BIRTH DEFECTS (JUNE '99)

More evidence is emerging that AIDS drugs can cause serious birth defects. Researchers at the Necker Hospital in Paris examined the cases of around 1000 pregnant women with HIV and found that eight gave birth to babies who, though HIV-negative, suffered from a an extraordinarily rare mitochondrial disorder that you might expect to see in only 1 in 10 000 or 1 in 100 000 births. This neurodegenerative condition kills its victims in infancy. The babies' mothers had all taken a combination of the drugs AZT and 3TC during their pregnancy. (New Scientist 26 June '99)

ANOTHER LAB ERROR (JUNE '99)

"A Vancouver woman is suing St. Paul's Hospital and several doctors because she was diagnosed as carrying the AIDS virus, when in fact she wasn't. In a BC Supreme Court writ, Lisa Lebed claims when she was admitted to the hospital in late 1995 to give birth to a daughter, a blood sample was taken without her consent. It revealed she was HIV positive, so she gave up the baby girl for adoption and decided to have a tubal ligation. A year and-a-half later, while undergoing AIDS treatment, she found out she was not HIV positive. The explanation she was given was a lab error. She says because of the negligence of the hospital, she's now sterile and has lost a daughter." (News item on a Vancouver radio station)

NEW C.D.C. DATA (JUNE '99)

"Brace yourself. The new annual report on AIDS is out, and the news is horrifying. Horrifying, that is, if you've been riding the AIDS gravy train or have made your reputation with cries of gloom and doom." Read more in this new article by Michael Fumento.

ITALIAN AZT STUDY (JUNE '99)

Italian investigators from the University of Florence report that infants whose HIV+ mothers received the toxic drug AZT (a cytostatica) during pregnancy had a higher probability of developing severe disease compared with (matched) children of untreated HIV+ mothers. The children also had a higher probability of severe immune suppression and a lower survival. (AIDS 1999, vol.13:927-933.)

POSITIVELY FLAWED (JUNE '99)

New column by Celia Farber. "The difference between thinking you will live and thinking you will die often depends on an HIV antibody test that is shockingly unreliable. The case of a 3-year-old child in North Carolina proves that even hospitals have to admit this now."

FEAR OF DISSENT (MAY '99)

Medical journalist Nicholas Regush writes weekly columns for abcnews.com. He wrote a column about the fast dying democracy in medicine. "Let�s say you are a medical scientist who has wondered, from time to time, whether HIV is really the cause of AIDS or whether AIDS is as simple as one virus. It�s a reasonable question, given that we�re 20 years into the epidemic without much in the way of enduring therapy. But do you really want to express this opinion? Or merely raise the question? If you do, then the new Gestapo will likely pay you a visit. Forget about that government grant. Forget about the raise. You will find yourself marginalized, your reputation smeared and you'll probably be out on the street..." Regush announced he is going to publish a special series of columns on AIDS in June. Check out on Wednesdays!

WESTERN SEXUAL STEREOTYPES (MAY '99)

"A Critical Reappraisal of African AIDS Research and Western Sexual Stereotypes." A new paper by Prof. Charles Geshekter. "This paper evaluates how the unverifiable assumptions and inaccurate predictions that turned "AIDS is everywhere" into a quasi-religious American clich� are perpetuated in Africa."

POISONOUS SEMEN (MAY '99)

"One of the most vexing and divisive issues in the dissident 'AIDS' movement, with the possible exception of the existence/non-existence of 'HIV', is the role of semen as the cause of disease." Fred Cline from San Francisco wrote another article about anal sex.

STORY ON U.S. LAWYER (MAY '99)

Hilary Billings is a criminal lawyer who defends AIDS dissidents in the U.S. Here a short story about him.

AZT CANNOT WORK AGAINST HIV (MAY '99)

A new science paper by the Perth Group about the pharmacology of AZT has been published in Current Medical Research and Opinion. "The triphosphorylated form of AZT is claimed to interrupt the HIV replication cycle by a selective inhibition of viral reverse transcriptase... Notwithstanding, from the evidence published since 1991 it has become apparent that no such phosphorylation takes place and thus AZT cannot possess an anti-HIV effect..."

COCKTAIL HANGOVER (MAY '99)

HIV patients find that the current drug treatments aren�t necessarily the answer. "More and more patients are refusing drug therapy, often against the advice of their doctors. They�re beginning to question the mainstream approach to AIDS because they�ve seen what�s happened to the other HIV-positive people they know. Many have died while taking AZT and other AIDS drugs, while many people who have avoided treatment remain healthy nearly 20 years after an HIV diagnosis." Read a new article by Frank Green from the Cleveland Free Times.

GALLO'S HUMOR (MAY '99)

Steven James is a Vietnam veteran and dissident "AIDS" activist living in New York City. He wrote an article about Dr. Gallo. "Laughter is the best medicine... or so people say. But, comedy sometimes has a dark side and loses its therapeutic value, like when the joke�s on you. It�s funny -- and you may laugh -- but during the laughter you may wonder why is this funny? Why am I laughing?"

