Black Plague Essay, Research Paper
As a young adult I must endure many scary realities of this world. Everyday a new challenge, obstacle, fear stares me right in the eye. The sugarcoated, innocent, ?never ?never? land is quickly shedding from my reality and I am faced with the truths of this cynical world. Truth. Do I know the meaning of this word? What if all I have trusted had been false, what if those endless nights I lied awake worried over the latest medical news, or any news for that matter, was all just a waste of potentially productive time? What if the world as we know it was all just a hoax and a set up to make the men in the white coats rich? According to Dr. Peter Duesberg, HIV as we know it is not the cause of AIDS or death, but rather the habitual use of hard drugs and or the treatments used for HIV, AZT a very harsh medication first developed for the treatment of cancer, that is causing the immune deficiency. Before I even understood completely what sexual intercourse or intravenous drug-use was, I was told what HIV was. The ?black plague? of the 80?s and 90?s, killing off people by the thousands spread by unprotected sex and dirty needles. But what if this scare was purposely inflicted as an experiment on the American people or what if was all just a human error.
Dr. Peter Duesberg is a professor of molecular and cell biology at the University of California, Berkeley. He has pioneered the studies in the phenomenon that HIV is not the cause of AIDS. Dr. Duesberg is the first to isolate the cancer gene through his work on retroviruses and mapped the genetic structure of these viruses. He is an outstanding investigator recognized by the National Institutes of Health, making him more than creditable for his claim. Dr. Duesberg has challenged the virus-AIDS hypothesis claiming that the public has been misinformed.
The believers in this claim feel that HIV was invented for an explanation for AIDS, and equally the treatments used were even causing the AIDS illness. Let?s begin by defining HIV/AIDS according to the World Health Organization (WHO), modern science and medicine and what is being taught in classrooms and clinics all over the world. HIV stands for Human Immunodeficiency Virus and like any other virus can only replicate inside cells. In short, it attacks the ?T-cells? which make up our immune system. In the final course of the virus the infected person ?becomes particularly vulnerable to the opportunistic infections and cancers that typify AIDS?(pg. 1 www.charweb.com). HIV is shown to be the cause of AIDS. AIDS stands for auto immune deficiency syndrome and is defined by a severe depletion of t-cells and over 20 controversial degenerative and neoplastic diseases, and is 100% fatal. But believers in the phenomenon claim that this information is misleading and incorrect. Dr. Duesberg has proposed the hypothesis that the various AIDS diseases are brought on by the long term consumption of recreational drugs and AZT, which is prescribed to prevent or treat AIDS. In the studies and research conducted the in the correlation between HIV and AIDS many cases of AIDS show no sign of HIV.
?In the United States and Europe AIDS correlates to 95% with risk factors, such as about 8 years of promiscuous male homosexuality, intravenous drug use, or hemophilia. Since AIDS also correlates with antibody to a retrovirus, confirmed in about 40% of American cases, it has been hypothesized that this virus causes AIDS by killing T-cells. Consequently, the virus was termed human immunodefieciency (HIV) and antibody to HIV became part in the definition of AIDS.?(pg1www.duesberg.com) In other words scientist pinned HIV on this virus because HIV kills t-cells and AIDS kills T-cells so they must be one in the same? When we exam the hypothesis that HIV causes AIDS we must look at classical conditions for viral pathology, in which HIV violates. A virus replicates inside cells very rapidly and the body fights the virus through the immune system. Supposedly HIV infects the T-cells and kills them, but about 5% of all T-cells are regenerated during the 2 days that it takes the virus to infect the cell. HIV replicates within 1 to 2 days and induces immunity within 1 to 2 months although; AIDS follows the onset of antiviral immunity only after long and unpredictable asymptomatic intervals averaging 8 years. The time between the two is very long and unpredictable and in conclusion HIV show s to be insufficient for AIDS and may not even be necessary for AIDS.
