The basic questions Crowe refuses to answer

Brink and Crowe exchange, 3 July 2012

Eugene Semon and the Perth Group exchange, 8 July 2012

Dear David

I write to ask whether circumstances might now permit of a reply to the Perth Group’s enquiry more than four years ago, copied below.

You did say, “I do plan to respond comprehensively to this.”

It’s a matter of the first importance for our movement.

Yours sincerely

Anthony Brink 

In our first contribution to the Duesberg softspot email 20/3/2008, that is, a year ago, we asked you two questions.

“Our questions are:

·       Since the “HIV” experts, including Montagnier and Gallo, admit:

o  to prove the existence of a virus, it is necessary to purify the particles and to show that they have unique RNA.

o  To date, no “HIV” experts including Montagnier and Gallo, have proof of purification and admit that there is no unique RNA.

why should the dissidents give to the “HIV” experts that which they admit they do not have and debate with half-truths?

·       It is possible for the dissidents to be proven correct by debating with half-truths?”

After a reminder you responded on 31/3/2008: “I do plan to respond comprehensively to this. Unfortunately this has come at a very busy time for me, and obviously I need to put extensive thought into a response”.

Despite our repeated requests we still await your response. These are straightforward questions of pivotal significance for the dissident movement. Is your tardiness because (i) the answers require much scientific knowledge; (ii) the answers are obvious but run contrary to vested interests; (iii) other reasons? Regardless of any excuses, how can the movement achieve its goal when the leader is either unable or unwilling to answer such crucial questions?

(Excerpt from: PERTH GROUP RESPONSE TO DAVID CROWE RE THE PARENZEE HEARING http://www.tig.org.za/DavidCroweApril-7-2009.pdf)

Anthony;

My position on the first item is very clear.

I can’t believe that I would agree to respond to the second and third bullets which are very unclear and poorly written and ultimately a type of question like, “When did you stop beating your wife?”.

They also imply that there is such a thing as absolute truth and even rethinkers don’t have access to that. It also implies that the mainstream are actively debating dissidents which has only very rarely been the case.

Regards,

    David

Dear David 

I think I understand.

When on 31 March 2008 you proffered the Perth Group the seemingly sincere assurance that you ‘do plan to respond comprehensively’ to their questions when you find the time – which, being critical in our internal strategic policy disagreements, you agreed ‘obviously’ warranted ‘extensive thought’ in your ‘response’ – this was not the ‘absolute truth’.

In fact this wasn’t the truth at all, not even a half-truth.

That is, you gave the Perth Group this seemingly sincere assurance without meaning it.

You never intended to ‘to respond comprehensively’ to the Perth Group’s questions.

Like when borrowing money, and saying I’ll pay you back on Monday, but without any intention of honouring your undertaking, in fact having the fixed intention of dishonouring it.

Would this be a correct reading of your dishonestly evasive response to my reminder of the Perth Group’s long unanswered straightforward, pivotal questions?

Please correct me if I’ve misunderstood your meaning.

In the event that another ‘case’ arises in which ‘the mainstream are actively debating dissidents’, would you agree that ‘rethinkers’ can ‘access’ the ‘absolute truth’ about ‘HIV’ by reading the Perth Group’s corpus, and learning from it that ‘to prove the existence of a virus, it is necessary to purify the particles and to show that they have unique RNA’ and that ‘To date, no “HIV” experts including Montagnier and Gallo, have proof of purification and admit that there is no unique RNA’.

Or is this not the ‘absolute truth’?

If you agree that it is the ‘absolute truth’, and you’ve repeatedly said as much, why in the last ‘case’ that you were involved in did you ‘give to the “HIV” experts that which they admit they do not have and debate with half-truths’, in fact the absolute untruth that ‘HIV’ exists but is harmless.

Like a toothless vampire.

Without any evidence for this.

As the Perth Group asked you several years ago, ‘how can the movement achieve its goal when the leader is either unable or unwilling to answer such crucial questions?’

After seemingly honestly undertaking to answer them.

Yours sincerely

Anthony Brink

Eugene Semon then chimed in and the Perth Group responded on 8 July 2012:

Dear Eugene,

Here we respond to your first and last paragraph (italics).  For the benefit of those in your cc list, as well as ours, please elaborate on the data in other paragraphs and we will likewise respond.

David,
 
On the notion of debating with “half truths”, as Brink accuses, we need to set the record straight.
 
One thing that’s frustrated me from the time of the “soft spots” exchange is this notion of Standards of isolation/purification promulgated by Pasteur Institute in 1973. This doesn’t even rise to the level of a “half truth.” The other side’s HIV expert (Coon) pointed out about ten years ago that this idea is flat out wrong. He is correct and I’ve written extensively on this - why I’ve broken it off with Brink - that it’s not just Peter who should rethink his position.

