THE AIDS VIRUS:
MATTER OR METAPHOR?

By Valendar Turner

Draft Only, Sept. 1997

The title of Professor Peter Duesberg’s book "Inventing the AIDS Virus" (reviewed 9/8/97 by Dr. J. Santamaria) is an enigma. Although arguing that recreational and prescribed drugs and not a virus are the cause of AIDS, Duesberg unreservedly accepts the existence of HIV, a fact well advertised by the recent lengthy debate between Duesberg and ourselves in the wake of the yet to be awarded £ 1000 "Proof of Isolation" prize offered by the UK magazine Continuum. The irony of Duesberg’s title is that it points to what our group regards as the greatest single obstacle to a resolution of the problem of AIDS.

A virus is a microscopic particle which, having no metabolic machinery of its own, must invade a living cell in order to get its nucleic acid blueprint (DNA or RNA) involved in the serious business of constructing future virus particles. This duality of structure and function dictates that proof for the existence of a virus is unconditionally contingent upon finding a right looking particle ("viral-like") that is able to faithfully replicate. Merely seeing a particle, even viral-like, is not sufficient proof since with viruses as with humans, multiplication is the name of the game. Thus the method of convincing oneself or the whole world that a virus exists is to grow whatever cells are thought to contain the putative virus, locate an appropriate structure, purify the particles since this is the only way that constituent proteins and nucleic acids will not be confused with those of the cells in which they are obligatorily grown or with those of other objects, document these chemical constituents, introduce pure particles into a virgin cell culture and prove that what comes out is exactly the same as what went in. This model of intelligibility also bears the imprimatur of the Pasteur Institute where is was meticulously discussed at a 1973 meeting attended by several current AIDS dignitaries. Of significance, the Pasteur meeting emphasised the rather obvious requirement that at the purification stage electron microscopic (EM) pictures must be taken to guarantee that all that is present is the right kind of particle.

In 1983 and 1984 Luc Montagnier and Robert Gallo respectively published data in the prestigious international journal Science claiming to have isolated HIV. However, even a cursory look at their data reveals that proof for the existence of a retrovirus was not based on the method detailed above. What logic then did the world’s leading researchers follow to stake their claim? Examination of the data in the four Gallo papers (the single Montagnier paper is qualitatively similar but from a single patient), reveals that "proof" for the existence of HIV consisted of culturing a mixture of lymphocytes obtained from ten individual AIDS patients (the Gallo group could not get single patient cultures to grow anything new) with a clone of a malignant lymphocyte cell line (although HIV is said to kill lymphocytes) in the presence of a number of chemical agents. In these cultures was detected the activity of an enzyme which catalyses the synthesis of DNA from RNA ("reverse" from the usual direction DNAà RNA followed by almost everything biological and hence the "retro" in retrovirus), as well as a dozen or so "extracellular viral particles" photographed lying adjacent to a cell in an unpurified culture and lastly, reactions between some proteins in cells of the cultures and antibodies present in a patient with "pre-AIDS" and rabbits. Under this guise, the Gallo papers documented "isolation of HIV" from 26/72 (36%) of AIDS patients and antibodies in the serum of 43/49 (88%) AIDS patients (although since 1987 no one would claim HIV positivity by the Gallo method and if only 36% of AIDS patients "grew" the virus why "HIV" antibodies with no virus in 52%?) Then, two weeks before the papers were published, these data were announced to an anxious world at a Washington press conference as the discovery of a virus which was the "probable" cause of AIDS but indelibly juxtaposed into the "AIDS virus" by the New York Times. Moreover, in 1986 Gallo claimed the same data as "clearcut" evidence that HIV is the cause of AIDS as he did again in the 1993 television documentary "The Plague". However these data do not prove the existence of HIV much less a pathogenic role.

That neither the French nor the American groups isolated a virus or indeed anything is implicit in the data itself. The question remaining is whether the same data support even the detection of a retrovirus from the lymphocyte cultures of AIDS patients. Perhaps the reader may like to judge the issue for himself. Each of the three phenomena reported by these groups is unspecific. Not only are retroviral-like particles not proof that particles are a virus, such particles are ubiquitous. In the 1970s they were frequently observed in human leukaemic cells, in cultures of embryonic tissues and in the majority of animal and human placentas. This is highly significant given that the Gallo cultures used leukaemic cells and because Montagnier obtained his EMs from cultures performed with lymphocytes obtained from placental blood. There is also a large group of retroviral particles classified as type-C particles which are found in fish, snakes, pheasant, quail, partridge, turkey, tree mice, agouti, tapeworms and insects as well as mammals. And amongst its many different guises HIV has been described as a retroviral type-C particle, by both Montagnier and Gallo. Then there is the electron microscopic study reported in 1988 by O'Hara and colleagues from Harvard where enlarged lymph nodes from both AIDS and non-AIDS patients were found to harbour identical "HIV" particles in 90% of both groups. Turning to enzyme test, although retroviruses do possess the ability of synthesising RNA from DNA, this property is not unique. Other cellular enzymes also perform the same trick including reverse transcription of the synthetic RNA that all HIV researchers use to "prove" the presence of HIV. And one of the chemicals added to the cultures causes the same activity in normal lymphocytes. Yet HIV/AIDS experts persist with the notion that such activity is unique to retroviruses some even claiming "isolation" of HIV based on nothing more than the detection of this enzymatic activity in cell cultures.

