I certainly will read the other links and judge what I think to be the truth.
Is it wrong to post a controversial link? If my judgment is incorrect about HIV/AIDS, I’d be happy to learn the truth and admit my mistake.
I think those who flame me should consider doing the same.
Hold on now - I thought homosexuals caused AIDS.
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
Since I posted the link only a few minutes ago, I suspect that none of you bothered to read it. Please prove me wrong.[/quote]
It’s a link to a different page that you posted 6 hrs. earlier! Or did I/we/they have to read it again?
1)They’re not all ‘the top men in their field’. Mullis is the only Nobel laureate and even then, I can’t believe you would label someone as a hippie in a derogatory manner and then believe anything Kary Mullis has to say.
2)Look, Richard Horton challenged Duesberg 10 yrs. ago to inject himself with HIV (Good thing I didn’t hold my breath). It was dismissed as an ad hominem attack (Maybe rightfully so as it was foisted in a sea of them). If he/they are wrong about HIV/AIDS they would put many, many lives in danger. Are they not willing to stake their own lives on the lives of millions? If they are right, I think the biggest problem any one of them would face would be whether roll around in money or sun themselves with all their medals. Barry Marshall (oddly enough after only fulfilling Koch’s postulates [I know, bacteria vs. virus]) was willing to stake his stomach discomfort/health on the part of millions, and it won him the Nobel. The precedent (maybe unfortunately) has been set. And until Duesberg or Mullis, etc. injects himself, is it really that bad that we’re curing diseases and learning ever more about our immune systems and physiology?
“Fantastic claims require fantastic proof” or maybe, “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.”
Well, I’ve spent the last 5 1/2 years working in HIV research, so I can say a few things.
The few statements that were true on that site were what I would call “rules lawyering”. Yes, at one point (early nineties) HIV had not been isolated in a method of identical stringency to earlier virii. That is no longer the case. I’ve worked with pure virus. I’ve even seen electron microscope pictures of a single HIV virus caught in the act of attaching to and entering a cell.
The only statements I saw from “real” researchers were old, pre 2000. Why do they tail off? Not because the “conspiracy” is all powerfull. Because the evidence became overwhelming.
As far as Sub-Saharan Africa proving HIV is a disease of gays and users, that site is totally wrong. The highest risk group there is young females. The number of people dying of AIDS is huge there. Since a major African complaint has been that anti-HIV drugs were too expensive and were going primarily to developed countries, how could anti-HIV drugs have killed Africans? I assure you they have died in depressingly huge numbers, nonetheless.
Just because contrarians exist, does not mean they are right. They, in fact, are the ones lying for political effect, because they’ve tied some part of their worldview to their beliefs about AIDS.
If you want to understand how that happens, I reccomend the book “Why People Believe Stupid Things” by Michael Shermer. Really.
[quote]Pete Ross wrote:
Well, I’ve spent the last 5 1/2 years working in HIV research, so I can say a few things.
The few statements that were true on that site were what I would call “rules lawyering”. Yes, at one point (early nineties) HIV had not been isolated in a method of identical stringency to earlier virii. That is no longer the case. I’ve worked with pure virus. I’ve even seen electron microscope pictures of a single HIV virus caught in the act of attaching to and entering a cell.
The only statements I saw from “real” researchers were old, pre 2000. Why do they tail off? Not because the “conspiracy” is all powerfull. Because the evidence became overwhelming.
As far as Sub-Saharan Africa proving HIV is a disease of gays and users, that site is totally wrong. The highest risk group there is young females. The number of people dying of AIDS is huge there. Since a major African complaint has been that anti-HIV drugs were too expensive and were going primarily to developed countries, how could anti-HIV drugs have killed Africans? I assure you they have died in depressingly huge numbers, nonetheless.
Just because contrarians exist, does not mean they are right. They, in fact, are the ones lying for political effect, because they’ve tied some part of their worldview to their beliefs about AIDS.
If you want to understand how that happens, I reccomend the book “Why People Believe Stupid Things” by Michael Shermer. Really.[/quote]
This is a good answer. I am wrong and I freely admit same. Thanks, Pete!
[quote]Pete Ross wrote:
Well, I’ve spent the last 5 1/2 years working in HIV research, so I can say a few things.
The few statements that were true on that site were what I would call “rules lawyering”. Yes, at one point (early nineties) HIV had not been isolated in a method of identical stringency to earlier virii. That is no longer the case. I’ve worked with pure virus. I’ve even seen electron microscope pictures of a single HIV virus caught in the act of attaching to and entering a cell.
