HIV/AIDS: SCIENCE OR RELIGION ?
By David Crowe
http://www.redflagsweekly.com/crowe/2003_mar03P.html
March 3, 2003
[This is the text of Crowe's talk to an Alive and Well (http://aliveandwell.org
) meeting in Los Angeles on February 19, 2003]
"When religion was strong and science weak, men mistook magic for medicine,
now when science is strong and religion weak, men mistake medicine for
magic" -Thomas Szasz
How We Learn
About Scientific Beliefs
Ossification Of Beliefs
Language
Censorship
Hierarchies
Perfect Evil
Perfect Goodness
War - Metaphor & Reality
Admiration of Enemies
Church/State Power Sharing
Heretics and Traitors
Punishment
Worshipping Mammon
The Ultimate Heresy - "Does it
Exist?"
Conclusions
There appears to be little in common between the beliefs of medieval
Christianity and modern science. We learned in grade school how the open
exchange of ideas was suppressed back in the dark ages, and how learning
was discouraged in favor of dogmas handed down hierarchically from the
religious elite to the peasants through several rigid, filtering layers.
We also were taught that scientific thought is now advanced by egalitarian,
intellectual, public debates between people who rise to the top of the
scientific community through their intelligence, careful experimentation,
open exchange of ideas and information, use of the scientific method and
hard work. Everyone, we copied off the blackboard, is now exposed to
rapidly evolving scientific theories rather than rote learning of the
catechism of an immutable religious dogma.
How We Learn About Scientific
Beliefs
Is there a problem in how we learn about the superiority of modern thought?
Are we actually guilty of rote learning ourselves, accepting what we were
told because it makes us feel superior to those ignorant peoples of
centuries ago? Do we believe, without questioning, because the
conclusions of science both support our hopes for the
future as well as sending shivers up our spine as our
darkest fears of the unknowable are realized? Can we
claim that we hold a scientific belief when we just believe what we were told?
How do the majority of people, those outside the scientific elite of our
society, learn about new scientific theories and, perhaps more
importantly, decide whether to accept or reject them?
Their beliefs about HIV and AIDS, for example, cannot
be based on a critical examination of the evidence
because so few have ever read even a single scientific paper. Is there
really much difference then, between a medieval peasant being told that
sinners will spend eternity burning in Hell, and an ordinary citizen of
this country being told that if he or she has sex without a condom they
risk contracting a fatal virus?
Ossification Of Beliefs
Early Christianity was an informal religion, with few written religious
texts of its own. Jesus, for example, often taught through parables,
folksy stories with a moral lesson, such as the Sower
and the Seed or The Prodigal Son, rather than through
recitations of dusty texts. Yet, within a few hundred
years the Christian church had accreted layer of dogmas, many with
little grounding in the founding principles of the church.
Celibacy, for example, was not part of early church doctrine, and some
religious scholars believe that it was originally designed to stop the
practice of some priests, of handing down their position and church
property to their children. This leakage from the bottom of the hierarchy
threatened the whole hierarchical structure. Yet, from this beginning,
celibacy became a strongly defended Catholic dogma.
One of the dogmas of modern living is that HIV causes AIDS. It also did not
start this way. In the first papers by Robert Gallo (not a man known for
bashfulness) he only stated that HTLV-III (what he called HIV then) "may
be the primary cause of AIDS"[Gallo, 1984]. Stephen
Epstein, in his 1996 book "Impure science" [Epstein,
1996] shows how this tentative hypothesis became
accepted fact through the emboldening of scientists who referenced it. Only
3% of papers published in 1984 used Gallo's papers to support an
explicit, unqualified assertion that HIV caused AIDS.
By 1985, 25% of scientific papers. And, by 1986, 62%.
Epstein found this trend even when the Gallo papers
were the only ones referenced! Hypothesis became fact by repetition.
Kary Mullis, who won the Nobel Prize for his invention of the Polymerase
Chain Reaction (PCR) once echoed Gallo by starting a paper with the
sentence "HIV is the probable cause of AIDS", and then went searching for
a reference to support it. He read the original Gallo
and Montagnier papers, found them lacking, so started
asking his colleagues in his lab, and at conferences.
They either said he didn't need a reference for the statement,
got angry or, like Luc Montagnier, just looked uncomfortable and walked
away [Duesberg, 1996].
One would think that a debate over such a fundamental point of medical
science would be a big news item, but it only rarely surfaces in the
news, and then often as a `Man bites Dog' story. One
of these times was early in the days of Duesberg's
dissidence. Another, more recently, was when South
Africa's President Mbeki started asking questions about the cause of AIDS,
and even established a Presidential Commission to investigate. Coverage
of dissenters is usually written from the perspective
that any sane person would disagree, just as a
journalist might provide coverage of a flat earth
society conference. Journalists focus on individuals, giving the impression
that there are only a handful of renegades.
