Natural Science Forum / Physics / Relativity / March 2006

How am I going to measure distance when I don't have a rule?
How am I going to measure your IQ when you don't have a brain?
Here we end the discussion.
Androcles.

Hayek:

 Oviously he has formed an opinion about how the data are
best explained. Here in science land, we call that a theory.

 I don't pretend to be an expert in molecular biology nor am I talking
about molecular biology or pretending to be an expert. On the other hand,
you have spent a great deal of time pretending to be an expert on physics
and arguing about things you clearly lack the knowledge required to have
anything resembling an informed opinion. I suspect that the instant you
realize you have an opinion on simething, you instantly consider yourself
an expert in order to justify it regardless of evidence to the contrary,
so I have no reason to think you know any more about molecular biology
than you do about physics. If you think you are going to argue that
I don't know anything about physics, then I have no objections to
you attempting to prove that point by comparing what you know to what
I know. Feel free to choose _any_ subdiscipline in physics in which
you think yourself capable of analyzing the physics and performing the
calculations necessary to back up your analysis. I'd be more than
happy for you to choose the branch of physics I know the least about
just to make my point that much more obvious.

 I am talking about you because the post to which I responded was
about one of your arguments.

 Learn to read. Not only have you miscontrued what I said about his
his theory being more complex that _your_ simple minded presentation
suggests, you have misrepresnted what peter duesberg himself states
in your mindless zealotry to argue his point. He does not say that
HIV doesn't exist. If he said that, he would have no argument, since
his argument hinges on the correlation between HIV antibodies and
AIDS being circumstantial not causal with further support being the
difficulty in finding the actual virus in AIDS patients. Your inability
to even get the argument right is astounding, given your evangelism
for it.

 Then in addition to making it up as you go along and attributing your
inventions to me, you are calling duesberg a nutcase for proposing
the theory your are attempting to advocate. See above.

 The fact that you can't even accurately articulate the theory you
advocating clears up who does and doesn't understand the soundites
(or anything else). As to your rhetorical question, ``so why discuss
something more serious,'' you have expressed my sentiments exactly.
With a little assistence from a logic oracle you could eventually
understand why I don't bother trying to discuss anything with you
seriously.

 That article has nothing to do with YOU being a crackpot. Like
other crackpots, you are unable to distinguish between your own
opinion and the opinions of those whose opinions you misconstrue
in order to gain support for yourself by dropping names that carry
more weight than your argument.

 Not to mention the fact that your association with the idea will
tag it with the label ``crackpot,'' thereby insuring the association
is negative. If you had any common sense, you would either learn enough
about what you are advocating to at least make it appear that you
formed your opinion after studying the issue or else you would leave
the advocacy to people who know have studied it.

 One of which happens to be his concise collection of references
to outlandishly kooky posts so that anyone who is not sure who
is or isn't nutty can find a number of examples that should help
them decide. If you consider your posts to be fine examples of
logic and reason, you should also consider that a useful service.

sal:

 Well, that is not really his argument. His argument is that the presence
of HIV antibodies may be correlated with AIDS, but is not the causative
agent. In effect, his view is similar to arguing that dirty surgical
instruments are not the cause of infections - while it is obvious that
dirty surgical instruments are correlated with a higher infection rate,
unseen microbes are the cause, not the dirt itself, the dirt merely being
an indicator of how likely it is that the microbes are present. It is
still possoble to not get an infection with a dirty surgical instrument
as well as get an infection with a clean surgical instrument, since there
is a correlation between dirt and the microbes which cause the infection.

 I am not advocating his viewpoint since I do not consider myself enough
of an expert on the subject to advocate either viewpoint. To argue either
viewpoint without sufficient expertise would be to engage in the same
crackpottery that litters this newsgroup (I also object to people who
vigorously advocate accepted science like relativity if they have no
idea why they are advocating it - the kookiness is advocating what one
lacks the knowledge to discuss at the level of expertise needed to form
an opinion. Hayek is a kook precisely because he litters the newsgroups
with opinions on things about which he has no interest in acquiring any
real expertise. He is merely a cheerleader for the opinions of others,
without even presenting their viewpoints accurately.

