The Truth about David Crowe, Rethinking AIDS and the RA 2009 Conference

Dr. Peter Duesberg is a member of the board of Rethinking AIDS and, as one of the first major scientists to question the HIV=AIDS dogma, we are proud to have him. However, there is a diversity of ideas on the board. Past-president Dr. Etienne de Harven, for example, has stated that he does not believe that HIV exists, putting his position on this one issue at odds with Duesberg's. Yet despite this scientific difference they work cooperatively on the board. Duesberg's work gets no special treatment on the Rethinking AIDS website as a review of the rethinkingaids.com front page will show.

Anthony Brink certainly has a point that the "About Rethinking AIDS" page could be improved but he has never suggested this to the RA webmaster let alone specific changes that could be made. Constructive and accurate suggestions are usually implemented, especially if specific text is proposed, and he could have thus so easily disproven his suspicions.

The truth is that Rethinking AIDS was dormant, not dead, by around 2005. It had a board of directors, with Etienne de Harven as president, but it is true that it was not very active. David Rasnick asked David Crowe and Bryan Owen to join the board to help him revitalize the organization. This was an unsolicited request, neither David nor Bryan had ever thought about being on the board before being asked.

After their appointment the board stayed in place until 2008 when the resignation of Bryan Owen and death of Christine Maggiore opened up two new spots on the board which were filled by Drs. Henry Bauer and Helen Lauer.

In other words, David had no control over the composition of the board between 2005 and 2008, and the two appointments in 2009 were done through a process that allowed all board members to nominate candidates and through a vote of the entire board.

The members of the board were not inactive. While most of the day-to-day activities of the board were conducted by a minority, the majority of board members were either present on board conference calls to make decisions or submitted their opinions through appointing a proxy (usually not David Crowe).

That the board members were not puppets of David Crowe was illustrated in 2006 when he proposed that RA become involved in legal cases. In a vote this proposal was turned down. Again, in 2008, after facilitating a letter to the journal "Science" David proposed that he should submit it to help coordinate a response, identified as President of RA. This was strenuously opposed by the co-author of the letter, Janine Roberts. Despite her not being a board member when put to a vote Janine's proposal to use a neutral third party was adopted instead.

The complaint that David Crowe did not contact every person on the list of RA signatories when he "formed" RA in 2006 (actually it appears that David first was appointed to the board in 2005) can clearly be seen as unfair because he did not form the organization, it already existed, it was not his decision to revitalize the organization, it was that of current board members, including Etienne de Harven and David Rasnick, and since the board was in place at that time it was not David Crowe's place to demand that the board consult the membership of RA on his appointment to the board.

In addition, the list of email addresses of RA signatories was not available to RA at that time and our experience with using that list is that most email addresses are obsolete and cannot be used to reach more than a minority of members. Only slowly has RA re-established contact with more of the rethinkers.

David is recognized as an expert in wireless telecommunications, which is his paid employment.

David has a degree in biological sciences and mathematics. While only a Bachelor's degree, it did require a thesis which, with one summer's additional research, was published in one of the top international journals in his field:

Crowe D, Parker WH. Hybridization and agamospermy of Bidens in Northwestern Ontario. Taxon. 1981 Nov; 30(4): 749–60.

This paper also included analyses based on mathematical and graphical software that were very sophisticated for the early 1980s – all designed and implemented by David Crowe, perhaps explaining his diversion into a career in computer software and then telecommunications, rather than biology.

David's interest in HIV and AIDS extends back to the early 1990s and his research has involved reading over 2,800 documents of which about half are scientific papers. The depth of this analysis is shown in the annotated bibliographies he has produced on the subjects of:

• AZT
• HAART
• HIV Testing
• Transmission
• Recreational Drugs and HIV/AIDS
• Progression from HIV to AIDS

David has also worked with others to document the list of educated and accomplished people who question the HIV/AIDS theory, was totally responsible for the development of a database to store the list and to produce the website.

Anthony Brink has previously thanked David for his contributions. In the foreword to his 2000 book "Debating AZT", Anthony Brink wrote, "The value of this work, I hope, has been to systematise a large body of clinical and research data on AZT, render it in prose transparent to non–experts and to launch it into the popular domain…For locating the papers I’ve cited, all credit to David Crowe [and others]…". In his 2005 book, “The Trouble with Nevirapine”, Anthony Brink wrote, “I thank: David Crowe in Calgary, Canada for procuring a wad of internal Canadian government memoranda and telefaxing them to me to enable me to write Part Two.” At about the same time he acknowledged in a document sarcastically entitled “AZT and HAART are beneficial for infants and adults” that it was David’s efforts in 1999 that established contact with Richard Beltz, the researcher who had first synthesized AZT in the 1960s.