The AIDS diseases occur by predetermined prior health risk, including long term consumption of illicit recreational drugs, and antiviral drug AZT and congenital deficiencies like hemophilia and those of Africa are African specific. AIDS is very different throughout the world. American and Europe AIDS diseases result from recreational drug use and anti-HIV drugs. African AIDS diseases are a result of protein malnutrition, poor sanitation and subsequent parasitic infections. AIDS is acquired not transmitted and does not spread randomly between the sexes in America or Europe.
The original WHO hypothesis that HIV causes AIDS has been a huge failure in terms of benefiting the public, finding a cure or a vaccine. It has also failed to predict the AIDS diseases an infected person may develop and whether and when an HIV infected person is to develop diarrhea or dementia, Kaposi?s sarcoma or pneumonia. Also this hypothesis fails to explain why AIDS risks differ between different HIV groups, like blood transfusion cases and babies born to infected mothers. Now, true a medical hypothesis may not produce a cure every time but it should be able to explain those at risk for the disease and time limits in this disease among other numerous other facts.
About 30% of all American and Europe AIDS patients are intravenous drug users. It is also known that virtually 100% of all homosexual males with AIDS or at risk for AIDS have been long-term users of oral, aphrodisiac drugs, paricuarly nitrite inhalants. Also besides recreational drugs many at risk for AIDS patient or actual AIDS patients are treated with AZT. AZT is a very harsh drug that was originally developed in the fight against cancer. It works by killing all growing cells. This includes healthy ones. Your are brought to a level of severe illness, and then in cancer patience, when it is believed that all cancer cells are dead, nursed back to health. Yet in AIDS cases there is no ?nursing back to health? because the AIDS cells can never be killed off. It like a prescription dosage of AIDS. Let me remind you that AIDS attacks the immune system, leaving it unable to resist disease.
AIDS occurs on an average of 10 years after initiation of the risk factor in this case drugs like cocaine, alkyl nitrites, inhalant ?poppers? and treatment for HIV like AZT, but like in any other cases of toxins in the body it takes time for disease to develop. The smoker does not get emphysema over night nor does the drinker get liver cirrosis the first time he drinks. It due to continual toxicity of the body to generate these illness. AIDS diseases are partially a result of drug abuse or exposure to AZT.
Different risk groups have risk group specific AIDS diseases, for example Kaposi sarcoma; a disease of the lungs is almost exclusive cause of death in homosexuals because homosexuals are almost exclusive users of aphrodisiac nitrate inhalants. Tuberculosis and weight loss is observed in intravenous drug users, because intravenous drugs cause those symptoms. Anemia and lymphocytopenia is observed in recipients of AZT, which kills developing bone marrow cells. And hemophiliacs get pneumonia and candidiases almost exclusively because of long term transfusions of blood and other foreign proteins. In conclusion there is no substantial evidence that HIV is the cause of AIDS or AIDS diseases.
After getting all the facts it is very easy to feel uneasy about the ?facts? about AIDS, as we know them. As part of my research, I was tested for the HIV and AIDS virus. I was told that my blood sample would be tested for traces of the breakdown of my immune system, which occur as soon as two week after being infected with HIV/AIDS. Going into this situation with virtually no real knowledge of this disease or it effects on my body I think I left the clinic knowing more about sex than I did the disease itself. I was asked various questions that in my opinion had no real correlation with AIDS/HIV like if I enjoyed using sexually related ?toys? during intercourse. Also I was asked if I had ever received money or equivalents to
I now know that a lot of the information that I acquired at the clinic in fact was false. In fact the ?AIDS test? turns out to be proven scientifically invalid in determine whether people actually have HIV. I was also told that I was high risk because of my age, race and ethnicticity and my gender. That alone contradicts any statistics that I have seen in where homosexual men and drug users are still at the highest risk. It also contradicts the initial spill that AID/HIV sees no color, gender or lifestyle. In actual research people of color or ethnicticity only are at a higher risk when living in there native land that may or may not be sanitary or have a high protein malnutrition rate. Yes, I am of Mexican decent and consider myself Mexican-American but for Christ sake I have only been to Mexico twice and it wasn?t for more than two days at a time. I am sure not every African American has been to Africa or will ever go there so why are we at higher risk than people living right here in the states under the same living conditions. Some may argue that it is our genetic structure that makes us a higher risk, but this holds no water in a laboratory or in proving our immune systems are some how weaker. I think it has to do more with the some stereotype that minorities are unhealthy unclean individuals.