Those who believe and defend HIV/AIDS dogmas play on a weakness of
journalists - there is no news if nothing new is happening. If top
scientists claim that it is beneath their dignity to debate to such a
preposterous notion and refuse to comment further there simply is no
story. Journalists who get nosy can be told that it is
irresponsible to dredge up hypotheses that were
disproven years ago (which already makes the
journalist feel inadequate, because they won't know of these debates,
because they never happened) and that, besides, such `reckless' reporting
will only make people give up safe sex, which will cause immeasurable
loss
of life, all because of the reporter's selfish desire for a scoop.
Another popular assumption is that HIV rapidly results in AIDS, and AIDS
rapidly results in death. It is not clear exactly when and why this
belief arose, because AIDS is still a fairly young
disease. Although there is a high associated death
rate, obviously not everyone diagnosed with AIDS dies
of the disease, some may die of traffic accidents, suicide, adverse drug
reactions and perhaps some will die of old age.
CDC statistics up to 1997 documented a 92% death rate [CDC, 1997] among
people diagnosed with AIDS before 1981. But, a footnote to this chart
indicates that "Reported deaths are not necessarily caused by HIV-related
diseases". CDC definitions of pediatric AIDS exclude recovery by
definition, once a child is diagnosed with `AIDS' they must keep that
label, even if they fully recover from the AIDS-defining condition [MMWR,
1994].
Other research notes that the average time from HIV infection to AIDS is
about 10 years, both in North Americans with access to drugs [Munoz,
1997] and in malnourished Africans with no access to
these `life saving' compounds [Morgan, 2002].
A few researchers have studied so-called Long-Term Non-Progressors (LTNP),
people who are HIV-positive but who remain healthy for many years without
antiretroviral drugs.
This information does not support popular assumptions about HIV and AIDS,
so it is simply brushed aside.
HIV/AIDS `facts', as with so many medical `facts', often get created
through consensus meetings. With AIDS, this means that a group of medical
doctors, public health officials and researchers get together and decide
on
guidelines for testing or treatment for men, for women, for adolescents or
for children. By inviting only those who accept the `drugs into bodies'
philosophy of AIDS, it can be ensured that a pro-drug spin will be
published, and that fundamental assumptions will not be questioned.
This unscientific declaration then becomes the `standard of care', and
doctors below the authors in the hierarchy are virtually compelled to
work within this newly created box or risk being
accused of malpractice. Yet, the impact of financial
conflicts among the writers of the consensus position
is rarely considered, nor the impact of the selection process (if
it is even made public).
"There would never be any public agreement among doctors if they did not
agree to agree on the main point of the doctor being always in the
right."----George Bernard Shaw
Language
Language was used by medieval Christians to prevent communication of
anything except the most simple religious concepts to its adherents. It
was not until the 1960's, for example, that the
Catholic church stopped using Latin in its masses.
Language is a protective barrier around a hierarchical
organization. The early church was concerned that if people listened to
religious text in their native language, they might form their own
opinions about theological issues. How much better to
provide a ritual with familiar sounds, but no real
meaning.
Three different branches of Christianity used three different languages,
not one of which was understood by the average churchgoer. The Roman
Catholics used Latin, the Eastern Orthodox used Greek, and the Egyptian
church used Coptic. Worse than this, in the middle ages, many priests did
not even speak Latin, and consequently mumbled in a way that would have
been incomprehensible even to the few who did understand the language.
Well into the 20th Century much science was still published in Latin.
Scientists still use Latin or Greek to develop their own terminology,
which is legitimate if they are truly defining a novel
concept. However, you walk into a doctor's office with
muscle pain, and leave with Myalgia - have you been
diagnosed or bamboozled? If you walk in with a runny nose and leave
with a prescription for Rhinorrhea medication, are you better off?
While the bulk of language in medical science may be unintelligible to most
people, scientists need to communicate through a carefully designed
public subset of their language. What is `dumbed down'
to the level of the man in the street can be very
manipulative.
The words `potent' or `powerful', for example, are often used to describe
toxic medicines, particularly for Cancer and AIDS. These imply that the
drugs have a powerful effect on the disease. Yet, this is obviously not
true, because drugs for neither Cancer nor AIDS ever completely eradicate
the disease. Cancer patients are told they are in remission, not cured,
and signs of HIV can usually be found in people with
AIDS, even when they have been taking drugs for a long
time. [Saag, 1999]
These drugs do, on the other hand, have a very potent and powerful on the
patient. They can cause an amazing array of side effects including
serious anemia requiring blood transfusions, muscle
wasting, bone rotting (osteonecrosis in polite
company), heart attacks as well as pancreas and liver
failure [aras.ab.ca, 2003]
There is a special mini-language used to describe patients. They can be
classified as Naīve, Experienced or Compliant. A Naīve patient is not one
who is stupid, but one who has never taken drugs before. An Experienced
patient is the opposite, someone who has taken lots of AIDS drugs.
Good patients are not only Experienced, but also Compliant. They take their
drugs when they are supposed to, and never miss a dose. Presumably they
don't whine and complain about side effects either, but just carry their
cross heroically to the grave.
