THE HIV MYTH

ITCHING FOR A DEBATE

By Howard Urnovitz

Howard Urnovitz (Ph.d) heads the Chronic Illness Research Foundation

April 1, 2002 - This week, Dr. Anthony Fauci, one of the principal supporters of HIV theory, received one of medicine’s major monetary awards (second only to the Nobel Prize) — and here’s someone who has been misinterpreting laboratory results for two decades.

These are truly dark times for science and medicine. Fauci is one of the US government's major architects of the myth that HIV has been proven to be the cause of AIDS and that stopping HIV will save lives -- a myth that has become so entrenched in medicine's conventional wisdom that to question it is tantamount to treason.

Fauci also has aggressively endorsed government sanctions against critical medical research that could potentially protect the public against both naturally occurring diseases and bioterrorist attacks.

Fauci is this year’s recipient of the $500,000 Albany Medical Center Prize in Medicine and Biomedical Research. According to the Albany Medical Center’s press release, Fauci received the prize for "his seminal contributions in helping researchers understand how the AIDS virus destroys the body's defenses, for his groundbreaking work in developing effective therapies for several once fatal rheumatic diseases, for his current efforts in spearheading the drive for vaccines to prevent the HIV virus, smallpox, anthrax and the Ebola virus, and for his overall scientific leadership and public service."

The Albany Medical Center press release goes on to state: "In 1993, he made a seminal discovery that first demonstrated that even very early in the disease there is always active HIV replication and it occurs in the lymph nodes. The finding was significant because it meant doctors and researchers had no time to relax in their battle against AIDS. Dr. Fauci first reported his findings in the journal Nature. Between 1993 and 1995, his paper on viral burden and replication in lymphoid tissue was the single most cited paper in AIDS research worldwide."

I have four questions:

1. Why would a medical school reward an individual whose "most cited paper in AIDS research worldwide" was a major contributor to the so-called hit hard — hit early approach to AIDS treatment, a concept that was reversed a few years later because it was harming rather than helping patients?

2. Why would a medical school reward an individual for his current efforts in, for example, championing HIV and anthrax vaccines when serious questions are being raised about the safety and efficacy of these vaccines?

3. Why would a medical school reward an individual for "his overall scientific leadership" when he has abused the power of his government position by championing the Durban Declaration, a call for the end of scientific debate on HIV/AIDS?

4. How did an individual get this far with such an abysmal performance record?

For the record, I consider HIV to be associated with AIDS. I base this opinion on the clinical data I have collected over the years. But unlike Fauci, I view HIV as only a "marker" (or set of cellular signals) that can be detected when AIDS develops.

I also endorse the use of easy-to-administer urine and saliva tests to help us to detect this "marker" and to thereby understand the breadth of the AIDS problem; these "marker" tests are better epidemiologic tools than mathematical guesses.

In sum, I neither agree with those claiming HIV is the cause of AIDS, nor with anyone concluding HIV has nothing to with AIDS.

I am baffled by how any careful scientist can draw any conclusion about what role HIV plays in AIDS until someone does controlled experiments to determine why people with AIDS lose their T-cells (specifically, their CD4-positive T-cells).

U.S. government funded AIDS research has become a jobs program for scientists who lack the courage and resources to challenge conventional scientific wisdom. The Durban Declaration, a document published in Nature magazine that called for every scientist in the world to accept the theory that HIV causes AIDS and to stop questioning the link between this virus and the disease, was signed by 5,000 scientists from all over the world. It was also signed by 92 employees of US government health agencies, including Fauci. For a Federal employee to sign such a document without including a disclaimer that the signature represents only the individual's opinion, even if it is that of the Federal government (http://www.chronicillnet.org/pdf/hhs2.pdf), is an abuse of power. It is using your government position -- in Fauci's case, a high government position -- to, in effect, bully anyone who disagrees with you. I consider this to be a violation of scientific ethics. The scientific method is based, at least partially, on debate. To call for the end to a debate is unscientific; to do so with the power of the US government behind you is unethical.

It also seems clear that, by throwing the weight of the US government behind the Durban Declaration, those who signed have established an international policy that salaries, funding, prestige, scholarly communication, promotion, awards and prizes will not be granted to individuals who challenge the official position that HIV alone causes AIDS. This creates government sanctions against anyone who wants to freely investigate the actual relationship (if any) between HIV and AIDS. This is unethical.

I seriously doubt that Fauci or any Health and Human Services employee or government grant recipient would like to debate me on HIV/AIDS online, but I would welcome such a debate.