BOOK REVIEW (LAISSEZ FAIRE BOOKS)
There have been an estimated 100,000 academic papers published
on AIDS, yet according to University of California (Berkeley) biologist
Peter Duesberg, not a single one proves a virus causes the deaths. Here
he makes a compelling and explosively controversial case that $35 billion
of government AIDS research money has run into a dead-end. Yet government
scientists, pursuing their vested interest, continue to demand more tax
dollars for AIDS research. Moreover, Duesberg suggests, government officials
are trying to suppress those who question what's going on. I understand
many publishers were reluctant to touch this book.
All I can do is scratch the surface of Duesberg's immensely fascinating
material. He observes that there hasn't been a really big viral epidemic
in the United States since polio vaccines were developed more than three
decades ago. Fears since then about imported tropical diseases haven't
materialized. Meanwhile, large numbers of researchers are trained to hunt
for viruses, many on government payrolls or government grants. If it turns
out that AIDS has nothing to do with viruses, a lot of these people will
lose their funding.
Duesberg tells what the federal government's Centers for Disease Control
has done with AIDS statistics, steadily increasing the number of diseases
considered part of the AIDS syndrome--diseases that kill someone whose
immune system has collapsed. Now there are some 30 diseases, which means
you can't figure a trend by comparing AIDS deaths in one year vs. another.
Thus, even when the mission is to save lives, government involvement means
monkey business.
Duesberg begins his case by explaining what's required to determine
whether deaths are caused by some kind of infectious agent: (1) it must
be found in all patients and every diseased tissue, (2) it must be isolated
and cultured in a laboratory and (3) the purified infectious agent must
cause the disease in another host. AIDS, says Duesberg, doesn't meet any
of these tests.
Moreover, Duesberg reports that while the number of HIV-positive Americans
has been steady for years around a million the number of AIDS deaths has
gone up sharply. About eight times more Africans test positive for HIV,
but the continent has fewer AIDS cases.
Duesberg reports more problems with the disease hypothesis. Infections
don't discriminate among people. They hit both sexes and all ethnic groups.
Yet more than a decade after the first AIDS case was announced, AIDS still
hasn't gone beyond the original risk groups: male homosexuals, intravenous
drug users and hemophiliacs. Overall, 90% of AIDS cases are men.
Why hemophiliacs like Ryan White who supposedly died of AIDS? Duesberg
cites evidence that hemophiliacs suffer a progressive degeneration of their
immune systems whether or not they test positive for HIV. White's symptoms,
Duesberg notes, "interestingly happen to match the classical description
of hemophilia, none being listed as peculiar to the AIDS condition."
There's a similar story with blood transfusion patients who died of
AIDS, such as California tax fighter Paul Gann. Duesberg reports that about
half of transfusion patients die within a year after transfusion. They
were already sick.
Duesberg bets that long-term drug use is behind the AIDS deaths. In
addition to the one-third of victims officially recorded as intravenous
drug users, Duesberg presents evidence that a high percentage of homosexual
victims are drug users. AIDS, he says, tends to strike so-called "fast-track"
homosexuals who have a large number of sexual contacts and engage in long-term
use of "recreational" drugs including alcohol, cocaine, crack,
heroin, amyl nitrate, butyl nitrate, barbiturates, ecstacy (XTC), librium,
Mandrex, MDA, quaalude, special K, seconal, THC, tuinol and valium--often
several together. Such long-term drug use, Duesberg notes, will definitely
undermine one's immune system to the point where opportunistic diseases
take over.
"We have not been able to discover any good reasons why most of
the people on earth believe that AIDS is a disease caused by a virus called
HIV," writes Nobel Prize winning chemist Mullis in the foreword. "There
is simply no scientific evidence demonstrating that this is true."
If they are right, then instead of being an impersonal disease which
could strike anyone, AIDS becomes an issue of personal behavior and responsibility.
Probably there would be less public sympathy for continued mega-funding
of AIDS research. But more important, individuals would know they can do
much to protect their own lives provided the right story gets out.
This book is a thriller of scientific discovery and cover-up.
You've got to check it out.