Scientists often fight over names. Brontosaurus is no longer the official
name of a dinosaur because, although that name had been used since 1879,
it was many years later discovered that the name
Apatosaurus had been given to the same fossil in 1877.
The naming purists won out. Brontosaurus is history.
In the case of HIV, politics played a much bigger role than even historical
precedence.
Gallo originally claimed that HTLV-I (Human T-Cell Leukemia Virus I) was
the cause of AIDS. This was a bit hard to swallow, because he had
previously been claiming that it caused uncontrolled replication of
lymphocytes (cancer), and now was claiming that it caused the death of
this type of cell. He didn't even bother trying with
HTLV-II, which has only ever been detected in one
person. So, he changed the `L' in HTLV from Leukemia
to Lymphotropic (which merely means `attracted' to lymphocytes)
and claimed that he had discovered a new virus, the probable cause of
AIDS, and it was in the same family as his previous
two viruses. This, he claimed, should be called
HTLV-III.
Montagnier, of the Institut Pasteur, called his discovery LAV -Lymphadenopathy
(lymph node disease) Associated Virus, due to the
characteristic swollen lymph glands in many people with AIDS. He also
claimed that this was the probable cause of AIDS.
The name HTLV was doomed when it became clear that Gallo had covertly used
Montagnier's cell cultures to 'discover' his virus. Gallo had so much
political power, however, that calling it LAV, a direct slap in his face,
would have been impossible.
An agreement between US President Ronald Reagan and French Prime Minister
Jacques Chirac became the official history of a simultaneous discovery,
although many knew that this was a fabrication. Based on this, HIV, Human
Immunodeficiency Virus, became the consensus name. This had the added
advantage that it solidified the association between the virus and the
Acquired Immuno-Deficiency Syndrome.
"Who controls the past, controls the future: who controls the present
controls the past."-----George Orwell
Another example of the importance of naming occurred around 1994, when it
was widely agreed that Kaposi's Sarcoma was not caused by HIV, but by
another virus called Human Herpes Virus 8. [Chang, 1994] This is very
interesting, because this skin cancer was one of only two diseases that
started the whole AIDS thing in the first place, and now it turns out
that it was not caused by HIV, even though KS is still
an AIDS-defining condition, and HIV supposedly still
causes AIDS. The name HHV8 simply was not adequate, so
the new name KSHV - Kaposi's Sarcoma Herpes Virus was
invented. Now, everybody would know that the causal link between the virus
and the disease was a `fact' just by speaking its name. Presumably, not
many people are going to read the literature and wonder why about
one-half of some age groups of schoolchildren in
Egypt, where the disease is quite rare, have
antibodies to KSHV? [Andreoni, 1999]
Censorship
Dogmas requires censorship, because otherwise people will be exposed to a
variety of opinions, and people have a nasty habit of not always picking
the `right' one. They must be protected from this.
I once took a moderated internet news group called sci.med.aids seriously,
and tried to start a civilized discussion regarding whether HIV caused
AIDS. The news group was established to allow a wide-ranging, open
discussion of all issues related to the science of HIV and AIDS. Its
moderators, well-meaning folks that they are, have standard codes for
various types of rejections. There are codes to reject spam, advertising,
abusive language, badly formatted posts and, most interesting to me, one
that effectively bans any discussion of the hypothesis that HIV causes
AIDS.
In 1996, I requested opinions on Dr. Peter Duesberg's just published book
"Inventing the AIDS Virus" [Duesberg, 1996]. The posting was rejected. I
then attempted to post a question asking for evidence that HIV causes
AIDS. It was also rejected using their special code
for the "HIV<>AIDS" debate.
To eliminate the possibility that I was just not good enough or scientific
enough to post on this group, I wrote the most obsequious email about an
unnamed sick friend, superficially in praise of modern AIDS researchers.
I ensured that the posting had absolutely zero
scientific content. It was posted on the group in a
flash. I quickly got a response from a researcher
looking for startup funds for a new therapy, an offer to send me a free
audio tape that could save my friend's life, a vaccine researcher
probably looking for trial participants and an
oncologist offering to treat my friend.
After a couple of days I told the newsgroup that it was all a hoax. Even
that posting was rejected ... because it "concerned the HIV<>AIDS
debate".
More recently, and more seriously, myself and a Ukrainian Statistician,
Vladimir Koliadin, have attempted to get raw data from the CDC on all
AIDS cases, excluding, of course, personal identifying
information. We wanted to see if we could find trends
in the data that would contradict the commonly quoted
belief that AIDS drugs have improved the health and increased the
life span of HIV-infected people. Even though we were only asking for
data that we knew they had (as much of it had been
published for years up to 1997), after a number of
emails back and forth, we were finally told that "we
are quite short staffed and have to prioritize requests". [CDC, 2001]
The Concorde clinical trial found little or no benefit to the early use of
AZT, and also little value in the use of CD4 cell counts to measure
`progression' to AIDS. The problem with this trial was that it was
intended to compare the early prescription of AZT with
later prescription (i.e. after the diagnosis of AZT).