The only statements I saw from “real” researchers were old, pre 2000. Why do they tail off? Not because the “conspiracy” is all powerfull. Because the evidence became overwhelming.
As far as Sub-Saharan Africa proving HIV is a disease of gays and users, that site is totally wrong. The highest risk group there is young females. The number of people dying of AIDS is huge there. Since a major African complaint has been that anti-HIV drugs were too expensive and were going primarily to developed countries, how could anti-HIV drugs have killed Africans? I assure you they have died in depressingly huge numbers, nonetheless.
Just because contrarians exist, does not mean they are right. They, in fact, are the ones lying for political effect, because they’ve tied some part of their worldview to their beliefs about AIDS.
If you want to understand how that happens, I reccomend the book “Why People Believe Stupid Things” by Michael Shermer. Really.[/quote]
Pete brings up the point I wanted to make. Sub-Saharan Africa has the highest AIDS/HIV infection rate in the world. Yet they only very recently have been able to start affording anti-retroviral drugs (or whatever they are called). So yeah, if its so limited to homosexuals and drug users how come more women than men have the disease there?
Next thing is you are gonna start telling us what the South African government kooks are tellings. Garlic and multi-vitamins can prevent/cure the disease. Drugs are just a western scam. Fucking bullshit. You support that and you are supporting the death of people that could have been saved. An entire generation of ppl in Africa is being wiped out, and you are telling us the only known method to combat it, which most of them haven’t received, is actually part of the cause? Please.
Thanks Pete for stepping in with some actual real world experience in this area.
The closest I’ve come to this arena was working for Abbott Laboratories. While I was on the computing end of things I was part of a team that was trying to acquire the contract to provide HIV antibody testing equipment and reagents to the Canadian Red Cross (I believe their role has been taken over by what is now called Blood Services Canada).
It was my pleasure to read up on the available literature and discuss current research with the local Abbott scientist at that time.
Anyway, let’s not forget that diseases such as this one can also be trasmitted by blood transfusion to people that have never had unsafe sex, taken drugs and that don’t belong to any traditional high risk group.
The point is that spreading health myths is a very inappropriate thing to do. If you don’t know anything about the field in question – finding a bunch of Internet experts and personally believing what they say is up to you. Supporting their medical opinion and suggesting it to be true when you have no way to ascertain the facts is simply astounding and irresponsible.
Headhunter, your comments do not reflect the viewpoint of someone with an open mind. You are defending your position, based on some Internet web site conspiracy theory no less, and asking others to prove you incorrect. This is not the same thing as considering an issue with an open mind.
If only that hybrid vehicle had made it to the towers before they were blown up… sigh.
[quote]vroom wrote:
Thanks Pete for stepping in with some actual real world experience in this area.
[/quote]
I wanted to echo this. It always helps to have somebody with personal experience chime in on our little debates here in the Poli forum.
I’m actually testing a patient for HIV right now as I’m typing this (15 min. incubation), but that is nothing compared to actually working with live virus and researching it. I’m just a guy with an eyedropper of reagent and some patient serum. 
You guys are slamming headhunter because he is pushing an unpopular non-PC version of the truth, not because he is wrong. You all follow the crowd so damn much you can’t even think for yourselves.
Maybe there is HIV that causes AIDS and maybe not. But what seems very clear is that the homosexual community, with willing physicians, hyped the chance of getting HIV to the non-gay and non-IV drug using population much more than was scientifically supported.
So with the willing (left) media they overblew this issue on purpose to get funding for AIDS research. They tried to scare the general population making them believe they were at-risk for AIDS in order to get money for their special interest issue. I say “special interest” because millions more people die of heart disease, cancer, and diabetes each year than AIDS. So they lied to get money that would have rightfully gone to diseases that affect a much larger population.
So whether or not HIV is real and causes AIDS is irrelevant. What is relevant is that the AIDS “crisis” was misrepresented from day one. So if the risk was misrepresented it is not inconceivable that the disease itself was misrepresented as well.
But nooo, you guys will continue to go on believing what the media tells you like good little drones.
[quote]Lorisco wrote:
You guys are slamming headhunter because he is pushing an unpopular non-PC version of the truth, not because he is wrong. You all follow the crowd so damn much you can’t even think for yourselves.[/quote]
No, we are slamming him because he is pushing a theory that has no scientific basis behind it.
Go out, get your proof, and show it to the world, before claiming that this is the “truth”.
