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SCIENCE NOTES by Hans Kugler, Ph.D. What causes AIDS? a) “AIDS Vaccine a Total Failure!” News reports, September 2007.The vaccine, well made by reputable scientists, failed to be a weapon against AIDS. c) HIV causes AIDS (?) Landmark publication in Lancet doesn’t support hypothesis. Pure, unadulterated logic is the foundation of true science, a fact scientists can agree upon. Imagination and a vast knowledge are essential to the scientist so that he or she can judge what is, or is not, logical. In the health sciences, when there is a lack of sufficient evidence, however, the lines can easily blur as statistical observations take the place of scientific fact. Correlations are mistaken for causes. A case in point: Many AIDS patients from Europe and the United States are also HIV-positive; hence, the conclusion: HIV causes AIDS. However, scientists must search for data and facts that show beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the HIV virus leads inextricably to AIDS—an assumption that still has not proven itself. Obviously influenced by the many statistical correlations between the HIV virus and AIDS, health science researchers have grown sloppy and started to ignore scientific logic. The influence of the drug companies plays no small part in this careless disregard of the scientific method. The drug companies have concocted antiviral drugs based on this correlation and those drugs have been for sale. In light of recent disclosures that drug company data on a number of drugs is of questionable merit, one can only wonder if the same type of data was used on behalf of the “HIV causes AIDS” argument in developing and obtaining approval for antiviral drugs. HAART (Highly Active Anti-Retroviral Therapy) for the treatment of AIDS was introduced nearly a decade ago. HAART is a windfall for drug company profits: A pharmacist quoted HIS COST of $ 5,600 to $ 7,200 for a one month supply of pills. Since then, thousands of studies, many of them financed in one way or another by the drug companies, who are relentless in their campaign on behalf of antiviral therapy as the way to treat AIDS/HIV. Every time HIV has been addressed in the medical community, it has been referred to as “the virus that causes AIDS.” Thus patients, doctors and the media alike have been brainwashed into believing that “HIV causes AIDS” as an established scientific fact; willingly, they serve as unpaid sales reps for the drug companies. Dissenting scientists, on the other hand, have been ignored. If HIV really causes AIDS, drugs that kill viruses or reduce viral loads should eliminate or greatly reduce death from AIDS. Lancet Publication doesn’t support HIV=AIDS Hypothesis One of the most prestigious medical journals, Lancet revealed data that does not support HIV=AIDS hypothesis: “The results of this collaborative study,[over a 10-year period] which involved 12 prospective cohorts and over 20,000 patients with HIV-1 from Europe and North America, show that the virological response after starting HAART has improved steadily since 1996. [With more advanced antiviral drugs, doctors were able to lower viral loads in patients]. However, there was NO corresponding decrease in the rates of AIDS, or death, up to one year of follow-up. Conversely, there was some evidence of an increase in the rate of AIDS in the most recent period.” While these findings don’t support the HIV=AIDS hypothesis, they very much support one of the dissenters’ postulates, namely that the extremely poisonous antiviral drugs could destroy part of the immune system, thus themselves inducing AIDS. Response to this conclusive evidence is slow in coming. The HIV/AIDS supporters will most likely try to ignore it or deny it screaming for “more studies!” Meanwhile, sales of antiviral drugs over the past 10 years are estimated to have netted the drug companies about $60 to $100 billion, sufficient reason for keeping the “HIV Causes AIDS” hypothesis alive. While you weigh the above findings against the profit that has already been made on antiviral drugs, what emerges are unanswered questions pertaining to the moral and ethical foundation of medicine: Does the drug industry care if patients spent their life-savings, or sold their house to pay for the obscenely-overpriced drugs? How was it possible for so many medical publications to show positive results for antiviral therapy? Years ago, fellow members of the International Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine designed a poster for anti-drug education. We mailed it to hundreds of hospitals and health agencies. No matter what the accepted theory about AIDS was then, in light of the legion of scientific papers that connected recreational drug abuse to AIDS, this poster could have been a critical tool for educating the public. Except for some doctor’s offices and small clinics there was no response. The logical next action to take, especially relative to these new findings, would be to finance research in order to take a hard look atwhat really causes AIDS. AIDS – Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome – acquired via a) Abusing recreational drugs? b) Ingesting toxic, immune-suppressing antiviral drugs? c) Malnutrition (African AIDS)? CLICK HERE to access “HIV treatment response and prognosis in Europe and North America in the first decade of Highly active antiretroviral therapy; a collaborative analysis.” Lancet, Aug. 06, pp.451-58. CLICK HERE to access “The Chemical Basis of the various AIDS epidemics: recreational drugs, antiviral chemotherapy, |