First, let's get our facts straight.

HIV causes AIDS

• The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2008
  to Harald zur Hausen "for his discovery of human papilloma viruses causing cervical cancer" and to Françoise Barré-Sinoussi and Luc Montagnier "for their discovery of human immunodeficiency virus".
  • Press release
• National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) featuring:
  • The Evidence That HIV Causes AIDS
  • How HIV Causes AIDS
  • The Relationship Between HIV and AIDS
  • MACS and WIHS Studies Provide Overwhelming Evidence That HIV Causes AIDS
  • The HIV-AIDS Connection
  • Resources and Links
• The Body: The Complete HIV/AIDS Resource featuring
  • AIDS Denialism
  • Dr. Mathilde Krim Refutes AIDS Denialists on ABC's "20/20"
• HIV Databases from Los Alamos National Laboratory
• The Durban Declaration featuring
  • the over 5000 signatories including Nobel prizewinners, directors of leading research institutions, scientific academies and medical societies, notably the US National Academy of Sciences, the US Institute of Medicine, Max Planck institutes, the European Molecular Biology Organization, the Pasteur Institute in Paris, the Royal Society of London, the AIDS Society of India and the National Institute of Virology in South Africa. In addition, thousands of individual scientists and doctors have signed, including many from the countries bearing the greatest burden of the epidemic. Signatories are of MD, PhD level or equivalent. There would have been even more signatories, but scientists working for commercial companies were asked not to sign so there could be no claims of conflict of interest by the HIV/AIDS deniers.
• AIDSTruth.org
  • Science Covers AidsTruth.org
  • AIDSTruth.org Web Site Takes Aim at 'Denialists' by Jon Cohen in Science (subscription required)
  • AIDSTruth.org Web Site Takes Aim at 'Denialists' by Jon Cohen in Science (copy on AIDSTruth.org)
  • Debunking AIDS Denialist Myths
  • AIDS Denialists
    • AIDS Denialists Who Have Died of AIDS
• HIV / AIDS Denialism from scienceblogs.com
• Canadian AIDS Society's Position Statement: HIV Causes AIDS featuring
  • HIV Causes AIDS - How to Respond to Denialist Arguments (PDF format)
• Cohen J: Five-part series in the journal Science evaluates the claims of "AIDS dissidents."
• Critical Path AIDS Project: AIDS Denialists & "Dissidents"
• Delaney M: HIV, AIDS and the distortion of science.
• Harris S: The AIDS Heresies: A Case Study in Skepticism Taken Too Far. From Skeptic, www.skeptic.com.
• Hemmingsen, BB: The Odd Claim of the HIV Dissenters: HIV does not Cause AIDS. A Critical Evaluation of their Arguments.
• Heywood, M: The Price of Denial (PDF).
• Kurth R: Does HIV cause AIDS? An updated response to Duesberg's theories.
• Nicoll A, Killewo J: Science, sense and nonsense about HIV in Africa.
• O'Brien SJ: The HIV-AIDS debate is over/what to tell your patients when they ask if HIV causes AIDS.
• O'Brien SJ, Goedert JJ: HIV causes AIDS: Koch's postulates fulfilled.
• San Francisco AIDS Foundation: HIV Causes AIDS -- and Knowing it Could Save Your Life
• Schoofs M: How African Science Has Demonstrated That HIV Causes AIDS
• Treatment Action Campaign (South Africa): The Science of HIV/AIDS. March, 2006 (PDF).
• Treatment Action Campaign (South Africa) rebuts AIDS denialist arguments. March, 2006 (PDF).
• Reports related to HIV/AIDS published in 1981-2006 in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR).
• Community Voices: News and Views on AIDS Causality from AIDS Activists and Educators (from AEGIS).
• Search the AEGIS database for articles on the etiology (cause) of AIDS and on the views of AIDS dissidents/skeptics.
• New York Times: AIDS timeline and articles, 1981-2001. Free registration required.
• AIDS: The Agony of Africa. Pulitzer Prize-winning series by Mark Schoofs in the Village Voice.
• The AIDS Knowledge Base. A textbook on AIDS from the University of California, San Francisco.
• Images of HIV
  • Electron tomography analysis of envelope glycoprotein trimers on HIV and simian immunodeficiency virus virions by Zhu et al. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, December 23, 2003, vol. 100 no. 26 15812
  • Electron Tomography of the Contact between T Cells and SIV/HIV-1: Implications for Viral Entry by Sougrat et al. PLoS Pathogens May 2007, Vol 3 Iss 5 e63
  • Subramaniam EM virions - PPT format
  • Electron micrographs and other images of HIV.
• AIDS, Science and Governance: The battle Over Antiretroviral Therapy in Post-Apartheid South Africa by Professor Nicoli Nattrass, Director of the AIDS and Society Research Unit, University of Cape Town
• Medical journal under attack as dissenters seize AIDS platform - by Declan Butler, Nature Vol 426, 20 November 2003
• Dead Certain? by Bob Lederer published in POZ magazine April 2006.
• HIV Science and Responsible Journalism, presented at the 16th International AIDS Conference - Dr. John Moore
  • (local copy)

