Fauci on “Thirty Years of HIV AIDS”

From 2011 but highly relevant

This was hard to watch, so I’m taking one for the team and watching it for you. If you want to sit through 47 minutes of Fauci pontificating with a smug expression on his face, here is the link to the interview. Either way, I’ll be discussing it below. (If anyone watching is an expert in analyzing facial microexpressions, there’s a lot to work with and I’d love to hear what you think.) Timestamps are approximate, and again, I’ve done my best to keep the quotes accurate, but there may be some misplaced inconsequential ands and ors.

This is worth paying attention to. There are a few moments in the video that I think are very telling, especially with respect to the activists. It’s also interesting to compare his analysis of the situation in 2011 compared with his more recent 2022 statements.

Right out of the gate, he mentions that in June 1981 he got the first two MMWR reports that indicated AIDS cases. There were 31 in total, and it perplexed Dr. Fauci that they were all gay. I’m not sure why this was even reported, but the important thing to note is that the jump to assume that AIDS was sexually transmitted happened early, well before the “discovery” of any sort of infectious agent. Why would that be?

He also mentions that the laboratory he had been in charge of at the time, the Laboratory for Immunoregulation, and that they had been specifically studying immune cell disorders, especially B (antibody-associated) and T cells. “My lab at the time had been studying aberrant B cell function […] so even though we suspected it was a virus, in fact we were sure it was a virus...” Again—Why?

6:30 “We began studying their T cells and their B cells […] this disease was characterized, paradoxically, as an aberrant immune activation despite the fact that it was an immune deficiency disease […] their B cells were hyperactive.” B cells are involved in antibody production, and abnormally activated B cells would be expected to induce an abnormally high nonspecific antibody response. No wonder the HIV ELISA test is so problematic.

Then, stunningly for those of us aware of the history of AIDS (emphasis mine): “A year later, in 1984, Gallo showed the absolute connection between the virus and the disease […] Bob Gallo proved that it was the etiologic agent in 1984, the test was approved in less than a year.” Other than this statement, there is no explanation of how Gallo showed this “absolute connection”—the connection that could not even be established in half of his initial AIDS cohort? Proof of causation is glossed over entirely in this video.

He refers to the antibody and PCR tests as “extremely sensitive.” He neglects to mention what a problem this is in terms of false positives and even false positive viral loads.

We then move into the fantasy world of the “mysterious virus” that “constantly mutates” and “hides itself in a reservoir, hidden from open view of the immune system.” (In addition to nine genes, “HIV” apparently has arms and legs and a brain.) At 11:39 he makes the following significant comment: “It was only the last year or two, using structural biological techniques, have we been able to get a handle on that very important component, the envelope, or the outer covering of the virus, to be able to make intelligent structure-based vaccine designs.” Recall that this was recorded in 2011. Fauci’s enthusiasm over the possibility of a vaccine has certainly waned in the interim.

What I want to point out here is that term “structure based design.” It’s a relatively new concept that is used for development of drugs and vaccines (famously, the mRNA vaccines that target the “spike protein” employ structure-based vaccine design). I looked into “structure based” design and analysis of HIV drugs and characteristics of HIV, and one term popped up repeatedly that should concern everyone, and that term is “in silico.” As we know, in vivo refers to studies done on live animals including humans, and in vitro means in the lab, like in a Petri dish. In silico refers to studies that were conducted via computer simulation. There is no actual virus to be found, only an abstraction of a virus that has yet to be properly isolated. What are they doing? It’s also not a surprise that drug development exploded when the use of in silico experiments gained popularity. (Note that not all “structure based” research is done in silico, but more and more of it is being done that way, with the advanced computing power available today.) It’s a clever idea, but we’re getting the cart way ahead of the horse here by sending things to an unrealistic level of abstraction. What happened to classical science?

14:00 He discusses the recycling of old drugs, which resulted in the approval of AZT in 1987. AZT was used because in the laboratory it had “totally blocked” the virus. He refers to the first and only placebo-controlled trial for an AIDS drug, which was the famous AZT trial that was cut short at 16 weeks due to its “overwhelming success”—one person died in the AZT group versus 19 in the placebo. We all know what happened next. A generation of gay men and hemophiliacs were prescribed high dose AZT and they all died, really quickly, but does Fauci acknowledge this? No he does not. According to him, AZT was only bad because of “drug resistance.” No word about toxicity.