Statements were made by a member of the Rethinking AIDS board who had apparently believed claims by another person that questioning the existence of HIV and AIDS was not allowed at the RA 2009 conference. This was damaging to the prospects for the conference and was not true.
The message was sent to a very large list (not a "small closed internet forum") and consequently could have had significant ramifications.
David requested (not "demanded") that the board member circulate any future messages with criticisms of the conference to other board members to ensure that the information is validated and to open the possibility of making corrections more speedily. In fact, the board member in question was assured that the conference was open, that presentations would not be censored, and later changed the information about his talk to explicitly indicate that he would be talking about the (non-)existence of HIV.

Val Turner provided no evidence he has ever made such a request and certainly no request for representation on the board was made by Dr. Valendar Turner or Eleni Eleopulos of the Perth Group during David's tenure as an RA board member. David has stated his personal view that until Val Turner stops attacking board members (not just himself) and instead chooses to enter into constructive dialog he obviously cannot be considered as a potential board member. Eleni Eleopulos rarely communicates with other rethinkers and therefore board members are not familiar enough with her communication style to understand whether she could be a cooperative member of the board.

The board of Rethinking AIDS would be pleased to have other rethinkers get more involved in their work. This indeed happened with new board members Henry Bauer and Helen Lauer. It is from the group of rethinkers who work with and for RA that future board members are most likely to be chosen.

David Crowe was asked by Kevin Borick, the lawyer, to identify other possible experts to help ensure that the Perth Group did not get rejected on the basis of status because their academic qualifications were not as high as other dissidents. Knowing their disagreements with Peter Duesberg's scientific views David specifically mentioned Etienne de Harven and Rodney Richards as people who support the Perth Group viewpoint that HIV does not exist, but who have education and experience more directly related to HIV and viruses, and were therefore more likely to be accepted by the court. Even if they played a minor role it would make the elimination of the Perth Group futile as the viewpoints would still be represented.

Note that the initial demand of the Perth Group might have been just the exclusion of Peter Duesberg but David Crowe was informed that later they extended this to all other expert witnesses.

It is true that Rethinking AIDS has limited funding. Obviously governments, foundations and drug companies, rich sources of funding for most AIDS organizations, will not fund an organization that is critical of the HIV=AIDS dogma. California venture capitalist Robert Leppo has been the most generous contributor to the organization over several years.
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It is true that Robert Leppo is on the board of Rethinking AIDS. He has never participated in scientific discussions between board members, but is involved in discussions of the financing, strategic direction and administration of the organization. He has never used his financial clout to try to twist arms of other board members. He has been very supportive over many years, gives astute financial advice, and we are proud to have him on the board.

David's approach to Rethinking AIDS is that the organization itself does not do rethinking, that is for individuals. David does not want to coerce members, including board members, to have specific scientific positions. Rethinking AIDS was established on the basis of a broad criticism of the HIV=AIDS theory and absolute consistency of belief beyond that is not necessary for RA to function.
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For RA to take a position on specific scientific issues where there is not unanimity would be to attempt to determine scientific issues by majority rule. This is anathema to those who believe in the scientific method.

The initial name of "The Group" was "The Group for the Scientific Reappraisal of the HIV-AIDS Hypothesis". Since this is unwieldy and "The Group" is ambiguous, the organization has long been referred to as "Rethinking AIDS". Specifically, it was calling itself this by 2005 when David Crowe first became involved.
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In 2005 David Crowe was just one of 13 board members. This lasted until April 2008 when the board chose him as their president to succeed Etienne de Harven. Even now, Rethinking AIDS is not "his" organization, as the president reports to the board, and not every proposal he made as president was approved by the board.

Anthony Brink provided no evidence that such a request has ever been made and certainly no request for representation on the board was made by Dr. Valendar Turner or Eleni Eleopulos of the Perth Group during David's tenure as an RA board member. David has stated his personal view that until Val Turner stops attacking board members (not just himself) and instead chooses to enter into constructive dialog he obviously cannot be considered as a potential board member. Eleni Eleopulos rarely communicates with other rethinkers and therefore board members are not familiar enough with her communication style to understand whether she could be a cooperative member of the board.