Yet beside all the outstanding evidence that supports the claim that HIV does not cause AIDS and even putting aside my personal encounter with the flaws in HIV/AIDS testing I still must be a skeptic. Why would any one create this disease? In one study I read it is to be believed that pharmaceutical companies mostly fund the research for AIDS. Why would pharmacies want a cure, when so many spend thousands of dollars on AZT and other drugs? They wouldn?t unless possibly, the drugs for the cure mad them more money than the drugs that were suppose treat the disease. The idea that there is a possibility that doctors may be killing of a certain group of people and taking all there money for treatment before hand is hard to comprehend but possible. May this have nothing to do with money at all but for power? I doctors can get their patients to trust them completely than physician ultimately hold all the power. A perfect example of the appeal to authority fallacy is being committed. There are numerous possibilities why the disease could have been created, but in using Okums razor, and determining the most probable cause, it is probably human error. Although we still must be skeptic considering even this a possibility.
In one report we find that HIV is blaintenly claimed to be the cause of AIDS. HIV in this report is characterized by a gradual deterioration of immune function. During the course of the infection, T-cells are disabled and killed and there number progressively declines. T-cells play a crucial role in the immune system in fighing off disease.
In the above research Dr. Duesberg never says that this isn?t the truth. Also in this particular report it states that it takes about 10 years before the onset of AIDS. And the suffers of AIDS often suffer infections of the lungs, brain eyes and other organs and frequently suffer from debilitating weight loss and diarrhea and a cancer known as Kaposi?s sarcoma. Many of the infected dies within a few years of developing the infections due to there weekend immune system. Dr. Duesberg never argues those points either. So where is the controversy? Some skeptic claim that Dr. Duesberg is just an extreme radical looking for a quick ticket to fame and that he is no more credible than the next doctor is.
I think that the problem lies in the definition of AIDS in that HIV is a cause and the definition closely related. I think when you look at one Dr. Duesberg claim you find it to be overwhelmingly unbelievable. Yet when you research the current information on AIDS, that is highly believable also. With no back ground in medicine or research I have to realize that I to not obtain the knowledge or education in the human body to really say for sure that I understand the information given to me. I can though, looks at all possible hypothesis and conclude using my own knowledge in which I choose to believe.
After getting research on AIDS/HIV from the WHO and other medical research facilities, I don?t find the two hypothesis that different. I find loopholes and flaws in each of the studies. Yet there is still one major factor in which why I still remain a skeptic on this claim.
One of the claims that I failed to mention earlier was that 150 chimpanzees were infected with the HIV virus to test their response to the disease. Duesberg is very quick to point out that now nine years later the chimpanzees are still very healthy. But the definition for HIV is HUMAN immunodiefiency virus. So how could a chimpanzee come down with and illness that only attacks humans? And despite the many flaws in HIV/AIDS testing that I mentioned before there are many possibilities for exposure, silly or not. For the people to become educated we must get personal and this may include very private sexual behavior and or drug use. The people administering the test must get all information regardless of how extreme to determine your risk factors.
All in all I guess you really have to decide what is most satisfying to you. I feel that both hypotheses have good points to them. I actually was very suppressed on how much information was out there regarding this subject. . I believe Dr. Duesberg hypothesis. I also believe that a lot of his information is a bit shaky and questionable. Whatever motives he has for perusing the investigation are beside the point and rely irrelevant to me. I am not the best case scenario for a skeptic because I tend to believe things that are most pleasing to my life. I don?t feel that I am a high-risk target for the disease because I don?t use intravenous drugs or any harsh drugs for that matter and I don?t practice multiply partner sex or unprotected sex. This is satisfying enough for me not to have to look further into the controversy because I don?t feel at risk. If in the future I become more at risk than I will seek out more probable causes for the disease and motives behind the studies for the disease. Either way I learned a very important lesson through out this research paper and that is to not just settle for what I am told but to question everything concerning my life and make educated well informed decisions, but I must say we have to draw the line some where?or do we?