmyth”
website stop in 1993, suggesting that the
proof of the pudding is overwhelming.
We are left wondering
what aims of the magazine are being served
by the publication of the article.
Presumably the editor and the Pink Triangle
Trust wish to promote along with humanism
and secularism the principle of rationalism
and the value of evidence-based argument. We
should welcome some reassurance.
–
John Allen,
Bosham, Sussex;
Malcolm
Trahearn, Lichfield,
Staffordshire, UK
Creating a
sensation
I was angry and
disappointed to see you giving space to the
duplicitous writings of John Lauritsen. From
the very start in the early 1980s the
so-called AIDS dissidents
have been more interested in creating a
sensation than they are in seeking the
facts. The anti-HIV
bandwagon is a nice little earner for
unscrupulous hack journalists, and now that
there is so much proof against their case,
they resort to more and more desperate
attacks on the integrity of the medical
profession. By spreading this gospel, they
are putting themselves in league with the
vicious Vatican and Christian
fundamentalists in subtly trying to get
people to ignore the safer sex message.
Lauritsen’s article is
full of spurious statistics with no actual
scientific references or backup. For
instance, he states, “It has been publicly
admitted by health officials that the CD4
test is worthless” – but by which health
officials? This is bad, tacky journalism.
The truth is that the
CD4 count is regarded by all doctors and
health officials as a reasonably good
indicator. It is used as a marker of disease
progression. What is acknowledged is that it
does not tell the whole story, which is why
CD8 counts viral loads (now much more
accurate, with the ultra-sensitive test.)
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CD4/8 graph |
To say that “the various
AIDS drugs are without
exception toxic and worthless” is another
bald, stupid generalisation. That many of
them have toxic side-effects is not to be
argued, but to call them all worthless is
utterly irresponsible. The proof is there
for all to see: combination therapies have
brought down the rate of AIDS
deaths dramatically. We rarely see anyone
getting sick, let alone dying now, yet back
in the eighties to mid-nineties we were
going to funerals of our friends every
month. The statistics speak for themselves.
Stark proof of the
existence of the HIV
virus and its effects comes in the study of
mutations and resistance. Strains of
HIV tend to become
resistant to some of the drugs, and then are
often passed on – these are now quite easily
detectable in tests. People with resistant
strains are not responding to the normal
combinations on offer, and are becoming sick
as a result. This is direct proof of the
relationship between the HIV
virus and AIDS. There is
also absolutely no doubt that AZT
stops transmission of the virus and of
AIDS from mother to
child.
I, like so many others,
have lived with this for years, and know the
difference the combination drugs make. We
are not idiots gulled by some kind of
placebo effect. The improvements in health
are dramatic and unquestionable. In the same
space of time while I survive in good health
I have seen several AIDS
dissidents sicken and die through their
obstinacy and folly.
The evils of the
multinational drug corporations are a
separate issue, a question of overpricing
and profiteering, but not one of foisting
useless drugs onto a benighted medical
profession – Lauritsen insults millions of
intelligent, dedicated doctors by suggesting
this.
–
Bill Wilcox,
London, UK
Find out
the facts and think for yourselves
Since my first
AIDS article was published
nineteen years ago, I’ve taken a lot of
flak. The letters attacking me in this issue
contain nothing new in the way of invective
or argument. Open debate is supposed to be
an essential part of the scientific
approach. Not in the AIDS
arena. Dr Mark Wainberg, [a former]
president of the
International AIDS
Society [IAS], has called for jailing “HIV
deniers”, and has made an explicit analogy
to “Holocaust deniers”. Obviously Wainberg’s
term has caught on, as one of my critics
here has called me an “AIDS
denier”, whatever that is. It takes a bit of
effort to keep in mind that the HIV–AIDS
hypothesis is only a hypothesis, and that
criticism of hypotheses is expected and
desirable.
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Mark Weinberg former
president of International AIDS
Society |
As expressed by a senior
British virologist, “It will surely lead to
a scientifically healthier society if the
burden of proof for HIV
as a deadly pathogen is returned to where it
belongs – to those who maintain that
HIV causes AIDS
– and others are allowed to pursue
alternative approaches in the battle for
eradication of the disease” (Dr Beverly
Griffin, director and professor of virology,
Royal Postgraduate Medical School in
London).
One AIDS
dissident, Kary Mullis, who won the
Nobel Prize in Chemistry for inventing
the polymerase chain reaction, was asked to
state which argument most strongly convinced
him that HIV was not the
cause of AIDS. Mullis
replied, “The fact that there’s no evidence
for it.” Amazingly, there is no
peer-reviewed scientific paper which
marshals arguments in favour of the
HIV–AIDS
hypothesis and which replies to arguments
made by AIDS critics. The
best the AIDS
establishment can come with is an anonymous
document created by a United States
government agency, the
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious
Diseases (NIAID): “The
Evidence That HIV Causes AIDS”.
The full text of this
shady document, along with cogent
rebuttals of its key assertions, appears
on the
HEAL Toronto website. There is also a
manifesto known as “The
Durban Declaration”, which was signed by
5,000 “scientists”. This should be seen for
what it is: a publicity stunt devised by the
public-relations firms of the AIDS
Industry. It was intended to stifle dissent
– specifically, to ensure that AIDS
critics would not be given a hearing at the
International AIDS
conference held in South Africa.
“The Durban Declaration”
is thoroughly
rebutted on the HEAL Toronto website. I
intended my article to introduce
AIDS criticism, by analysing the
basic AIDS assumptions in
plain English. I hoped and assumed that
anyone whose interest was whetted by my
article would follow up by visiting the two
Internet websites I mentioned:
VirusMyth and
HEAL Toronto.