Time to put your evidence where your mouth is

If you have evidence that HIV does not cause AIDS, please publish it immediately in a tier-1 peer-reviewed medical journal such as JAMA, NEJM, or the Lancet and I shall be happy to read it. Or maybe you can cite an article that has already been published in the last five years? If you can't do either of these things, then you really need to stop bothering me.

The HIV-AIDS Deniers

• What's the harm in HIV/AIDS denial? - Death, mainly.
• The AIDS Denialists Are Still Around by John P. Moore, Jeanne Bergman and Mark A. Wainberg
  from the International AIDS Society Newsletter - March 2007 (page 4)
• "AIDS Denialism vs. Science" by Nicoli Nattrass - Skeptical Inquirer Vol. 31 No. 5 Sept/Oct 2007
  • "AIDS Denialism vs. Science" by Nicoli Nattrass - Skeptical Inquirer Vol. 31 No. 5 Sept/Oct 2007 (Gale)
  • Editor's note (Gale)
  • Mortal Combat: AIDS Denialism and the Struggle for Antiretrovirals in South Africa by Nicoli Nattrass
• HIV Denial in the Internet Era by Tara C. Smith and Steven P. Novella, PLoS Med 4(8): e256 doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.0040256
• Deadly Quackery by John Moore and Nicoli Nattrass, New York Times June 4, 2006.
• Reporting AIDS - Fighting AIDS Denialism from HealthDot
• AIDS dissidents, a.k.a. dissenters, denialists, rethinkers, reappraisers, revisionists, etc.
• Peter Duesberg Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at UC Berkeley
  • Duesberg hypothesis
  • Duesberg.com
  • AIDS denialists disinvited from Congressional hearing May 16, 2008
  • Peter Duesberg has published an article on CANCER (not AIDS) in the May 2007 Scientific American magazine. Here is one note from the editors and another.
  • Peter's Principles by Jeanne Lenzer, Discover magazine 05.15.2008
    "Essex shoots down Duesberg's ideas about ARVs by saying: 'There are now 15 or 20 different drugs that act in 8 or 10 different ways, and the only thing they have in common is that they inhibit the virus from replicating and lower the viral load to negligible levels. If you include three of them at once ... as soon as that happens, the immune system recovers.'"
  • Denier fight! Peter Duesberg vs. Leonard Horowitz, courtesy of ERV
    Let me quote from 6 minutes into the audio: "I, Dr. Leonard Horowitz, respecting and representing thousands of scientists and physicians worldwide whose voices have been neglected and silenced, as a diplomatic officer for the World Organization for Natural Medicine; as a representative of God, knighted in the Sovereign Orthodox Order of Knights Hospitaller of St. John of Jerusalem, and as a rabbinical priest in the bloodlines of Moses and YaHShuaH, the Messiah, I do hereby indict you, Dr. Peter Duesberg, for the deaths of millions of people worldwide, through your role in the creation of AIDS as well as the disinformation that sustains this and related medical genocides..."
    • In the written version of the indictment he signs his name:
      Leonard G. Horowitz, DMD, MA, MPH, DNM, DMM Diplomat, World Organization for Natural Medicine Knighted Emissary, Sovereign Orthodox Order of Knights Hospitaller of St. John of Jerusalem, and Overseer, The Royal Bloodline of David
  • Peter Duesberg, incompetent or lying? - I'm going with "lying"
  • The Duesberg Phenomenon by Jon Cohen, SCIENCE magazine VOL. 266, 9 DECEMBER 1994
    A Berkeley virologist and his supporters continue to argue that HIV is not the cause of AIDS. A 3-month investigation by Science evaluates their claims
    • Duesberg and critics agree: hemophilia is the best test. by Jon Cohen, Science 266.n5191 (Dec 9, 1994): pp1645(2)
    • Fulfilling Koch's postulates. by Jon Cohen, Science 266.n5191 (Dec 9, 1994): pp1647(1)
    • The epidemic in Thailand. by Jon Cohen, Science 266.n5191 (Dec 9, 1994): pp1647(1)