[quote]Maybe there is HIV that causes AIDS and maybe not. But what seems very clear is that the homosexual community, with willing physicians, hyped the chance of getting HIV to the non-gay and non-IV drug using population much more than was scientifically supported.
So with the willing (left) media they overblew this issue on purpose to get funding for AIDS research. They tried to scare the general population making them believe they were at-risk for AIDS in order to get money for their special interest issue. I say “special interest” because millions more people die of heart disease, cancer, and diabetes each year than AIDS. So they lied to get money that would have rightfully gone to diseases that affect a much larger population.
So whether or not HIV is real and causes AIDS is irrelevant. What is relevant is that the AIDS “crisis” was misrepresented from day one. So if the risk was misrepresented it is not inconceivable that the disease itself was misrepresented as well.
But nooo, you guys will continue to go on believing what the media tells you like good little drones.
[/quote]
This is a completely different issue and if there is merit to your viewpoint, then it would bear discussion.
Why can’t you separate the two issues and discuss them individually?
Obviously, I’ll disagree with your viewpoint here as well, but I’m not going to claim that the media has never been used by somebody with an agenda to help their cause…
However, beware of believing in something just because you want it to be true.
[quote]Lorisco wrote:
So whether or not HIV is real and causes AIDS is irrelevant. What is relevant is that the AIDS “crisis” was misrepresented from day one. So if the risk was misrepresented it is not inconceivable that the disease itself was misrepresented as well.
[/quote]
Um, if you would read the subject line of the thread, you’d see it says “Does HIV cause AIDS?”
That makes whether or not HIV is real and causes AIDS pretty damn relevant to the thread.
[quote]Lorisco wrote:
You guys are slamming headhunter because he is pushing an unpopular non-PC version of the truth, not because he is wrong. You all follow the crowd so damn much you can’t even think for yourselves.
Maybe there is HIV that causes AIDS and maybe not. But what seems very clear is that the homosexual community, with willing physicians, hyped the chance of getting HIV to the non-gay and non-IV drug using population much more than was scientifically supported.
So with the willing (left) media they overblew this issue on purpose to get funding for AIDS research. They tried to scare the general population making them believe they were at-risk for AIDS in order to get money for their special interest issue. I say “special interest” because millions more people die of heart disease, cancer, and diabetes each year than AIDS. So they lied to get money that would have rightfully gone to diseases that affect a much larger population.
So whether or not HIV is real and causes AIDS is irrelevant. What is relevant is that the AIDS “crisis” was misrepresented from day one. So if the risk was misrepresented it is not inconceivable that the disease itself was misrepresented as well.
But nooo, you guys will continue to go on believing what the media tells you like good little drones.
[/quote]
WTF? What are you basing all this on? You are sounding a bit unhinged with this rant.
This isn’t a he said/she said kind of thing. It’s a matter of fact, and its been proven beyond any reasonable burden of proof. Anybody can make a webpage and right what ever the hell they want on it.
Talking about versions of truth is ridiculous. You can talk about the subjective experience of something, or epistemic limits of knowledge, but not versions of truth. There are things that are factually correct, and there are things that are not.
This goes hand in hand with he said/she said reporting. Just because one side has a louder voice doesn’t make their position more correct, or even give it any intellectual respectablity at all. (Think steroids, fad diets, Iraq, abstinence only edcuation, evolution, etc.)
[quote]vroom wrote:
No, we are slamming him because he is pushing a theory that has no scientific basis behind it.
[/quote]
Well vroom, unless you are an AIDS expert you have to rely on the medical professionals and researchers who study and treat these patients. Headhunter has presented such experts and yet you say “no scientific basis”. With all due respect, you don’t know what you are talking about and are unqualified to make that determination.
You could say that you don’t believe headhunter’s sources and feel that other sources are more reliable, IF YOU HAD POSTED ANY!
But since you haven’t STFU!
It is not different because it speaks to the motivation for the alleged deception, or not. (Here’s a clue to critical thinking vroom, when you are trying to determine if something is true or not you have to look at the motivation behind the information to see if they might just have a reason for bias).
So a discussion about the accuracy of the information pushed by the media would also get at the accuracy of the supposed medical info behind it.
If the info presented by the researcher and the media is clear and unbiased we would have no reason to feel that any of the other info was not accurate as well. Yet, as I believe it was biased and inaccurate, it lends credence to the idea that the other info presented might be bogus as well.
We can. But as I showed about, they are related.