20:15 Here we talk about the activists. “The activists were making extremely good points about the uniqueness of this, the need to do more, the need to be less rigid in our regulatory approaches to the development of new drugs, and the rigidity and lack of flexibility in how we design clinical trials.” Translation: The activists loudly and dramatically demanded that the normal rules of classical science be abandoned in favor of rushing barely tested drugs to the market. This disastrous decision has had a snowball effect that, thanks to the Covid pandemic, now affects everyone.

And now this has spawned a new activist movement regarding disease, which Fauci enthusiastically approves. It’s interesting to me that someone like Fauci claims to represent The Science, and implies constantly that people that are not scientists should stay in their lane because they just don’t understand the subtleties of The Science… unless they are an activist of whom they approve. Those non-scientists can say whatever they want. There are plenty of us that are also “activists” in some sense, but we get accused of spreading disinformation (it’s more like malinformation, the phenomenon of saying things that are “true, but cause people to distrust authority”). Why is this?

“The AIDS activists wrote the book on activism.” No comment.

28:27 Fauci talks about the new drug development, starting with the protease inhibitors. We now have more than thirty drugs approved by the FDA that have a “stunning, dramatic effect on the suppression of the virus.” You mean suppressing the virus that is so hard to find we need PCR to see bits and pieces of it?

This segues into a discussion of the ongoing search for an HIV vaccine. The first trial began in 1987, and no progress has been made since. He then tells a story about President Clinton giving him the go-ahead to establish a Vaccine Research Center on the NIH campus. “Now it’s really one of the prize scientific centers here at NIH.” That’s a little disturbing, that the prize scientific center has produced no results since its establishment.

The then discusses the recently abandoned Thai RV144 vaccine trial and the excitement it generated for “structure based vaccine design.” That too was abandoned for futility.

34:50 This is actually very telling. “I think the whole study of HIV was a big boost not only in the study of any viruses […] the ability to do high throughput sequencing and determine the quasi-species, or the components, it isn’t one virus that’s uniform. It’s what we call the quasi-species, which means that there are multiple subtle changes that exist, it’s almost like a swarm of viruses, as opposed to one identical virus that you have millions of copies of different types of modifications of the virus.” Is he for real? We all know about the “remarkable hypervariability” of the alleged HIV, of which no two identical copies have been found even in the same patient. It almost sounds like it’s… not an exogenous virus?

Now we go into “treatment as prevention,” in other words, PrEP. There is also a discussion of the thin evidence for “U=U.” There were apparently 27 “infections” in the “delayed treatment” group versus one in the “early treatment” group, although it isn’t clear what “delayed” means. You can watch the video for more information if you like.

Finally, we wrap up with the global picture, and a discussion of the “Current situation.” He briefly touches on the conundrum that AIDS is a predominantly heterosexual disease in Africa, but mysteriously nowhere else. This can’t possibly be because of the difference between HIV-1 and HIV-2, considering the “remarkable hypervariability” of the alleged virus, which I should point out is considered to be a very small virus to begin with. Furthermore, this explanation is the most reasonable one I’ve seen; the other explanations for the African epidemic aren’t even attempting to hide their racist biases. It’s still a theory that poses more questions than it answers.

Finally, he puts on his Bad Doctor lab coat and concludes by stating: “It is still a very bad, very unfortunate thing to get HIV-infected. Just because there are drugs available is no reason at all to think, ‘Oh, it’s okay to get HIV-infected’. It’s not. It’s a very serious disease. Even at best, you have to be on drugs that have some toxicities, some people have serious toxicities. […] Right now, it means you have to take drugs for the rest of your life.” The final sentence is “The only way to get out of this is to stop new HIV infections, and we’re not going to do that if people are complacent.” You have to take drugs for the rest of your life. You have to. That’s not coercive language at all.

Well, I’m glad that’s over. I’m not sure how I feel about the overly sinister conclusion. The attempt to keep the fear going is certainly obvious, but I’ll give Dr. Fauci a tiny bit of credit for admitting that some people experience “serious toxicities” from the drugs. It would have been nice if he’d admitted that AZT was an obviously disastrous mistake, but we all know that Fauci will never admit that. At best, he’ll claim that he “can’t recall.”

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If you’re a new reader and would like some background as to my views on HIV AIDS, including the “existence” question, please refer to this post and the links contained therein.