We asked for data that would allow us to analyze
trends in health prior to the first use of AZT, as opposed to their
analysis that included the use of AZT in the `placebo' arm. They recently
wrote to us and told us that they did not think that we could add any
value to the analyses that they had recently performed
[Darbyshire, 2003], even though we have reviewed their
papers, and nothing like our proposed analysis appears
there.
Treating raw data and other products of a research project as the private
property of investigators is a common form of censorship in medicine. In
Science Fictions , John Crewdson describes how Gallo would only share his
reagents with researchers who were unlikely to be critical, and often
forced other researchers to agree to significant restrictions on what
they could do with them [Crewdson, 2002]. In the
`Bluestone' affair, Erdem Cantekin, a member of a
research team attempted to release data that showed
that antibiotics were not effective for treating ear infections, but
instead found his career derailed after the leader of the same research
team counter-attacked. [Crossen, 2001; Bell, 1992] A recent survey of
life scientists found that data withholding is a
significant impediment to the free flow of
information, and that it is more likely to occur when
commercial interests are present. [Campbell, 2002]
Hierarchies
Hierarchies are common methods of arranging complex organizations, whether
religions, governments, companies or medical research.
Hierarchies control decision making, define and refine dogmas, and put
limits, sometimes extremely tight, on legitimate dissent. Even today, in
the Catholic church (and others), only the leadership at the top can make
policy changes, others have to work within the system.
Members of the hierarchy benefit from the status and wealth that it
provides them, but they are also aware that they can easily be expelled
if they become a threat. Any one person is expendable.
Even popes have been deposed. This may be why people
within hierarchies are so conservative. They know that
they have much power, but also know that if they use it in
unexpected ways, they are liable to find themselves with a knife in the
back - literally or figuratively.
Entering a hierarchy requires special training which, in the case of
medicine, involves medical school or graduate school. Schmidt's 2000 book
Disciplined Minds contends that graduate school is designed more to
squeeze highly intelligent people into their place in
the scientific hierarchy, than it is to provide a
place and time for open exploration of science. He
believes that the `comprehensive examinations' that are part of most
curriculums are designed not to test knowledge, but rather to determine
whether the student is prepared to submit to the system by completing a
highly demanding project that may be completely meaningless to them.
The hierarchy in HIV/AIDS is revealed by examining how the information on
HIV/AIDS flowed down to us from Robert Gallo, a researcher at the
National Institutes of Health. After registering his
claim with the US patent office (which already had
Montagnier's claim, but was having `difficulty'
processing it) reported his discovery to his boss, Margaret Heckler, who
then announced that American scientists had found the probable cause of
AIDS at a press conference. Then they reported their results in an
unprecedented four papers in the prestigious journal Science. Then the
floodgates opened as the non-scientific media reported on the press
conference and provided diluted summaries of the scientific publications.
Although we have been virtually drowned in information on HIV and AIDS
since then, the flow of information has been very clearly downhill, with
us, the general public, the the bottom, receiving much, but without
permission to transmit much.
Perfect Evil
The concept of a God who (dis)embodies Perfect Goodness is found in many
religions. But, equally important to some religions, is the notion of
Perfect Evil - Satan, Lucifer, Beelzebub, the Devil.
The contrast between Capital `G' Good and Capital `E' Evil strengthens a
hierarchical organization, because everything within the organization is
classified Good and everything opposed to it is Evil. The more serious
the external threat, the less attention is paid to
internal deficiencies.
We know that we live in a world of shades of grays, not black evils and
white goodnesses. But, moral decisions are so much easier to make if one
simply has to choose between perfect Good and perfect Evil.
Medieval Christianity made people's decisions a lot easier by creating a
fallen angel - Satan - to take the rap for everything bad that happened
or that threatened the power of the hierarchy. People
who did evil things, worshipped other Gods, worshipped
the same God in a different sect, or who were trying
to reform the church from inside, could easily be accused of
being `possessed' by the Devil.
Perfect Evil means that you never have to stop and say "Sorry". Whether
burning Joan of Arc at the stake or killing Infidels in battle you didn't
have to worry about the commandment - "Though shalt not kill". That does
not apply to the eradication of Evil.
Striking a blow against the Devil is more important than saving the life of
the person possessed. If they cannot be reclaimed for the forces of
Goodness by persuasion, they must have the devil beaten out of them. If
this kills them, it also kills Evil.
HIV is the modern day Perfect Evil. It stands with a small, select group of
fatal diseases, such as cancer and Ebola. People who are told that they
are possessed by HIV are immediately shaken to the
core and often, in a sense, die right on the spot. If
they beg for hope, they are usually told that they can
only save themselves by religiously taking doses of antiretroviral
drugs. When the illnesses come, whatever their cause, they are now
programmed to blame them on HIV.