NEW SCIENCE PAPER (MAY '99)

"The AIDS Dilemma: Drug diseases blamed on a passenger virus", an important new paper (.pdf version) by David Rasnick and Peter Duesberg, has been published in Genetica.

WELCOME TO THE MACHINE (MAY '99)

New column by Celia Farber. "The Tyson family loses its breast-feeding court battle in Oregon. Plus, federal AIDS funds are being challenged from within, and ACT UP San Francisco shows its teeth with full-page ads."

A LETTER TO A DOCTOR (MAY '99)

Russell Schoch from California wrote a letter to his son's doctor to explain why he disagrees with his medical advice. His son has hemophilia, and is said to be HIV+. "...A flawed premise (Ho's viral dynamics), a misleading surrogate marker (viral load), and failed monotherapeutic drugs (protease inhibitors) -- mixed together with the failed and toxic AZT and its analogues -- are the basis of the latest anti-HIV treatment."

U.S. COURT CASE STARTED (APRIL '99)

CNN released another article covering the Tyson case. "Tyson and her husband, David, are part of a national movement that rejects the prevailing science on AIDS. They don't believe HIV causes AIDS, and their refusal to give up breast-feeding led authorities to take legal custody of their infant son four months ago."

After a three day hearing judge Maurice Merten refused to give up state control of Felix, saying the risk of spreading the deadly virus left the state no choice but to step in. See this AP release.

According to the father, David Tyson, this decision lays bare the fascist soul of our legal system. "Citizens can now be assured that they have been stripped of all rights in the health care decisions of their family," he says. "A doctor's "recommendation", a physician's "counsel" is now an enforceable command. Your children can be taken away and placed in foster homes if you refuse to comply. Medical doctors are now our overseers and our children are to them as a cage full of monkeys who must submit to their experiments." The Tysons consider an appeal.

Update: Mothering magazine published an article by Kathleen Tyson.

COMING TO GRIPS WITH HEALTH FASCISM (APRIL '99)

Dr. Hiram Caton, Fellow at the National Institute of Law, Ethics, and Public Affairs at Griffith University, in Brisbane, Australia, wrote a new article. "Be informed. Withdraw your consent from the most malignant fraud ever perpetrated in the name of medicine. Be aware that the primary truth in the 'AIDS war' is that powerful agencies have declared war on YOU and your loved ones, regardless of your HIV status. Be aware that 'AIDS science' is 90% mindless repetition and 10% deeply inconsistent findings of no clinical value."

WASTING AWAY (APRIL '99)

"An AIDS patient looks back at the horrifying sickness he went through in the name of health and wonders what, exactly, is so wondrous about drugs that decimate the very quality of life they're supposed to preserve." Read this the story by Stephen Rogers.

A MEDICINE FROM HELL (APRIL '99)

In South African "National Health Minister Nkosazana Zuma has been condemned by just about everyone recently for her heartless decision not to make a drug called AZT available at state expense to HIV+ pregnant women." On 17 March 1999 Anthony Brink's essay AZT: A Medicine from Hell was published in The Citizen, a daily newspaper distributed nationally in South Africa. South Africa�s leading AIDS authority, Dr Desmond Martin rose to the piece and mounted a rebuttal on 31 March entitled AZT: A Medicine from Heaven. Brink's rejoinder AZT and Heavenly Remedies was printed the following day.

CHEMOTHERAPY OF AIDS CONFERENCE (MARCH '99)

Dr. David Rasnick visited the 1999 Chemotherapy of AIDS Conference, and wrote a report. "Cameron illustrated with specific examples how easy it is to "engineer" a desired outcome in clinical trials using viral load surrogate endpoints..."

DUESBERG LAB STAYS OPEN (MARCH '99)

Associated Press released an article about the fundraising campaign to support Prof. Peter Duesberg, and keep his Berkeley lab open. "Duesberg said his lab and money problems reflect his one-man battle with scientists and drug companies who, he maintains, have invested too much in the HIV-AIDS connection to admit to an alternative theory. "Most people don't realize how un-free we are to do science in America," he said. "They can afford to give millions, but they cannot afford to give me $100,000 or $200,000 to prove them wrong.""

PANIC ATTACK (MARCH '99)

"We are in the midst of the second major wave of AIDS terror propaganda. But people are rational. The mass hysteria isn't coming back." Read the new column by Celia Farber.

CNN COVERS COURT CASE (FEB. '99)

CNN broadcasted a TV news item about the Tyson case. "The Tysons find support on this Internet site, which claims that a growing number of biomedical scientists say the AIDS virus is harmless and not sexually transmitted. Site authors claim it's the anti-viral medications, like AZT, that kill." Read the transcript.

A GRIEVOUS ROAR (FEB. '99)

Kathleen Tyson, an HIV-positive mother in Oregon, almost loses custody of her baby Felix because she resists giving him AZT and wishes to breast-feed him. Celia Farber looks in her new column at the continuing attack on families in the name of HIV heroica.