[quote]
However, beware of believing in something just because you want it to be true.[/quote]
And I would tell you to beware believing something just because everyone else does.
[quote]ALDurr wrote:
Lorisco wrote:
You guys are slamming headhunter because he is pushing an unpopular non-PC version of the truth, not because he is wrong. You all follow the crowd so damn much you can’t even think for yourselves.
Maybe there is HIV that causes AIDS and maybe not. But what seems very clear is that the homosexual community, with willing physicians, hyped the chance of getting HIV to the non-gay and non-IV drug using population much more than was scientifically supported.
So with the willing (left) media they overblew this issue on purpose to get funding for AIDS research. They tried to scare the general population making them believe they were at-risk for AIDS in order to get money for their special interest issue. I say “special interest” because millions more people die of heart disease, cancer, and diabetes each year than AIDS. So they lied to get money that would have rightfully gone to diseases that affect a much larger population.
So whether or not HIV is real and causes AIDS is irrelevant. What is relevant is that the AIDS “crisis” was misrepresented from day one. So if the risk was misrepresented it is not inconceivable that the disease itself was misrepresented as well.
But nooo, you guys will continue to go on believing what the media tells you like good little drones.
WTF? What are you basing all this on? You are sounding a bit unhinged with this rant.[/quote]
Al, I’m basing this on the fact that all the hype in the media about HIV and the general populations chances of getting the virus was overstated and not consistent with the CDC statistic at the time.
(Hey, I’m entitled to a rant now and then)
You guys are too funny! You probably don’t know the first thing about medical biology and virology and yet you say it’s a fact! You only say that because you believe in the person who stated that, not because you know what the hell you are talking about.
I can totally accept that you believe in the medical establishment that has presented that info to the public, but saying it’s a matter of fact when YOU don’t have the knowledge and expertise to distinguish medical fact from fiction is just naive.
So great! You believe in the medical establishment, fine. But that doesn’t mean it is fact.
There is no such thing as a virus.
Body Thetans cause all disease.
Just ask Tom Cruise.
[quote]Lorisco wrote:
You guys are slamming headhunter because he is pushing an unpopular non-PC version of the truth, not because he is wrong. You all follow the crowd so damn much you can’t even think for yourselves.
Maybe there is HIV that causes AIDS and maybe not. But what seems very clear is that the homosexual community, with willing physicians, hyped the chance of getting HIV to the non-gay and non-IV drug using population much more than was scientifically supported.
So with the willing (left) media they overblew this issue on purpose to get funding for AIDS research. They tried to scare the general population making them believe they were at-risk for AIDS in order to get money for their special interest issue. I say “special interest” because millions more people die of heart disease, cancer, and diabetes each year than AIDS. So they lied to get money that would have rightfully gone to diseases that affect a much larger population.
So whether or not HIV is real and causes AIDS is irrelevant. What is relevant is that the AIDS “crisis” was misrepresented from day one. So if the risk was misrepresented it is not inconceivable that the disease itself was misrepresented as well.
But nooo, you guys will continue to go on believing what the media tells you like good little drones.
[/quote]
You sound like a world-class idiot, and are trying to confuse the issue by bringing up a somewhat related, secondary point about the politicization of the disease. Arguing that there is a drug company conspiracy and HIV does not cause AIDS is basically intellectually and morally equivalent to denying the Holocaust: either you’re really stupid/easily persuaded or you allow your hatred for a group of people (gays or Jews) to overpower your reasoning.
Whether straight people are as likely to catch AIDS as gays is a very different issue (and again, look at Africa).
[quote]Lorisco wrote:
You guys are too funny! You probably don’t know the first thing about medical biology and virology and yet you say it’s a fact! You only say that because you believe in the person who stated that, not because you know what the hell you are talking about.
[/quote]
Aren’t you a nurse? Have you been faking all your Continuing Ed? You should know more about HIV than most of the folks here except for me and a couple of other guys.
Do you use Universal Precautions? Do you ignore bloodborne isolation signs? This is relevant to the discussion, because the reason we have such things in the medical field is the exact same reason we know that the HIV virus directly causes AIDS.
Virology. Immunology. Pathology.
Please tell me that you observe proper hand hygiene, and aren’t likely responsible for nosocomial infections, Lorisco. I can’t help but call your professional integrity into question when I read your posts about this subject.
[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
There is no such thing as a virus.
Body Thetans cause all disease.
Just ask Tom Cruise.[/quote]
Zap, Zap, Zap.
You’re glib, Zap.