The board of Rethinking AIDS would be pleased to have other rethinkers get more involved in their work. This indeed happened with new board members Henry Bauer and Helen Lauer. It is from the group of rethinkers who work with and for RA that future board members are most likely to be chosen.

Rethinking AIDS does not promote the existence (or non-existence) of HIV. It allows documents to be posted on its website from people who take both viewpoints. It has board members who take both viewpoints (including David Crowe and Etienne de Harven who have both questioned the existence of HIV for over a decade). And the question of the existence of HIV is definitely one of the subjects for discussion at the RA 2009 conference.

Science has advanced by the free thoughts of individuals. For the Rethinking AIDS board to vote on a scientific issue is a horribly unscientific proposal.

All speakers at RA 2009 are speaking on their own behalf. Neither RA nor the RA 2009 organizers have ever claimed that Dr. de Harven will be speaking on behalf of Eleni Eleopulos.

RA 2009 does not accept substitutes for speakers. While many people, including Anthony Brink, could run through a presentation prepared by Eleni Eleopulos, only she herself could answer questions about her theories. While most people know that Eleni was probably the first person to question the existence of HIV, her scientific viewpoints are much more extensive, particularly her views on the causes and consequences of oxidative stress, and people will want an opportunity to ask her questions on these other topics as well.

The organizers of RA 2009 decided that the conference would be restricted to discussions of the HIV=AIDS dogma, and would not be expanded to broader issues of virology. It would clearly be impossible to do justice to this topic in three days. David pointed out that since the scope of this conference had been established some time before receiving Janine's request it would be divisive to suddenly expand it to include other issues. There are many reasons for people to object to this. David's refusal to debate this further was due to Janine's refusal to accept the decision of the organizers after several messages, and his desire to spend more time focussing on planning the conference, rather than arguing about changes to its scope.

Clearly David is not since he has been questioning the existence of HIV for more than a decade. In fact, as an experiment, based on the work of the Perth Group, David Crowe became probably the first person to question the existence of West Nile Virus in a 2001 article in Joseph Mercola's health newletter.

David's first overt questioning of the existence of HIV was in 1997 when he wrote to Canada's then Minister of Health, Allan Rock: aras.ab.ca/articles/correspondence/199709-MoH-Canada.html (note that the web page has a link to a signed and dated facsimile of the original).

Eleni Papadopulos has never communicated with David Crowe directly in any form. David has attempted to email her on several occasions but has never received a response and therefore does not know if she received any of the messages. Janine Roberts is actually talking about correspondence from Val Turner who did claim on some occasions to be representing Eleni.

Eleni Eleopulos's decision not to speak at RA 2009 was hers alone. If RA had not wanted her to speak they would not have invited her. If Eleni really wanted to get her viewpoints out to a wider audience and to the board members of RA she would have participated.

We have not polled the speakers on whether they will be addressing the issue of isolation and HIV existence. Therefore it is possible that more than one speaker may address this.

The disagreements that the Perth Group have with David Crowe are strategic, having little to do with the existence of HIV. David does not agree that RA 2009 would be successful if the existence of HIV was the only issue. David does not believe that court cases can be successful if they are based solely on the existence of HIV. David also objects to the propagation of false information by the Perth Group, their refusal to accept even a single point that David makes, their contention that his involvement in the rethinking movement is for malicious purposes, their refusal to attempt a resolution of differences privately and their contention that David is a pawn of Duesberg (contradictory to their assertion that the Board of RA, including Duesberg, is composed solely of pawns of David Crowe).

People have become members of Rethinking AIDS for over a decade by signing the statement at:

virusmyth.net/aids/statement.

It is true that Rethinking AIDS does not poll the membership before making decisions, but this would be impossible because most of the email addresses are no longer valid. In addition, before David Crowe and others got involved in the revitalization of Rethinking AIDS in 2005 the organization did not even have access to the mailing list. It would be an excellent idea for RA to sell annual voting memberships to allow people who wish to have more of a say to do so, with the fee covering the cost of maintaining the large database, although this would require a change in the bylaws. In addition, RA does not currently have the resources to do this. A volunteer to pursue this task until RA can afford full-time staff would be warmly welcomed.