"It is easy - terribly easy - to shake a man's faith in himself. To take
advantage of that to break a man's spirit is devil's work."---George
Bernard Shaw
HIV is the trump card of disease. If you have HIV nothing else matters. If
you are an IV drug abuser and you have Tuberculosis AND you test
HIV-positive, then HIV caused your Tuberculosis, which is now classified
as AIDS. But, if you are an IV drug abuser and you
have Tuberculosis and you DON'T test HIV-positive,
then taking drugs caused your Tuberculosis. Of course,
when you think about it, if drug users get TB without HIV, then at
least some of the HIV-positive drug users didn't get sick from HIV.
HIV makes risk analysis trivial. If you are an HIV-positive mother, you
will be warned that breastfeeding doubles your risk of infecting your
baby, and that therefore you MUST formula feed your
baby. You won't be told that doubling your risk
actually means that 86% of babies will NOT be infected
by breastfeeding [Dunn, 1992]. And, research by Coutsoudis [Coutsoudis,
1999] showed that exclusive breastfeeding might be associated with no
extra risk.
How is the very significant health risk of formula feeding compared with
the risk of HIV infection? Very simply, it isn't. Since HIV is fatal,
every baby who is HIV infected will die. Every formula
fed baby, on the other hand, might die or might not.
Pedantic types, like me, point out that 100% of babies
have to be formula fed in order to benefit (if it is a benefit)
only the 14% [Dunn, 1992] of them who will be infected (if that is the
right term). This means that the benefits of preventing HIV infection
must be 7 times greater than the risks of the formula
feeding that is being prescribed.
Perfect Goodness
Perfect Goodness is the domain of God, of course. But, some of the Goodness
trickles down the hierarchy. The Pope might not be perfect, but he (and
it is always a he) is infallible. One presumes that
Cardinals come close to this standard, because any one
of them could be the next Pope. Bishops and Priests
have been known to sin, sometimes very publicly, but at that level,
one expects some imperfections, such as fondling the altar boys,
drinking, fondling the altar boys, keeping a mistress,
fondling the altar boys, gambling, etc. Those outside
the hierarchy can drink their droplets of Goodness by
obeying the dictates of the church, learning its dogmas and, of
course, giving generously of their worldly goods.
With AIDS it is clear that the medical profession represents the Forces of
Goodness, organized into a massive hierarchy. At the top are a handful of
researchers and the heads of an alphabet soup of US and international
health organizations, such as the CDC, NIH, FDA, NIAID, WHO, Unicef and
UNAIDS. Then come the thousands of AIDS researchers, doctors and health
bureaucrats who so envy those at the top. Then the nurses, social
workers, the NGOs, the media and the politicians. We,
the people, are clearly at the bottom.
The forces of Perfect Goodness are the only ones that can, most assume,
bring salvation. The sacrament of communion for this religion is not
unleavened bread and wine, but a rainbow of pills with a glass of water.
War - Metaphor & Reality
The contrast between Simple and Perfect Goodness and Simple and Perfect
Evil makes war a simple analogy. Through recorded history, right into the
present, war has often been more than an analogy, with religions being
either the cause of wars, or the excuse for wars.
Christianity was characterized early on by a peaceful, `Turn the other
cheek', approach to life. But, gradually, it became, like so many
religions, used to justify war. When the Church and State were working
together it was easy to define their mutual enemies as Satanic, and turn
war into a holy activity.
The War analogy has long been used by mainstream medicine. The "War on
Cancer" is a good example (of the analogy, not of a successful war).
Over 100 medical papers since 1975 contain the phrase `magic bullet' in
their title. Terms like `weapon', `fight' and `target' are common. The
tools used, particularly for drawn-out medical battles, are similar to
some of the world's most feared weapons - radiation
and toxic chemicals.
With wars come victims. And in a drawn-out fight between the doctor and
HIV, the patient can often become collateral damage. For a recent
disease, AIDS has one of the best developed history of
medical toxicity, even though the disease's first
drug, AZT, was not approved until 1987 [aras.ab.ca, 2003].
"Cured yesterday of my disease, I died last night of my physician."----Matthew
Prior (17th c)
Admiration of Enemies
Ironically, the use of the war metaphor leads to an elevation of enemies.
The 11th Century French Song of Roland praises the heroism of slain
warriors on both sides of this battle between Christians and Muslims.
Bravery in battle is clearly aligned with Godliness.
HIV is regarded with awe by the many AIDS scientists who have joined the
medical crusade against it. No matter how hard they battle it, the virus
cannot be eradicated from the body. [Harrington, 2000] No matter which
medications they prescribe, the virus mutates around them. Antibodies are
produced, but they are ineffective. Vaccines it evades thrice before
breakfast. No matter how intense the war, this Devil is never vanquished.
Strangely, the army of Goodness - Modern Medicine - rarely suffers
casualties. No matter how often medical professionals are exposed to HIV,
they rarely get AIDS. According to the CDC 1997 surveillance report, only
54 US health care workers are believed to have acquired HIV infection
through on the job exposure, and only 25 of them have contracted AIDS.
That was out of a cumulative total of 633,000 US AIDS
cases, so occupational cases make up 0.004%.
