Posted on 08/08/2002 7:34:00 AM PDT by JameRetief
August 5, 2002
ONE DAY THE WORLD WILL SEE AIDS VERY DIFFERENTLY
By Anita Allen
My optimism about progress in dealing with what is being billed as the Mother of all Epidemics has taken a serious nosedive in recent weeks. The reverse should be the case since there is no doubt that with each day’s passing more and more people realise the paradigm of HIV causes AIDS is just one incorrect route taken in the health sciences.
This means the outcome is inevitable, but my loss of spirit relates to answering the question: Will it be in my lifetime? I am not optimistic in this respect because there is little indication the people in leading roles will rise to the occasion, behave like heroes and display the extraordinary effort that is a prerequisite to ending the insanity.
For those who believe the solution is political, not scientific - it’s not as if heads of state don’t know what is going on in South Africa. Mbeki wrote and told them that he was convening a special science panel (including HIV dissidents) to discuss HIV/AIDS in April 2000. At the time Mbeki answered a question in parliament as to the reception his letter received by saying that he could not divulge specific responses; however he could say that in general he received support for his initiative to lift the veil on HIV/AIDS.
The exception was Bill Clinton. In his upstanding way, he decided to instead leak Mbeki’s letter to the media with unnamed shock horror - and isn’t the president of South Africa an idiot? - comment. (1) Ever since, Mbeki’s political opponents, the media and its gurus have been punting the Stars and Stripes über alles line leaked by the unnamed White House source.
The changing of the guard in the Oval Office has not done anything discernable to indicate a changed opinion of Mbeki as the fool in HIV/AIDS (but otherwise full of grace).
Nor have world leaders come out of their cocoons of silence on the subject. Every one is only too happy to let South Africa’s president take the flack, especially as he practically volunteered for the hot seat. Since the untimely death of his colleague, ANC MP Peter Mokaba on June 8, Mbeki remains the sole politician in the world who has debated the issue in every forum, in letters, in parliament, on radio, on TV, in UK, US, Europe and Africa. The record of Mbeki’s personal opinion on HIV/AIDS, now running into thousands of words, remains consistent, original and unretracted. (2)
That means we have only one leader in the world who is consciously competent on this matter - and prepared to go on the public record. The rest can be divided into a few with a “no-brain” approach and a majority who remain silent. How can this state of affairs in any way be considered acceptable? The point has come where it is simply not good enough to maintain this ostrich-like behaviour or to support it in our elected leaders. Lives are at stake, millions of them if not from HIV then from antiretrovirals.
In South Africa, the HIV/AIDS issue has progressed to the point where conducting specific experiments to try to verify HIV science has been formalised as part of the South African government’s comprehensive HIV/AIDS policy, as announced and outlined by Cabinet on April 17. (3)
Since the April announcement, no less than five ministers of Mbeki’s Cabinet are in charge of this process, instead of the previous committee of three ministers. The logistics of getting five people instead of the three to a meeting to discuss the issue make an outcome less likely.
The decision-making on how to proceed has been passed on to a non-politician - the head of the Health Department in South Africa, Dr Ayanda Ntsaluba. I started in April asking him for answers to questions regarding the special science panel’s work and the meaning of the Cabinet statement of 17 April, which he drafted. It took three sets of emails to him and two to his spokesperson to get a confirmation of receipt, and I am still waiting for a reply.
Sitting in the same building as Ntsaluba in Pretoria, is Dr David Allen from the U.S. Centres for Disease Control, so there is expertise from the heart of the beast right at hand, as it were. The same questions that were directed at Ntsaluba were put to the US embassy here and the health attaché Gray Handley has brushed me off like a pesky fly and refuses to comment on the record, except to say on the telephone that the US is prepared to consider any request for assistance from the South African Minister of Health.
If it were that simple to get progress, why hasn’t it happened? The simple reason is that in addition to decision makers being incapable of making decisions, scientists have not shown any indication of being willing to co-operate.
Proponents of the HIV causes AIDS hypothesis in South Africa continue to attract huge sums to continue their research. Last week $11 million was awarded to researchers at South Africa’s University of Natal in collaboration with the University of Colombia and Harvard. The same team was responsible for successfully applying to UNAIDS Global Fund for $72 million for a project to give antiretrovirals as a treatment. As long as the funding floods in no one sees the need to work with any scientist who proposes to question the HIV hypothesis.
Obviously, scientists and politicians as individuals do influence outcomes. Given the actors involved it is precisely the reason why I am not optimistic of progress on this issue anytime soon. In fact, to be completely honest - no so-called dissident grouping is prepared to work with another dissident grouping on experiments. They prefer to cut each other to pieces in public.
No one can force scientists to work together and in the absence of coherence from the opponents of the HIV/AIDS hypothesis, no one should blame politicians for continuing to hedge their bets. What choice do they have?