What in your view “does not even rise to the level of a ‘half truth’” is the truth for most microbiology and “HIV” experts including Gallo, Montagnier, Gluschankof and Bess (see In a Nutshell at the end of our commentary on The ENV?).  In fact to prove the existence of HIV both Montagnier and Gallo used the “Standards of isolation/purification promulgated by Pasteur Institute in 1973”.  They only forgot to publish an EM of the “purified” virus particles.

…

Additionally, in “soft spots” exchange, I pointed out re “unique RNA”: there’s the 1.22 - 1.24 band. Lots of evidence retroid RNA - that’s researcher Marcella McClure’s term - can show up from human cells according to both R Garry (Type A particle* not infectious) and Spiegelman (70’s research referenced 4 years ago). I was kicked down by PG as many may recall and I did respond as many should recall. Claus was supportive of that response as well. [*or exosome w/ERV genes, etc]

So what came next, what really stuck in my craw? When Henry Bauer asked the “origin of HIV DNA” question at hivaidsparadigm? It was the PG response to my answer to Henry. Kicked down for daring to read papers that PG was apparently unfamiliar with. I did respond (many here included in cc) with appropriate references and an invitation to tear my argument apart. No such rebuttal ever took place and here we are.

Thus, isn’t it now time to just proceed in good faith with one and all and deal with what I’ve previously described? Does the “unique RNA” exist? PG seems to say no because it was not obtained by Gallo from 1.16 band. This is technically correct. But if one reads the Gallo et al papers AFTER the famous four of 1984 up to the sequencing in Jan 1985 in Nature, it’s clear that Gallo never claims (in those papers) that HTLV-III nucleic acids were obtained from 1.16 band. And Brian Foley actually pointed this out to PG in the BMJ debate.

That was the worst moment for PG IMO: telling me at hivaidsparadigm that Brian Foley agreed with them.

Eugene

The absolute truth is that from the very beginning we have mentioned and still do that the answer to the question “Does the “unique [“HIV”] RNA” exist” is no.  But it is equally true we never said this is because “it was not obtained by Gallo from the 1.16 band”.  To the contrary.  Maybe the best way to respond to this paragraph is to quote from one of our responses to Brian Foley in the BMJ debate, 18 July 2003. 

“Let us remind Brian Foley how the first and still some of the best known “HIV” clones (pLAV13; pLAV75; pLAV82; λHXB-2; λHXB-3; λHXB-5; λHXB-8 and λHXB-10) were obtained. (1) (2) (3) (4)  All were obtained in a similar way.

“To clone the HIV genome, we isolated unintegrated viral DNA [in fact, all the extra-chromosomal DNA present in the cells or in other cases the DNA present in cells] after acute infection of H9 cells with concentrated HTLV-III [after culturing the H9 cells with supernatant from co-cultures containing tissues derived from AIDS patients] and cloned this DNA into a λ phage library to be screened with viral cDNA…extra-chromosomal DNA was extracted according to a procedure of Hirt and assayed for its content of unintegrated viral DNA using HTLV-III cDNA as a probe.  The synthesis of this  cDNA was primed with oligo(dT) and reverse-transcribed from poly(A)-containing RNA of virions that had been banded twice on sucrose density gradients”. (3)  In other words:

(i)   Montagnier and Gallo obtained the “HIV” genome by “purifying” the “virus” in sucrose density gradients; [in Gallo’s case by repeating it twice];

(ii) The poly(A)-RNA which banded at the density of 1.16g/ml, (the “purified” virus) was defined as “HIV” genome.  All the “HIV” clones derived from this poly(A)-RNA.

However:

(i)   Neither Montagnier nor Gallo published electron micrographic proof of purification.  Furthermore, according to Montagnier neither he nor Gallo has purified HIV, as we have repeatedly stated.  The only electron micrographs published to date are those of Bess et al (5) and Gluschankof et al (6).  Although they spared no effort their “purified” HIV consisted mainly of cellular fragments and some particles which they called “HIV” but not one of which had all the morphological characteristics attributed to it;”

(Ref. 3 is Hahn et al (Gallo): Characterisation of the HTLV-III virus associated with AIDS.  Nature 1984; 312:166-169)

 Can you please tell us:  (i) where in the long BMJ debate “Brian Foley actually pointed” to PG that Gallo never claimed to have obtained the “HIV” genome from the 1.16 band;  (ii) if not from the banded, “purified” virus, where did Gallo obtain his “HIV” genome?

Please give us a method by which one can obtain the genome of a new, unique retrovirus, without obtaining it from virus particles.

Eleni