Not a single one of these AIDS cases was in a paramedic or surgeon, even
though these two groups are most likely to be exposed to HIV-positive
blood. [CDC, 1998]
I quote 1997 statistics because after that, the CDC perhaps began to
understand that the lack of casualties among the warrior class was a bit
embarrassing, and stopped publishing statistics on HIV and AIDS among
health care workers.
The victims of this war, like most wars in fact, are the collateral damage
- the civilians, the people diagnosed with HIV infection or AIDS who
provide the battleground. There are attempts to award them heroic status
through their death, but this is inextricably associated with their
acceptance of the HIV=AIDS dogma. Those who do not accept are `in
denial'. The implication being that they deserve
their death because they refuse `a better life through
chemicals'.
Church/State Power Sharing
The very early Christian church deliberately kept itself separate from the
state. Christians were taught to "Give to Caesar those things that are
Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's".
But, by the middle ages the church hierarchy and European royalty had
become tightly entwined - not completely integrated, as the Lords of
worldly and otherworldly power often fought over the hearts, minds,
bodies and wealth of the populace. Sometimes kings
would have the upper hand, appointing compliant
bishops to ensure that the church and its influence
was subservient to his needs. At other times, particularly in the 1100's
and 1200's a strong Pope would keep kings in check by threatening to deny
them access to religious ceremonies and services, and through alliances
with friendly kingdoms.
A good illustration of this was the pressure brought to bear on the
famously bad King John of England by Pope Innocent III. He invalidated
all religious services in England, excommunicated the
King and, perhaps more importantly, lined up the more
compliant King of France to invade England. Due to a
combination of this, and internal pressure, John caved in and
signed Magna Carta in 1215. The Pope's concern was that John was setting
himself above religious authority, not that he was crushing the British
nobility under this thumb. And nobody cared about the Serfs.
When things were going well, however, Church and State worked closely
together. The Church could give moral authority and, in the early days,
had a bureaucratic infrastructure that helped
primitive governments to function. Bishops often acted
as the King's regional administrators.
Modern medicine, and AIDS in particular, is also based on cooperation and
tension between Governments and Science. Governments create and enforce
policy, Scientists create the facts that form the mental environment
within which Governments operates. Governments tax the
population to pay for research to manufacture more
facts.
When scientists threaten dire consequences, particularly those due to an
infectious disease threat, governments listen. They know that if they
ignore the threat, and the disease breaks out they will be blamed. If
action is taken and nothing happens, scientists will usually look like
they prevented a crisis. If, on the other hand, the
crisis occurs anyway, they usually can claim that it
would have been much worse without action.
An example of government's genuflecting to the medical establishment
occurred during the 1970's Swine Flu scare. President Gerald Ford did
what seemed to be a very smart thing when faced with a
clamor for universal vaccination of Americans - he
called all the top scientists in the US together to
meet with him, including arch-rivals Sabin and Salk. He asked
if any of them had concerns about universal vaccination. Silence. He
invited all the scientists to come into his private office for a private
chat after the general meeting. Nobody came. Consequently, vaccination of
every American was attempted. Luckily, a variety of problems made this
impossible, particularly among the very young and elderly, because the
final death toll was: Swine Flu 1, Swine Flu Vaccine: at least 25 from
Guillaine Barre syndrome alone (with about 500 cases of this illness in
total and a billion dollars in lawsuits against the US government).
[Laitin, 1997] Given that adverse reactions are usually significantly
under-reported, the actual toll of illness and death might have been
considerably higher.
More recently, a whisper of heresy from South African President Thabo Mbeki
resulted in the `Durban Declaration', a document with the tone of a
religious creed [Durban, 2000]. In a pre-emptive strike a week before an
international AIDS conference in Mbeki's country, more than 5,000 people
signed this document condemning Mbeki, who had merely raised the question
of whether HIV caused AIDS, not attempted to answer it himself. Part of
the shock was that a politician, a man outside the
scientific hierarchy, would concern himself with
evaluating a scientific question.
Heretics and Traitors
"All great truths begin as heresies"-George Bernard Shaw
"That is the essence of science. Ask an impertinent question, and you are
on the way to a pertinent answer." -Jacob
Bronowski
Heresy was not the most heinous crime in early Christianity, they took
murder, greed and adultery more seriously. But as the religion became an
integral part of feudal systems, this crime rose to the top of the heap.
Mindless loyalty was important in feudal times to keep society
functioning in the presence of enormous inequities of
power and wealth.
Today's medical dissidents in AIDS, Cancer and other areas of medicine
usually see major problems with the dominant paradigm, but are faced with
institutions that do not want to discuss them. This is not an argument
over minutiae, it is about the very fundamentals. AIDS
dissidents argue that HIV tests just drive people into
hopelessness and into taking toxic drugs that will
kill them. There is almost no room for compromise with those who fully
accept the HIV=AIDS=Death theory, and feel that antiretroviral drugs, for
all their known flaws are the only option.