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I urge those who have
questions to do some research on their own.
Go to the
VirusMyth website and click on “FIND”.
This brings up a page with two columns:
“Topics” on the left and “Authors” on the
right. Have AIDS drugs
really shown “huge beneficial effects”?
Click on “AZT”
or “Protease
Inhibitors” to find out how toxic these
drugs are, and how phoney their alleged
benefits. (If you have a strong stomach,
look at the pictures, which show “Crix
bellies” and “buffalo humps” caused by the
protease inhibitors.) Other important topics
to be explored are: “Poppers”,
“HIV
Tests”, “HIV
Isolation”, “Voodoo”
and “Surviving”.
Click on “Bibliographies”
and then
my name for a list of my own
AIDS articles, the most important
of which are online. Click on “Book
Section” for the leading books of
AIDS criticism. For those
interested in the psychological warfare
being waged against gay men, the
HEAL Toronto website has a provocative
section put together by Ian Young, “The
AIDS Cult”.
I do not believe that
free and open discussion is ever
“dangerous”. Readers of Gay & Lesbian
Humanist should have the courage to
ask questions, find out the facts and think
for themselves.
–
John
Lauritsen,
Dorchester, Massachusetts
G&LH
editor's reply: why we
decided to publish
John Lauritsen’s article
AIDS:
A Death Cult caused
something of a furore after it had appeared
in the last issue of G&LH.
This was to be expected: his view is a
controversial one that is not shared by many
nonspecialists and laypeople, and is held by
a minority of professionals.
Arguments for and against
his analysis caused a flurry of postings –
some of them hostile and insulting, perhaps
(let us be charitable) written in haste – on
the GALHA discussion list
on the Internet. Those that have been sent
to us specifically for publication are on
these pages. That most do not support
Lauritsen’s view should not be taken to
indicate that his assertions are necessarily
wrong: just that there are by and large more
people (as is usual with controversy) from
the “anti” side than from the “pro” side who
are willing to put pen to paper.
Because it is such a hot
topic and caused the reaction it did on the
discussion list, we have decided to make a
“letters special” out of the responses we
have received for publication; and, because
we are making a special feature out of it,
we have allowed John Lauritsen to respond
here and now, rather than at a future date.
My reason for stepping
into this debate here is that I feel forced
to defend my decision to publish the
article. I am not arguing – indeed, am not
qualified to argue – for or against
Lauritsen’s views. However, the decision to
publish was, I believe, the right one,
because ideas that are never challenged can
so soon become desiccated, and their
proponents soon become infallible in the
eyes of those who never question. There is
also the view – as any reader of J S Mill
will testify – that censored opinions that
might contain even a partial truth will
never be allowed to carry that partial truth
out into the light.
It’s perhaps worth
quoting Mill directly on the subject:
“However unwillingly a person who has a
strong opinion may admit the possibility
that his opinion may be false, he ought to
be moved by the consideration that, however
true it may be, if it is not fully,
frequently, and fearlessly discussed, it
will be held as a dead dogma, not a living
truth” (from
On Liberty).
Obviously, there are
people who do not want to expose their own
views to further challenge, and this is what
our nineteenth-century friend had to say
about that: “There is the greatest
difference between presuming an opinion to
be true because, with every opportunity for
contesting it, it has not been refuted, and
assuming its truth for the purpose of
not permitting its refutation” (ibid.,
my italics).
So whichever theory is
true, or even if it’s something in between,
there are clearly some people who do not
want this magazine to explore the
possibilities. By all means argue with the
article itself, but to argue with my
decision to publish it is clearly running
scared of hearing that maybe there’s
something we haven’t been told, something
that will give our rigidly held opinions a
knock. Critical challenge can actually
strengthen a theory that’s sound, don’t
forget. If it’s not sound, then you don’t
want it.
Lauritsen’s views –
whether he will be proved right or wrong –
were clearly not flat-earthism or akin to
spiritualism, as some fatuously asserted on
the GALHA discussion
list. These snipes were merely bizarre and
desperate attempts at argument from analogy.
Some disputed my decision
to publish the article at all, and others
thought that a concurrent counterargument
should have had equal showing as of some
kind of right. However, the
orthodox position is to be found almost
daily in every newspaper in the land, and in
many issues of G&LH.
It is there by default, because HIV
and AIDS are mentioned in
the same phrase by commentators with no
reservation or qualification. The
juxtaposing of the two is always treated as
a given. Therefore, no opposing article
needed to be printed. After all, when we
have printed articles that our readers
broadly agree with, we have never been asked
to source an opposing view. A
recent piece on homeopathy [by
John Allen, G&LH, Spring 2003] is
a case in point, yet it – along with some of
the so-called complementary therapies – is
still a problematical subject.
If we did not publish
articles that challenge the established
thinking, we would never move forward.
Having been encouraged to rethink their
position on an issue, readers are free
either to accept the heterodox view (or a
version or modification of it) or to
maintain their existing stance. They will at
least have questioned, and their eventual
conclusions will be the stronger for it.
This is what a magazine is about, not
massaging its readers’ own firmly
established opinions. If it did only that,
it might as well not exist. It would be a
futile exercise and a waste of resources.
Some – thankfully not all
– of the discussion on the list I write of
smacked of the worst kind of so-called
humanism: the undiluted fundamentalist type
that betrays small minds that want
“rational” argument as long as it accords
with their own entrenched views. That is not
rationalism.
–
Andy
Armitage,
editor, G&LH
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