Has the dissident movement crumbled?

HAS THE DISSIDENT MOVEMENT CRUMBLED?
The Perth Group

June 2012

For many years we, like many of you, have been receiving emails from HIV⁺/AIDS patients asking for help. Now they seem to have lost patience with the dissidents. For example, in one of two most recent emails one reads: “Many arguments have been laid out by scientists, doctors, and other establishment types about the possible cause of AIDS and HIV’s role in it. Duesberg still talks about drug use, others talk about viruses and mycobacterium, and you discuss redox theories. Still, the people diagnosed HIV⁺ and dealing with symptoms have no clear method for dealing with their problem…I know others in the same situation as I’m in. We are huddled together, unsure of what to do to help ourselves. Most of us seem to believe that the HAART drugs are not good for long-term use, but seem to help in the short term. Natural therapies and redox therapies do not seem to be affecting the outcome of our situations. [As far as we know there is only one redox study, and although not ideally designed and executed it had a promising outcome]. I’m asking what we are supposed to do. Many dissident scientists dismiss the HAART drugs, but rarely have any course of action to try. It may not be a matter of life and death to them, but it’s pretty important to us”.

And in another: “The dissident movements have crumbled and there are not as many scientific voices from many years ago”.

Undoubtedly, the loss of many prominent dissidents contributed to this pessimism. But is it possible that there are some more basic reasons?

When AIDS was first diagnosed in 1981 numerous infectious and non-infectious causes were proposed. However in 1984, with the exception of a handful of scientists, the scientific community accepted that “HIV” is the cause of AIDS. Thanks to Charles Thomas, those who disagreed with the “HIV” theory were united in “The Group for the Scientific Reappraisal of the HIV/AIDS Hypothesis”. The members of this group especially Peter Duesberg were hammering the science of the “HIV” theory of AIDS and of “HIV” itself and people, including John Maddox, were listening. In our view the main reasons why Montagnier and not Duesberg is a Nobel laureate are:

1. Peter’s acceptance of a correlation between “HIV infection” and the development of AIDS. Peter’s mantra was and remains “Correlation but not causation” (but once you accept correlation and isolation of HIV it is not difficult to argue that Koch’s postulates have been fulfilled. This is Peter’s main argument against the HIV theory of AIDS).

2. Peter’s refusal to accept the evidence that sex plays a role in the development of AIDS – that semen is toxic, but “it is the dose and not the poison which kills”. (The toxic effects of semen do not discriminate between the sexes or sexual practices. Its toxicity can manifest either when it is deposited anally or vaginally; only the pathological effects differ).

For some unknown reason, by the end of the 1990s the “Group for the Scientific Reappraisal of the HIV/AIDS Hypothesis” was changed to Rethinking AIDS. By then its best members, including Charles Thomas, had abandoned the dissident movement and its voice was largely replaced by that of the two RA Presidents claiming to represent all the dissidents.

The first president of the new RA group established in 2006 declared that all the dissidents who preceded him were wrong. He was the first person to clarify why Montagnier had no proof for the isolation of “HIV” and thus for its existence. And his greatest contribution to the dissident movement is the explanation of what the “HIV” viral load is actually measuring. However, even after a few corrections he still fails to grasp what the “HIV” viral load is, what viral constituent it measures or how it is measured.

On the one hand he says, since Montagnier had no proof for isolation/purification of “HIV” he could not have had proof for its existence, and on the other hand, Montagnier had proof for the existence of a “TYPICAL RETROVIRUS”, despite not having purified. All virologists and retrovirologists including the “HIV” experts agree: the only way to characterise a virus is to isolate and purify it. Although Montagnier did not purify his “TYPICAL RETROVIRUS”, or any other retrovirus, the first RA president claims that Montagnier’s virus is an endogenous retrovirus, a group of retroviruses which cause a plethora of human diseases.

All virologists including retrovirologists, and in particular the “HIV” experts, agree: the only way to perform a viral PCR test (including viral load) and an antibody test is to obtain the PCR primers and antigens from isolated/purified viral particles. Despite the fact that Montagnier has never isolated/purified any retrovirus, including the “TYPICAL RETROVIRUS” attributed to him by the first RA president, he claims that this virus is an endogenous retrovirus and the “HIV” viral load actually “measures” this retrovirus, not “HIV”.

By the time the first RA president became a dissident, the dissident scientific and non-scientific literature already:

(a) questioned the role of “HIV” in AIDS pathogenesis;

(b) postulated non-“HIV” theories of AIDS pathogenesis;

The evidence for (c) was so significant that Montagnier, according to whom purification is necessary “to prove you have a real virus”, admitted that he did not purify any retrovirus and in fact what he called “purified virus” did not even have any retrovirus like particles. Montagnier's electron microscopist Charles Dauguet has confirmed that all they ever had in their purified virus was cellular debris, and he conceded this before RA chose its first president. This being the case, one has no choice but to conclude that:

(a) the antigens used in the “HIV” antibody tests are nothing else but cellular proteins, and the antibodies detected by the antibody test are either autoantibodies or cross-reacting antibodies.

(b) the primers and probes used in “HIV” PCR are nothing else but cellular nucleic acids, that is the RNA “measured” by in the viral load test has nothing to do with a retrovirus, either exogenous or “endogenous”. Neither do the “HIV” “measurements” detect endogenous retroviral sequences as Maniotis tried to convince us all after accepting there are no endogenous retroviruses. The reason is simple. To claim that the “HIV” PCR measures endogenous retroviral sequences, one must have proof that the primers used in “HIV” “measurements” originated from retroviral particles, be it human or animal retroviruses. No such proof exists. To the contrary, the evidence shows that they originated from cells.

One of the most important pieces of scientific evidence which the first RA president continues to ignore is the fact that, to date, neither he nor anybody else has presented such proof for the existence of endogenous retroviruses. In fact the authors of the papers he claims prove the existence of such retroviruses contradict him. In other words at present the evidence for the existence of endogenous retroviruses is no better than that for the existence of the windmills of the nobleman from La Mancha.

The first RA president not only ignored the dissidents’ evidence but also Montagnier’s mea culpa, and declared Montagnier did have proof for the existence of a retrovirus, only the virus was not exogenous but an endogenous retrovirus.

A virus is a virus – if a patient becomes infected with a given retrovirus which originated in Venus or in himself it makes no difference to its subsequent behaviour, that is, infectivity and pathogenicity. For an entity X which originated in A to be a virus it must be transmittable to B. And then from B to C and so on. In A it may be endogenous but in B and C is exogenous. If in all of them A, B, C…originate de novo then it is not a virus. According to the first RA president, what one “measures” in “HIV⁺”/AIDS patients is not “HIV” but a virus belonging to the group of “endogenous” retroviruses, that is the AIDS patients are not infected with “HIV” but nonetheless they are infected with a retrovirus, an endogenous retrovirus. In other words all the first RA president did was to change the name of Montagnier’s virus, from “HIV” to “endogenous”. And since “endogenous” retroviruses cause a plethora of diseases why cannot Montagnier’s “endogenous” “TYPICAL RETROVIRUS” be the cause of AIDS?

This is exactly what the current RA president recently clarified, although he still calls Montagnier’s virus “HIV”.

According to the current RA president:

(a) “HIV” is “a cause of AIDS” (obviously it must exist);

(b) “There is no RA science”;

Given that:

(i) RA and its two presidents claim to represent all the dissidents;

(ii) they are in total agreement with Montagnier’s claim to have proven the existence of a pathogenic retrovirus;

is one not then justified in claiming that the dissident movement has crumbled?