Prior to 1987, Dr. Peter Duesberg was considered to be one of the top
retrovirologists in the world. For 25 years he claims that he never had a
grant application turned down [Duesberg, 1997]. But, after his infamous
Cancer Research paper was published [Duesberg, 1987] arguing that
retroviruses, including HIV, could not cause disease, he found the
scientific world turning against him. From that point on, not a single
one of his government grant applications was approved,
and he has had to rely on a small amount of private
funding and his university salary to do any research
at all.
How do we know whether Duesberg is another Galileo, or an attention-seeking
huckster, like the people behind the Piltdown Man hoax of 1912 that
fooled archaeologists for 40 years, or the cronies of
Philippine dictator Marcos who fooled many
anthropologists and the National Geographic Society with
the faked Tasaday stone age tribe in the early 1970s [MacLeish, 1972],
the proponents of cold fusion, perpetual motion
machines or human cloning?
One of the clues that this is not a conspiracy theory of madmen is that
many AIDS dissidents are serious scientists. Apart from Duesberg, some of
the most active and outspoken are Kary Mullis who won a Nobel Prize for
the invention of the Polymerase Chain Reaction, the
so-called `Perth Group' from Australia, including
Eleni Papadopulos-Eleopulos and Val Turner, David
Rasnick, a protease inhibitor drug designer, Charles Geshekter, a professor
of African Studies, Gordon Stewart, a Public Health consultant, Mohammed
Al-Bayati, a toxicologist, Roberto Giraldo, a nutritionist, Vladimir
Koliadin, a Statistician, Etienne de Harven, a retired Virologist, and
Sam Mhlongo the head of the department of Family
Medicine at Go-Rankuwa Hospital in South Africa. There
are hundreds or thousands of others, including
doctors, lawyers, people with and without formal scientific
educations and, not least, HIV-positive people who have quit or never
taken the drugs, but have more motivation than most to
educate themselves.
Punishment
Punishment for religious heretics has sometimes been severe, particularly
when the religion was able to harness the legal powers of the state.
Although many were just re-educated and released, the first executions of
reformers occurred in 1022 at Orleans. Death by burning was legalized by
Frederick II of Germany and Sicily in 1231. Torture was permitted by Pope
Innocent IV in 1252. The first Grand Spanish Inquisitor, Torquemada
sentenced 2,000 to be burned to death in the 1400's.
The HIV/AIDS dogmatists have not yet imposed the death penalty on any
person, although mandating antiviral drugs on children comes close. It is
not far-fetched to consider that, in a place with the death penalty,
transmission of HIV to a person who later dies could be construed as
first degree murder.
Mark Wainberg, former President of the International AIDS Society stated in
a major Canadian newspaper that AIDS dissidents should be jailed [Picard,
2000]. Several men have been jailed for having sex without revealing that
they were HIV-positive at the time. In the case of Nushawn Williams, he
supposedly infected 6 women in less than a year. The best estimates are
that the risk of transmitting during heterosexual intercourse is about 1
in a thousand. Statistically, he must have had sex
millions of times to stand an even chance of
transmitting to all these women. But, statistical
implausibility did not stop him from being sent to jail.
One woman in Canada, Sophie Brassard, had custody of her children taken
from her because she refused antiviral medications. Her logic was that
she had been HIV+ and healthy for a decade without
antiviral medications, but the courts ruled against
her.
The Tyson's in Oregon were forced, by court order, to stop breastfeeding
their baby and agree to give Felix AZT - or lose custody.
Valerie Emerson was luckier. She believes that one of her children died
from AZT, after which she pulled herself and her second child off the
drug. Partly because the child then recovered his
health completely, she won her court battle.
Dragging a few people to court has a chilling effect on many others. People
who have heard about these cases are likely to either submit without a
fight, or pretend to submit, and do subversive things like breastfeeding
a baby in secrecy. Few will publicly defy the system.
Scientists are not treated much better. Punishments include an inability to
publish, get grants, find graduate students to work in your lab or be
promoted. The media, taking their lead from the majority of scientists,
either ignore them completely, or write about them with thinly disguised
skepticism, or sarcasm, or allusions to `dangerous' ideas.
Worshipping Mammon
I have compared religion and science with, I hope, some success. A big gap
is that, although I have identified a parallel between Satan and HIV, I
have not identified a parallel with God. But, perhaps there is.
Ultimately the motivation of the major players in
HIV/AIDS boils down to money. It is no coincidence
that Gallo contacted the patent office before announcing his
claims about HTLV-III. Without doing this he stood to lose the royalties
that would accrue to him, even as a government employee, for this
invention.
This shows that the equivalent of God in modern HIV/AIDS science is Mammon.
It is not just medicine that has been corrupted by money, the crisis in
Enron, Worldcom was caused by an uncontrolled desire for personal
enrichment.