    • Could drugs, rather than a virus, be the cause of AIDS? by Jon Cohen, Science 266.n5191 (Dec 9, 1994): pp1648(2)
• Google video HIV = AIDS: Fact or Fraud?, 21 min.
• Christine Maggiore, founder of Alive & Well AIDS Alternatives "became a controversial figure following the death of her 3-year-old daughter, Eliza Jane Scovill, on May 16, 2005. The Los Angeles County coroner concluded that Eliza Jane had died of Pneumocystis jiroveci pneumonia as a result of untreated AIDS." Reference: Wikipedia link above.
  • Christine Maggiore - dead at age 52 - Now what do you suppose could have caused that?
  • Christine Maggiore and Eliza Jane Scovill: Living and dying with HIV/AIDS denialism by David Gorski
  • Read about Maggiore's death on the AIDSTruth.org website
  • the Los Angeles County Coroner's report
    A toxicologist (and AIDS dissident) Mohammed Al-Bayati - who sits on the advisory board of Maggiore's organization - retained by Maggiore to review the autopsy report disagreed with the coroner's conclusion, stating that he believed Eliza Jane's death was due to an allergic reaction to amoxicillin.
  • a rebuttal to the Al-Bayati report from Nick Bennett, a UK Cambridge trained doctor with a PhD in HIV/AIDS research
  • 20-20 Tonight--3-yr-old dies of AIDS and denial - JREF forum
  • Did HIV-Positive Mom's Beliefs Put Her Children at Risk? from ABC News Primetime
• Kary Mullis Nobel Laureate in Chemistry and self-described LSD user
• Phillip E. Johnson UC Berkeley Law Professor and father of the "Intelligent" Design Creationist movement
• David Rasnick "claimed to be a visiting scholar at UC Berkeley when writing letters to South African newspaper. He has no such status. He's been disowned by the university and now instructed not to make such claims." Reference: HIV Science and Responsible Journalism, presented at the 16th International AIDS Conference
• Celia Farber
  • Errors in Celia Farber's March 2006 article in Harper's Magazine by Robert Gallo MD et al.
• Harvey Bialy author of Oncogenes, Aneuploidy, and AIDS: A Scientific Life and Times of Peter H. Duesberg
  • My favorite review of his work from Amazon.com
  • Words of Dr. Harvey Bialy
• David Crowe sent me this list of AIDS dissidents featuring:
  • David Bartell. Science Fiction writer, BA, Astrophysics - *** but read this note from Mr. Bartell dated 15 October 2007 ***
  • Angelo Battiston. D.C., Cape Town, South Africa (D.C. is "doctor" of chiropractic)
  • Maja Boxhorn. Instructor in Veterinary Homeopathy, Asthanga Research Institute for Homoeopathy, Hagen bei Murnau, Germany
  I had to stop at "B" in the alphabetical list of 1000 because I was laughing too hard.
  If you look above, you will find a list of over 5000 signatories to the Durban Declaration, all MD, PhD level or equivalent, including Nobel prizewinners.
• Matthias Rath
  • The Denialists The dangerous attacks on the consensus about HIV and AIDS by Michael Specter
    from the New Yorker, March 12, 2007.
• Henry Bauer
  • HIV is not real,
  • but the Loch Ness Monster is! Is he joking? No!
• Gambian President Yahya Jammeh Announces Herbal AIDS Cure - Bet you a buck it doesn't work.
• Valendar Turner
• Eleni Papadopulos-Eleopulos whose highest academic degree seems to be BS (which might stand for Bachelor of Science, or perhaps something else)
  "The Perth group, Papadopulos-Eleopulos and Turner, claimed to have academic appointments at the University of Western Australia. That's not the case, and they're now being disowned by the university." Reference: HIV Science and Responsible Journalism, presented at the 16th International AIDS Conference
  
  Follow the trial of Andre Chad Parenzee in Adelaide, Australia.
  • Supreme Court of South Australia Justice John Sulan's decision (PDF format); (MSWord format)
    