 I can't address that, since I was unaware that he was admired in the
gay community. If that is true, it probably has a lot more to do with
their desire to create a perception they like than for scientific merit.

 Sure, but I'm a physicist, not an expert in molecular biology and I
haven't studied all of the relevant scientific literature on AIDS.
I have no problem saying that someone like paul marmet was a kook,
because I can pick apart every misconception in his arguments. On the
other hand, I have no expertise in molecular biology, so until I think
it's worthwhile to become an expert in molecular biology and join the fray,
I leave the resolution of the issue to the experts.

Still respected. By the right persons.

What good would it be to be respected by you, for
instance ? I would immediately suspect I did something
severely wrong.

His view his supported by loads and loads of data, and
many reasonings. I made a very small compilation of
his musings on the toxicity of AZT, for VanDeMerde.
Obviously you haven't read that answer.

You probably read that in a commentary on Duesberg,
intended to ridicule him. In the same way they
ridiculed president Mbeki, by saying that he thought
that sleeping with a virgin could cure aids.
Kari Mullis, when he visited Belgium, was announced as

further explanation on his dissident views. (in Knack
magazine, a mainstream Belgian catholic-leftist weekly
publication)

Have you ever tried a mirror to find or see your own
arse ?

Honey, I laugh my arse off everytime a vaccine for
aids fails... Has it ever gotten to your walnut brain
that it is impossible to vaccinate against a virus
that does not exist ?

So every failed attempt to do the impossible proves
Duesberg right.

Mad cow disease is caused by exces manganese, with
organophosphate insecticide as a co-factor.
In France organophosphates are forbidden, In
Switzerland they are not. Mad cow disease in
Switserland, almost none in France. Do you know a
disease that respect borders : Yes : aids as well.
Sure sign your attempt at theory is wrong...

And there is/was a disease called manganese madness,
which occured almost 100% with manganese miners. Same
symptoms as mad cow disease....

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=manganese+mad+cow&btnG=Google+Search&meta=

He was never admired, they hated him, because he
pointed to their lifestyle as the culprit. He took a
firm stand against poppers, an amylnitrite drug.
The only guy with aids still uses them, on top of his
mountain of toxic medication.

She has been called "the (water)closet lady of the
Perth Hospital"  by the mainstream, and I guess she is
now the lunatic closet lady. She earns my respect,
because she is the only one doing science and not
religion, her interview is the key dissident point :

http://www.virusmyth.net/aids/data/cjinterviewep.htm

http://www.virusmyth.net/aids/index/epapadopoulos.htm

ROTFL. coming from miss en mister Soundbyte themselve.
I am still waiting for Bilge to give me a physical
proces that is understood, and uses no inertia to
measre time.

I will give you some soundbites, Miss Soundbite,
coming from Duesberg :

AZT was the first so called AIDS "medication".
More reading on AZT :
http://www.virusmyth.net/aids/index/azt.htm

And the quote from Duesberg :
FROM
http://www.virusmyth.net/aids/data/pddrdrugaids7.htm#7.8
QUOTE
7.8. Hiding evidence that AZT accelerates death,
eleven examples.
In an effort to hide the emerging tragedy, the medical
establishment either trivializes or disclaims the
evidence that AZT causes diseases and accelerates
death. An analysis of several of the above cited
examples of AZT-accelerated morbidity and mortality
(see 4.) documents this assertion:

1) The observation that among male homosexuals, "HIV
dementia among those reporting any antiretroviral use
(AZT, ddI, ddC, or d4T) was 97% higher than among
those not using this antiretroviral therapy" is
interpreted by its authors with little concern for
percentages: "This effect was not statistically
significant" (117).

(117. Bacellar H, Munoz A, Miller EN, Cohen BA, Besley
D, Selnes OA, Becker JT, McArthur JC. Temporal trends
in the incidence of HIV-1-related neurologic diseases:
Multicenter AIDS Cohort Study, 1985-1992. Neurology
1994; 44: 1892-1900. )

2) The stunning results that HIV-positive hemophiliacs
on AZT have 4.5-times more AIDS and have a 2.4-times
higher mortality than untreated HIV-positive
hemophiliacs, is excused by the NIH researcher James
Goedert, the former proponent of the nitrite-AIDS
hypothesis (see 3.), with the casual explanation,
"probably because zidovudine was administered first to
those whom clinicians considered to be at highest
risk" (204). But, although AZT apparently increased
the morbidity and mortality of hemophiliacs
significantly, Goedert et al. did not question the
appropriateness of AZT therapy.