RECOLLECTIONS OF MICROSCOPIST (FEB. '99)

"For an electron microscopist who spent most of his research career studying retroviruses associated with murine leukemias and who followed closely their hypothetical impact on the field of human oncology, it was predictable that contemporary AIDS research was completely on the wrong track," says Prof. Etienne de Harven in a new article.

HIV FROM CHIMPS? (FEB. '99)

"It's a jungle out there in the scientific world, where the big story this week is the discovery that every single HIV particle in the world today stems from a small population of West African chimps." A new article by Colman Jones about the latest socalled 'breakthrough' in AIDS research.

BABIES DIE IN AIDS EXPERIMENT (FEB. '99)

Two babies died in a French AIDS drug experiment. "Both babies died from a rare neurological disease, French scientists reported... The drugs involved ...were AZT, or zidovudine, and 3TC, or lamivudine, which are made by Glaxo Wellcome. ...health officials quickly added that the disease had not been noted among babies who received the drugs in studies in the United States and elsewhere. But they acknowledged the possibility that cases might have gone undetected. ...Glaxo Wellcome... was not involved in the French study..."

"...In the nationwide French study, infected mothers started taking AZT at about the 24th week of pregnancy and received it intravenously during labor. The babies took AZT for six weeks. Those same mothers also took 3TC starting in the last eight weeks of pregnancy, and the babies took it for the first five weeks of life. ...The babies became sick at about four months of age and died several months later from mitochondrial dysfunction ...One baby developed epileptic seizures that could not be controlled by drugs and the other had neurological problems. The first died early in 1998. The second baby had no seizures but had other symptoms from brain disease as well as heart and lung problems. The second baby died in recent weeks, alerting the team to a potential link between the disease and the drugs." (New York Times 3 Feb.)

DOCTOR ACCUSED OF MISDIAGNOSIS (JAN. '99)

Mark Savage, a 43-year-old flight attendant from Ohio, is suing his former doctor for "allegedly misdiagnosing him with HIV and then prescribing a potent drug that had to be taken each day for more than six years... His lawsuit says he was diagnosed with the AIDS virus in July 1990 and treated with AZT and other AIDS-fighting drugs through 1996. In addition to "extreme mental pain and suffering,'' Savage's lawsuit says he experienced such AZT-induced side effects as tingling hands, vision and bowel problems, and depression." In 1997 Savage was tested, and it was found he was not carrying the AIDS virus. (AP 28 Jan.)

YIN AND YANG OF HIV (JAN. '99)

"There is an urgent need to establish a truly independent, and distinguished international committee to review the current theories and those that challenge them. There needs to be a co-operative but urgent reassessment of AIDS." Dr. Valendar Turner, wrote together with journalist Andrew McIntyre, a new article about the controversy.

WAR ON CANCER (JAN. '99)

"We are not winning the war against cancer. We are losing the war. The number of Americans getting cancer each year has escalated over recent decades, while our ability to treat and cure most common cancers has remained virtually unchanged." Read 'The Politics of Cancer - Revisited', a new controversial book by cancer dissident Prof. Samuel Epstein. "Dr. Epstein again comes head-to-head with the cancer establishment, disputing their claims with thorough documentation, clarifying misleading statistics, exposing budgetary shell games, and defining the political and economic reasons, rather than lack of scientific information, for the losing cancer war."

THE POPE OF AIDS (JAN. '99)

"Since the case for Gallo's HIV-AIDS hypothesis is invariably pressed with calls to the authority of its famous protagonist, in the absence of scientific proof in the sense that most curious folk understand, it's as well that we know what kind of bloke we're relying on." Anthony Brink, a lawyer living in South Africa, wrote an article about Dr. Robert Gallo.

CONSCIOUS UNSAFE SEX (JAN. '99)

"Rather than fearing the HIV virus, there are gay men who actually eroticize it, and their stories are seeping through to the mainstream. This is madness, to be sure, but it also says a lot about the power of human lust and rage." In her new column 'Welcome to the Machine' Celia Farber reports about 'barebacking'.

AIDS DRUGS FAIL, KILL AND MUTILATE (JAN. '99)

"The drugs we have are nowhere near as powerful as we once thought... Reports of treatment failure have ranged between 20 percent and 50 percent for more than a year now... If you don't die of a heart attack from the raised cholesterol and triglyceride levels caused by protease inhibitors, and if you aren't struck down by diabetes, you'll almost certainly be disfigured by lipodystrophy syndrome: a big stomach, a huge hump on your back, scrawny, skinny legs and arms." Read the POZ column by Stephen Gendin.

TALK BY DR. TURNER (JAN. '99)  

Dr. Val Turner is member of the Perth Group of AIDS dissidents. Dr. Turner made a 60 minutes audio talk about the problems with HIV and AIDS. (You need to have a Real player installed to listen to his talk.)