    
  • Google News Archive Search for Parenzee
  • Shadow of doubters (local copy) (5 May 2007) "It was like fighting the Flat Earth Society all over again."
  • HIV man to appeal decision (local copy) (4 May 2007)
  • HIV does not exist appeal thrown out (local copy)(27 April 2007)
  • Judge set to decide on HIV case appeal (local copy) (13 Feb 2007)
  • HIV sceptics' claims out of date, court told (local copy) (13 Feb 2007)
  • HIV sceptics "beyond stupid", says top scientist - also "sad", "deeply nonsensical" and "extremely wrong". (local copy) (13 Feb 2007)
  • "Hogwash" claim in HIV appeal - also "misguided", "inappropriate" and "delusional". (local copy) (12 Feb 2007)
  • 25 million dead people can't be wrong. Or can they? (local copy) (10 Feb 2007)
  • AIDS pioneer new star witness (local copy) (6 Feb 2007)
  • HIV sceptics' data 'half truth' (local copy) (6 Feb 2007)
  • HIV deniers 'a joke' (local copy)(5 Feb 2007)
  • AIDS sceptic accused of misleading court (local copy) (30 Jan 2007)
  • There is no AIDS virus, says HIV-positive accused (local copy) (26 Oct 2006)
  • Expert witness says HIV 'doesn't exist' (local copy) (19 Dec 2006)
  • Wait, People Still Don't Believe in HIV?
  
  
• Darin Brown
• Michael Geiger (see below)

In case you still have any doubts

• This is David Crowe's original email offering a debate and my reply, filled with the same disdain I feel for telemarketers who disturb me during dinner. David Crowe carbon-copied Peter Duesberg and Christine Maggiore in his note; in my reply I carbon-copied them too but also Dr. Anthony Fauci from NIAID, Dr. Stephen Barrett from Quackwatch.org, physicist Robert Park (bobpark.org), and arch-skeptic James The Amazing Randi (randi.org). Do you think David Crowe may have a point? Then read David Crowe's posting from MSN Groups supporting the Perth Group and Eleni Papadopulos-Eleopulos (see above) who said, "There is no massive epidemic of HIV infections because no one has proven it."
  
  
• Next, a baiting email from Harvey Bialy offering me a copy of his book (see above) for free (and worth every penny!). Here is my reply and Harvey Bialy's answer. Of course, my sarcastically amusing reply was exactly what Harvey Bialy hoped for. He then posted on Hank Barnes' blog calling me a "Moore-ish" Physicist. I am absolutely certain that Harvey Bialy, in his alternate Universe, meant this comparison to AIDS researcher Dr. John P. Moore as an insult, but he could not have paid me a better compliment.
  
  
• Then we have an email from Peter Duesberg. Let's see... favorable comparison of oneself to Galileo and Einstein... that's worth 50 points. Here is my reply asking for a recent peer-reviewed reference. And here is Peter Duesberg's answer. Can you understand it? Is he saying two wrongs make a right?
  
  Well, it's been a while since Peter Duesberg wrote, "More later," in his note of 22 December 2006. I have received no recent peer-reviewed references from him. I did, however, receive this email from David Crowe. The peer-reviewed papers on cancer are irrelevant to this topic (AIDS, remember?). There is only one paper published this millennium! And even that one is from way back in 2003 and it does not appear in a tier-one medical journal.
  
  
• Last (and certainly least) Michael Geiger, always in charge of his facts, sent this email to my friends and colleagues at Penn State Physics -- wrong audience, Mike! He calls me a "PSU Professor" even though I never was a PSU professor and have been an SMU professor since 1995. He misspells "Berkeley" as "Berkely" while he's singing the praises of Duesberg. He includes two links to photographs of physics demonstrations, I suppose to discredit me in some way, but it's difficult to see the logic since he sent them to other physicists who had only praise for the pictures. His third link is to an image that Harvey Bialy made to ridicule Dr. John P. Moore. So who looks ridiculous: Moore or the team of Bialy and Geiger?
  
  Michael Geiger implies that I have no knowledge of retrovirology. This is true; my expertise is in theoretical particle physics. It is also irrelevant. As you can read in my reply to Duesberg above, it is precisely because I am not an expert in retrovirology that I rely on the editors and referees in the peer-review process to separate valid science from pseudoscience. And you don't have to be a cow to recognize bullshit when you see it.

What is their motivation?

• Perhaps the AIDS deniers are racist. Most of the lives lost to this nonsense were in Africa. The president of South Africa, Thabo Mbeki, was for years influenced by the AIDS deniers before adopting the scientific view. Maybe the AIDS deniers want to maximize the death toll in Africa.
• Perhaps the AIDS deniers are homophobic. Their policies may be crafted to kill as many homosexuals as possible.
• Perhaps the AIDS deniers are religious fundamentalists. They may believe that AIDS is God's just punishment for recreational drug use, homosexual intercourse, illicit sex, etc., and scientists should not intervene in God's plan.
• Perhaps the AIDS deniers are hoaxers. They don't really believe what they preach; they just want to see how many people they can fool, how many scientists they can irritate, and how many times they can get their names on the web.
• Perhaps the AIDS deniers are eugenicists. They may be trying to improve humanity by ridding the planet of the most gullible people, the very folks who take their advice.

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