(204. Goedert JJ, Cohen AR, Kessler CM, Eichinger S,
Seremetis SV, Rabkin CS, Yellin FJ, Rosenberg PS,
Aledort LM. Risks of immunodeficiency, AIDS, and death
related to purity of factor VIII concentrate. Lancet
1994; 344: 791-792.)

3) Darby et al. report in Nature in 1995 that the
mortality of HIV-positive British hemophiliacs
increased 10-fold since the introduction of AZT in
1987 (183). The authors acknowledge that "treatment,
by prophylaxis against Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia
or with zidovudine [AZT] has been widespread" in
HIV-positive hemophiliacs. But instead of even
considering that these drugs could play a role in
accelerating the deaths of hemophiliacs, they argued
that "HIV-associated mortality has not been halted by
these treatments" (183). They failed to explain why
HIV-associated mortality would have risen 10-fold only
after the introduction of AZT and other anti-AIDS
therapies in 1987, rather than in the two decades
before 1985 when HIV was unknowingly transfused into
hemophiliacs together with clotting factor (24).

(183. Darby SC, Ewart DW, Giangrande PLF, Dolin PJ,
Spooner RJD, Rizza CR, on behalf of the UK Haemophilia
Centre Directors' Organisation. Mortality before and
after HIV infection in the complete UK population of
haemophiliacs (letter). Nature 1995; 377: 79-82.

24. Duesberg P. Foreign-protein-mediated
immunodeficiency in hemophiliacs with and without HIV.
Genetica 1995; 95: 51-70.)

4) Saah et al. explain their observation that male
homosexuals on AZT have a two- to four-fold higher
risk of Pneumocystis pneumonia than untreated controls
as follows: "Zidovudine was no longer significant
after T-helper lymphocyte count was considered,
primarily because nonusers had higher cell counts..."
(201). The fact that an inhibitor of DNA synthesis
designed to kill human cells would reduce lymphocyte
counts was not mentioned.

(201. Saah AJ, Hoover DR, Peng Y, Phair JP, Visscher
B, Kingsley LA, Schrager LK, for the Multicenter AIDS
Cohort Study. Predictors for failure of Pneumocystis
carinii pneumonia prophylaxis. JAMA 1995; 273: 1197-1202.)

5) An evaluation of AIDS prophylaxis with AZT produced
in 1994 the following results: "the average time with
neither a progression of disease nor adverse event was
15.7, 15.6, and 14.8 months for patients receiving
placebo, 500 mg zidovudine, and 1500 mg zidovudine,
respectively. …After 18 months, the 500-mg group
gained an average of 0.5 month without disease
progression, as compared with the placebo group, but
had severe adverse events 0.6 month sooner." On this
basis the authors concluded that, "…a reduction in the
quality of life due to severe side effects of therapy
approximately equals the increase in the quality of
life associated with a delay in the progression of HIV
disease" (202). It remains unclear, however, how one
gains 0.5 months "without disease progression" while
one has "severe adverse effects" 0.6 months sooner.

In view of this one wonders why since 1994 at least
220,000 mostly healthy, HIV-positive people continue
to receive AZT, either by itself or combined with
other drugs like protease inhibitors, all of which
have no therapeutic value and cost the patient or tax
payer over $12,000 per year (26).

(202. Lenderking WR, Gelber RD, Cotton DJ, Cole BF,
Goldhirsch A, Volberding PA, Testa MA. Evaluation of
the quality of life associated with Zidovudine
treatment in asymptomatic Human Immunodeficiency Virus
infection. N Engl J Med 1994; 330: 738-743.

26. Duesberg PH. AIDS acquired by drug consumption and
other noncontagious risk factors. Pharmacology &
Therapeutics 1992; 55: 201-277.)