However, the most disingenuous piece of the HIV chimera is the manner in which a few of the many proteins in a culture "soup" and antibodies were simultaneously identified as "HIV". It may help to imagine the scene in Gallo’s laboratory. Cultures are made and much is made of EMs showing a handful of particles in an unpurified specimen and reverse transcription of RNA (although in the 1970s Gallo himself rightly admitted that even together these are not proof for the existence of a retrovirus). Now, antibodies taken from a single patient "E.T." (with haemophilia who did not have AIDS) as well as rabbits, are added to unpurified cultures whereupon reactions are seen. From these observations proteins reacting with the antibodies are deemed the HIV proteins and the antibodies the HIV antibodies. Thus, in apparent ignorance of basic anatomy that is, viral proteins are those extracted from purified (isolated) particles proven replication competent, the "new" virus becomes an invention of a new alchemy that transforms "base metal" proteins of a cell culture into HIV "gold". Two unknowns, antibodies (which as a class are promiscuous and cross-react), and proteins come together in a chemical union and are thereby transmuted into a new retrovirus. (As an analogy imagine that a mixture of different acids [which like antibodies are not monogamous] is added to a mixture of milks. One then deduces which acids and which species of milk protein form the curdles and claim each arise at the behest of a particle). Even if we ignore just the problems with the chemistry, at this stage no one had any proof that there were such entities as HIV proteins or HIV antibodies because no one had a virus to prove either contention (rigor demands a biological habeas corpus). And since rabbits do not suffer the diseases associated with the putative virus how could rabbits possess antibodies specific to HIV? Only by immunising them with pure HIV, the virus as yet unidentified. Indeed, not only does the Montagnier and Gallo groups paradigm ignore the decades old method of proving the existence of retroviruses, it completely defies common sense. Granted, cultures which contain particles and synthesise DNA from RNA, and antibody/protein interactions may herald the existence of a retrovirus. However, since they are neither singly nor collectively specific, they do not prove the existence of a retrovirus anymore than fever, vomiting, diarrhoea, dehydration and toxaemia prove a patient has cholera.

Without doubt the greatest mystery pervading HIV "science" is that, contradictory to the recorded wisdom of the Pasteur Institute , until March this year no research group ever published an EM of what each and every HIV researcher regards as "pure" HIV (and from which diagnostic agents and dollars are made by the ton). Now that this data is available, instead of revealing nothing else but monotonous millions of the right kind of particles, there are instead a mere handful of "HIV" particles which when scrutinised prove to be too big, wrongly shaped and to contain too much matter to be a retrovirus and which are overwhelmingly outnumbered by "contaminating" cellular material. (The latter is said to be explicable as "HIV" particles and cellular material "co-purifiying"). Thus what has been used to obtain proteins for antibody tests and RNA for "genetic" tests for nearly fourteen years is conceded to be almost entirely cellular (non-viral) and what is claimed to be HIV does not fit the definition of a retroviral particle. Furthermore, and as previous studies have made unambiguously plain, the knobs that innumerable artists’ loving hands have appended on countless splendid pictures of the "HIV" particle, are notably absent. This is a considerable problem because HIV researchers are unanimous that knobs are the "suckers" that permit HIV to attach to uninfected cells as the first step in replication. So, no knobs, no suckers, no replication , HIV cannot reproduce and AIDS cannot be an infectious disease caused by HIV.

Surely this predicates how long the time is past to get back to basics but as Dr. Santamaria adroitly points out, "The present AIDS establishment is a world wide network of interlocking interests, with control of powerful institutions, with advisors to government and referees of scientific journals. It is difficult to know how a "suitable independent group" can be formed without strong leadership from a high profile political person who can prevent the subversion of such a body by a galaxy of high profile figures in positions of power". Difficult but not impossible and God speed the day. Without proof for the existence of HIV there is nothing to adjudicate the origin of "HIV" proteins and antibodies and RNA. But while we dally, tempus fugit, and more and more humans are exposed to the therapeutic mania of "anti-HIV" drugs and their cost and toxicities. Even the most basic review of the pharmacology of the still most often used drug, AZT, amply proves it cannot be anti-retroviral and what is worse, HIV/AIDS experts themselves concede that AZT causes "a significant increased risk of death among the patients treated early", that is, in patients who commence treatment when asymptomatic. And not only does AZT not prolong life, some of its "unwanted" effects mimic AIDS. Too many lives, some household names, have been sacrificed in celebration of an hypothesis that even a junior high school student can see as significantly problematic. In another time Bob Dylan asked an apprehensive world "How many deaths will it take till he knows that too many people have died?" In the AIDS era the question remains the same. And the answer is still the song. *

V.F. Turner FACEM FRACS
Perth

Fax 08 9346 3516
Voice 08 9 346 3333 page 4119
email <vturner@cyllene.uwa.edu.au>

(References available from the author).

The author is a senior Emergency Physician at the Royal Perth Hospital and a member of the Australian HIV/AIDS dissidents group led by biophysicist Eleni Papadopulos-Eleopulos. This group has been researching the HIV/AIDS literature since 1981 and has published several scientific papers arguing that a retrovirus is not the cause of AIDS. Their work also includes a unifying non-infectious theory for all AIDS risk groups, proposes the same factors as the cause of the phenomena inferred as proof for the existence of HIV and predicts the utility of simple, inexpensive non-toxic methods for the prevention and treatment of AIDS.