Just as medieval religion made unthinking loyalty holy, and questioning
authority into a sin, the late 20th Century made the Worship of Money
into a new religion. The creation of new medicines,
particularly for long-term chronic conditions, became
one of the ways to achieve the highest levels of
holiness in this sect. Patenting a blockbuster like Viagra turns many
researchers, and all pharmaceutical companies, on. While there is nothing
wrong with private companies making money, it must be tempered by a sense
of morality. Corrupting research to make a medicine look useful when it
is harmful, is immoral and criminal. Yet, those who
practice it, often find themselves sheltered by their
institutions. [Wilmhurst, 2002; Wilson, 2001]
There is a whole area of research where scientists study the influence of
money on the analysis of clinical trials. For example, [Stelfox, 1998]
found that researchers with financial relationships with manufacturers of
calcium channel blocker drugs were more likely to publish papers with
favorable reviews of them. [Barnes, 1998] found that the conclusions of
review articles were strongly associated with the affiliations of the
author. [Cho, 1996] found that original research articles with
pharmaceutical sponsorship were more likely to draw pro-industry
conclusions. [Bekelman, 2003] found that a quarter of investigators, on
average, have industry affiliations, and they are more likely to reach
pro-industry conclusions in their research.
Peter Wrobel, an editor for the British scientific journal Nature,
commented that "there is so much commercial involvement in modern biology
[so] it would be a waste of space for us to require of authors that they
list all commercial interests in their discoveries." Recently, the New
England Journal of Medicine commented that anything under US$10,000 was
too small to worry about, and wouldn't qualify as a
conflict of interest.
AIDS scientists usually draw conclusions that favour industrial interests.
Patented or patentable drugs are almost always seen as the solution to
the disease, rather than non-toxic ways to strengthen
the immune system. Condoms are the preferred method of
prevention. Formula is preferred over breastmilk for
children of HIV+ mothers. Cesarean sections are recommended
instead of natural birth.
The Ultimate Heresy - "Does it
Exist?"
Religion is the worship of God. Seriously questioning the existence of God
is the ultimate religious heresy. But, it's also a worldly heresy,
because it threatens the organization built up around
belief in that God. Questioning the existence of God
in the middle ages would have been inconceivable. Even
the most radical medieval heretics would never have
suggested it.
Questioning the existence of HIV is today's ultimate heresy. Even asking
the question is heretical. In fact, it is rare for anyone to question the
existence of any virus.
But, if HIV exists, why has it never been purified, not even from
artificial culture systems? [Bess, 1997; Gluschankof, 1997] How have its
RNA and proteins been identified without purification? How can the
accuracy of tests be known when they cannot be
validated by virus purification? How can a virus that,
if detected at all, can only be detected by the most
sensitive techniques known to man, be biochemically active? These are
reasonable questions. But, they threaten the whole multi-billion-dollar
structure based on the acceptance of this virus. That structure cannot
tolerate people asking them.
Conclusions
Every generation believes that it is vastly superior to those who came
before. We find it difficult to believe that our knowledge and methods of
learning have much in common with the way beliefs were developed and
distributed hundreds of years ago in a society that was largely
illiterate.
Yet, if we are honest, very little of our information about scientific
issues is direct, and few people take the trouble to examine the basic
science, if it is even available.
We may believe in scientific discoveries because they either make us feel
good, or because they provide a frisson of fear, like an alien movie.
HIV/AIDS fulfils our deepest fears. Just like so many bad alien movies,
there are no outward signs of who has been captured until the alien life
form bursts out, and then it is simply too late.
We want to believe that there are simple solutions to mysterious and
complex problems - a pill, perhaps. But a quick solution would,
paradoxically, not generate much respect for science. We would quickly
take it for granted. Nor would it generate billions of
dollars in revenue.
Religion and Science both promise us a better life, although Religion may
emphasize a better after-life, and Science a better here-and-now. These
organizations are both usually tightly controlled through a hierarchical
structure, even though they both have their roots in free thought and
egalitarianism. Reform is made more difficult when the same organization
creates the dogmas, constrains the debates about the dogmas, and controls
the interpretation of new ideas. Both began very inward looking and
self-critical, but gradually evolved into over-confidence and intolerance
as they acquired more power and influence.
Control is not absolute, however. It takes work to see around the facade,
but not an inordinate amount. It takes courage to challenge the system,
even if it is only questioning the advice of your own doctor. But, not
more courage than any of us have. It takes education
to analyze flaws in research, but we live in a highly
educated society with free or affordable access to
many materials. It takes stamina to struggle to get closer to the
truth, knowing that no matter how hard you try you will never achieve
absolute truth. But, if you look back after a while, you will be able to
see how far you have climbed.
"Science may have found a cure for most evils; but it has found no remedy
for the worst of them all - the apathy of human beings."-Helen Keller
My aim tonight is not to impose a new dogma. I hope you will mull over my
analogies with religion and find some flaws, and perhaps some parallels
that I did not even touch on. But, if I can stop you from simply
accepting ideas as scientific because they come from
someone whose job description is `scientist', if I can
challenge you to make truly independent decisions
about your personal health, I will have accomplished all that I could hope
for.
"To see what is in front of one's nose needs a constant struggle"-George
Orwell
Further Reading
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[Bell, 1992] Bell RI. Impure Science: Fraud, Compromise, and Political
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[sci.med.aids]
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