6) The blunt result that AZT prophylaxis reduced
survival from 3 to 2 years, and caused "wasting
syndrome, cryptosporidiosis, and cytomegalovirus
infection ... almost exclusively" in AZT-treated AIDS
patients, was interpreted like this: "The study of
patients who progress from primary HIV infection to
AIDS without receiving medical intervention gives
insights into the effects of medical intervention on
presentation and survival after developing an AIDS
defining illness". But the nature of these "insights"
was not revealed by the authors (203).

(203. Poznansky MC, Coker R, Skinner C, Hill A, Bailey
S, Whitaker L, Renton A, Weber J. HIV positive
patients first presenting with an AIDS defining
illness: characteristics and survival. British Medical
Journal 1995; 311: 156-158.)

7) The largest test of AIDS prophylaxis with AZT of
its kind, the Concorde trial, found no prophylactic
value, but instead revealed a 25% higher mortality in
AZT recipients than in untreated controls (343). In
view of these awkward results Seligmann et al. reached
the patronizing conclusion: "The results of Concorde
do not encourage the early use of zidovudine [AZT] in
symptom-free HIV-infected adults" (160).

(160. Seligmann M, Warrell DA, Aboulker J-P, Carbon C,
Darbyshire JH, Dormont J, Eschwege E, Girling DJ,
James DR, Levy J-P, Peto PTA, Schwarz D, Stone AB,
Weller IVD, Withnall R, Gelmon K, Lafon E, Swart AM,
Aber VR, Babiker AG, Lhoro S, Nunn AJ, Vray M.
Concorde: MRC/ANRS randomised double-blind controlled
trial of immediate and deferred zidovudine in
symptom-free HIV infection. Lancet 1994; 343: 871-881.)

8) A study that treated HIV-positive, intravenous drug
users from New York with AZT observed: "The rate of
CD4 lymphocyte depletion did not appear to slow after
the initiation of zidovudine therapy….". This led to
the conclusion: "Our data failed to provide evidence
for an effect of zidovudine on the depletion of CD4+
lymphocytes, but the direction of the modeling results
suggested that zidovudine users in this sample may
have experienced more rapid CD4+ cell depletion" (87).

(97. Lauritsen J. The AIDS War. Asklepios (Pagan
Press), New York, 1993.)

9) As of 1994 the American NIAID and the CDC promoted
the prevention of maternal HIV transmission with AZT
(45, 184, 185, 344). But the costs of the hypothetical
triumph of reduced HIV transmission in terms of birth
defects and abortions were omitted from the reports of
the original trial (184, 185, 344-347). However a
study from outside the US reported 8 spontaneous
abortions, 8 therapeutic abortions and 8 serious birth
defects, including holes in the chest, abnormal
indentations at the base of the spine, misplaced ears,
triangular faces, heart defects, extra digits and
albinism among the babies born to 104 AZT-treated
women. But these bewildering results were interpreted
as just "not proving safety, thus lending tenuous
support to the use of this drug" (200).

Indeed, "spontaneous" or therapeutic abortion as a
result of AZT was not an unforseeable accident. A
review in The Lancet on "non-surgical abortion"
documents that chemotherapeutic drugs, like
methotrexate, have been used to abort normal and
ectopic pregnancies since 1952 (188). The article
concedes early "concerns over teratogenicity, but
concludes: used correctly, the method could bring
great benefits" (188).

(45. Connor EM, Sperling RS, Gelber R, Kiselev P,
Scott G, O’Sullivan MJ, VanDyke R, Bey M, Shearer W,
Jacobson RL, Jimenez E, O’Neill E, Bazin B, Delfraissy
J-F, Culnane M, Coombs R, Elkins M, Moye J, Stratton
P, Balsley J, Pediatric AIDS Clinical Trials Group
Protocol 076 Study Group. Reduction of Maternal-Infant
Transmission of Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 1
With Zidovudine Treatment. New Engl J Med 1994; 331:
1173-1180.