Meanwhile, the South African government’s reluctance to allow antiretrovirals to be dispensed in the public health system flies in the face of its own stated policy. This was underlined by a recent judgment of the highest court of the country, the Constitutional Court. It found government could not appeal a High Court ruling ordering the roll out of nevirapine in the public health system to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV. The drug is licensed in the country for this purpose, as are most other antiretrovirals for treatment of anyone who has tested positive on HIV kits - and government policy is based on the premise that HIV causes AIDS. During court argument, the efficacy and safety of Nevirapine were not raised as issues by government’s legal team. Cost was not raised as an issue. The validity of HIV kits used in the diagnosis of HIV infection was not raised.
All of which means the Constitutional Court judgment was to be expected.
The Constitutional Court also turned down an attempt by South Africa’s only dissident on the Presidential Aids Advisory Panel, Professor Sam Mhlongo, to be admitted as a friend of the court. The basis for the decision was that he would be introducing new uncontested evidence which, if admitted, would lead to inordinate delays when the outcome was actually simple in light of present government policy and its own evidence.
Triumphant about this success, Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), which brought the action, is now threatening to go to court once again to force government to make all antiretrovirals available though the public health system. Pleading the case for TAC is former President Nelson Mandela. Last Friday Mandela met to discuss these matters with Mbeki and it was agreed that what was discussed would remain confidential with no statements being made from either side.
Imagine - an epidemic of the proportions that HIV/AIDS is said to be and agreeing to this condition? If I were Mandela, filled with the certainty of my position, I know I would not allow myself to be gagged. The only other option is that things are not as they seem when presented by Mandela and the majority.
Mbeki’s government has two choices: it can announce a roll out of antiretrovirals in the public health system before being forced to do so, or go to court and bring evidence that its own HIV/AIDS policy is daft and antiretrovirals are poisons. If it did this, litigation floodgates would open.
It is worth noting that there is no challenge from anywhere to Thabo Mbeki’s leadership and there would be if his actions in dealing with HIV/AIDS really did mark him as a loony.
It’s clear, then, that world leaders are not the only politicians pleased to leave Mbeki in the hot seat. Except for Mokaba, no one in Mbeki’s own party has so far been prepared to speak up.
Either Mbeki is a brilliant strategist and the world’s best mediator and conciliator, or he is the unmitigated idiot who promotes weird HIV/AIDS ideas as imaged by the media and its unnamed sources. It can’t be both. In the same vein, one either backs Mbeki’s brain power on this issue - and others - or one backs Nelson Mandela. It can’t be both.
One day the truth will be accepted about HIV/AIDS and all that is caught up as part of the same scandal, scam and fraud. There is some comfort in believing that. But as I write there is no indication of it happening any time soon.
1. Mbeki’s letter dated April 3, was leaked to the Washington Post which ran a story on 19 April 2000. On the same day, copies of the letter and comment was circulated in South Africa to media by Greg Forbes, Democratic Party media liaison.
2. See Mbeki homepage http://www.gov.za
3. http://www.gov.za Trio of documents: Cabinet Statement on HIV/AIDS 17 April 2002; Summary of Government Position following Cabinet Statement on HIV/AIDS 17 April 2002 and. Continuity and Change in Policy 17 April 2002.
For more of an introduction to the controversy surrounding HIV and AIDS science, there are several good links to start with here. There are many scientists, including Nobel prize winners who are convinced by the evidence that HIV is not the cause of AIDS, and their reasons can be found be reading some of the above or by reading other articles that can be found on the same website.
One of the Nobel winners, Dr. Kary Mullis, is the inventor of the PCR test that is used in HIV "viral load" tests. Mullis himself says that his invention, PCR, can't be used for this purpose.
You can read about Mullis' thoughts here. You can also read about how he became a dissident here.
What might its presence be doing, which contributes to the decline of a carrier's health?
I think we must be having a tin foil shortage today.
To stop AIDS: Stop bending over and taking another man's penis up your ass.
It's that simple!
It's likely he died due to the toxicity of the drugs he was being given because he was HIV positive. Perhaps rather than declaring "tin foil" you should read what Duesberg has written. His research is well documented and is quite compelling.
The places where AIDS is really devastating the population (such as Africa), or where it soon will (India, Thailand, etc.) are places where it is spread through heterosexual intercourse.
Money. We are wasting BILLIONS and BILLIONS of taxpayer dollars if HIV is not the cause of AIDS. It would take comparatively very little money to confirm or debunk the HIV theory. Tests do so have been proposed and set up, but the AIDS industry continues to stall and prevent them from occuring.
Oh great, I have a choice between two idiots!
Some interesting reading on AIDS in Africa for you:
THE AFRICAN AIDS EPIDEMIC: NEW AND CONTAGIOUS - OR - OLD UNDER A NEW NAME?
AIDS in Africa: distinguishing fact and fiction
The language is a little obtuse so I may be misunderstanding, but is the author claiming that Bill Clinton is generally upstanding? There is no sarcasm involved? Really?! The same guy who was impeached and disbarred for lying? The guy in the west bank foxhole?
Not to change the subject or anything, but I wonder what color the sky is in her world.
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