184. The Lancet. Zidovudine for mother, fetus, and
child: hope or poison? Lancet 1994; 344: 207-209.

185. Cotton P. Trial Halted After Drug Cuts Maternal
HIV Transmission Rate By Two Thirds. JAMA 1994; 271: 807.

188. Potts M. Non-surgical abortion: who's for
methotrexate. Lancet 1995; 346: 655-656.

200. Kumar RM, Hughes PF, Khurranna A. Zidovudine Use
in Pregnancy: A Report on 104 Cases and the Occurence
of Birth Defects. Journal of Acquired Immune
Deficiency Syndromes 1994; 7: 1034-1039.

344. Farber C. AIDS Words from the Front. SPIN
Magazine 1995; 189-193, 214-215, April.

345. Ostrom N. Early Intervention: An Idea Whose Time
Has Gone? New York Native 1995; 35-39, August 28.

346. Ostrom N. Nightmare on AZT Street. New York
Native 1995; 34-36, September 4.

347. Duesberg P. Duesberg responds (letter). The
Scientist 1995: 13, September 4.
)

10) In 1996, the American National Institute of Child
Health and Human Development reported the consequences
of AIDS prophylaxis with AZT for HIV-positive babies:
"In contrast with anecdotal clinical observations and
other studies indicating that zidovudine favorably
influences weight-growth rates, our analysis suggests
the opposite. Because our analysis of zidovudine
effect on standardized growth outcomes was based on
limited numbers of patients (no more than 10 at any
one visit with prior zidovudine use) and because we
could not control for stage of HIV disease in the
study design, the result indicating no effect or a
negative effect of zidovudine on growth should be
interpreted with caution. Presumably, zidovudine use
is confounded by progression of HIV disease. The
observation that standardized LAZs [length for age
scores] were lower after the start of zidovudine
therapy than before may suggest merely that sicker
infants received zidovudine. However, our findings
suggest that the widely held view that antiretroviral
treatment improves growth in children with HIV disease
needs further study" (205). Thus AZT toxicity was
shifted to HIV.

But if the lower health standards of AZT-treated
babies were due to prior "HIV disease", it would have
been necessary to conclude that AZT failed to reverse
or even maintain the "HIV disease" of these babies.
But that possibility was not mentioned nor apparently
even considered by the AZT-doctors. Moreover, the
likelihood that AZT was the cause of the babies’
diseases was obscured by averaging the diseases of
AZT-treated with those of untreated HIV-positive
babies (see 7.7.).

(205. Moye J, Rich KC, Kalish LA, Sheon AR, Diaz C,
Cooper ER, Pitt J, Handelsman E, for the Women and
Infants Transmission Study Group. Natural history of
somatic growth in infants born to women infected by
human immunodeficiency virus. The Journal of
Pediatrics 1996; 128: 58-67.)

11) The disquieting observation that AZT increases the
annual lymphoma risk of HIV-positives 50-fold, from
0.3 to 14.5%, per year was resolved by the NCI
director, Samuel Broder and his collaborators, by
claiming a victory for AZT: "Therefore, patients with
profound immunodeficiency are living longer [on AZT],
theoretically allowing more time for the development
of non-Hodgkin lymphoma or other malignancies" (198).

(198. Pluda JM, Yarchoan R, Jaffe ES, Feuerstein IM,
Solomon D, Steinberg S, Wyvill KM, Raubitschek A, Katz
D, Broder S. Development of non-Hodgkin lymphoma in a
cohort of patients with severe human immunodeficiency
virus (HIV) infection on long-term antiretroviral
therapy. Ann Intern Med 1990; 113: 276-282.)

UNQUOTE

This is also a remarkable post :
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig7/culshaw1.html

Yep :
http://www.xs4all.nl/~notime/Duesberg_On_Science.html

Those "mediocre technicians" should no longer be
called scientists...

Goodbye Sal, have a nice low-life. [PLOINK}

Uwe Hayek.

I will give you a soundbite :

"A clock is an inertiameter"

And challenge you to
- understand it,
- to point at someone who said this before,
- try to falsify it by pointing at a process that is
well understood, acts as a clock, and is not based on
inertia.

Should I bother to take her Shallowness out of my
killfile ? I don't think so, I do not expect any
worthy answer.

Uwe Hayek.