I have a question for you—open thread
Super quick post
I am really curious to know where my readers stand on the following question, and the question is:
Is AIDS (not HIV) an STD or is it not? Sound off in the comments. Let’s make this an open thread.
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Strictly speaking, no I don't think AIDS is a classical STD. the prostitute paradox generally disproves that.
I know the Perth Group posits that a positive antibody test can be sexually acquired but not sexually transmitted; and a positive antibody test, while not indicating transmission of a virus, is associated with receptive anal intercourse and the development of AIDS. However, they point out that it's the frequency of exposure to semen that's what counts here, which is at odds with STD's being acquired with a single exposure AND being bi-directionally transmitted. So, to me this is a nebulous question when you look at all the factors that can cause a positive reaction on these crappy tests. AND the fact that prostitues who aren't drug users don't regularly develop a positive antibody test or AIDS.
I think AIDS isn't so much an STD as it is a marker for biological stressors from drugs, poppers, antiretrovirals, etc.
I've also thought a lot about the Perth Group's 'toxic semen' hypothesis. I think it's only relevant in the context of other significant oxidative stressors. But the hypothesis is bound up in the idea that AIDS is sexually associated, which is kind of tangential to whether it's an STD.
So ultimately I think AIDS is sexually associated more than it is an STD. It's also sexually associate because if you're sexually active as a gay man then you're pushed to frequently test, so there's a kind of selection bias at work here. A lot of guys who probably never did drugs, but had a lot of sex may have developed antibodies that reacted on the tests, but had they never known of that positive reaction would have lived a normal life, but who then were expected to go on toxic drugs AND took on the medical system's insistence that they were going to die early. Talk about modern day voodoo.
Valendar Turner
The Perth Group
September 5th 2023
The Perth Group "AIDS – SEXUALLY TRANSMITTED OR SEXUALLY ACQUIRED?" was the last manuscript the late Eleni Papadopulos submitted for publication [1]. In it she did not question the authenticity of HIV, HIV "isolation", or the antibody and “viral load” tests (PCR). Her premise was that STIs and STDs are bi-directionally spread. This means epidemiologists cannot prove HIV or AIDS an STD without distinguishing between insertive and receptive sexual partners. With heterosexuals this is unambiguously defined by gender. Since homosexual men may practise either or both insertive and/or receptive intercourse, making this distinction is problematic.
As a thought experiment, one can choose to ignore the latter and focus on heterosexual evidence. In fact, one can go even further. One can temporarily accept there is proof for male-to-female transmission and ask, "What is the evidence that sex between HIV positive females and HIV negative males causes the latter to seroconvert"? From the most oft cited prospective studies she concluded there was no such evidence. She then asked, if HIV were an unconventional STI/STD, that is, can be unilaterally sexually transmitted male-to-female, (invoking pregnancy as a metaphor), how do the heterosexual males get infected? (In order that they can infect the females).
In the manuscript she reasoned, "In terms of a retroviral infection this can only signify the male partner first acquiring HIV by non-sexual means following which he transmits it to the passive [female] partner. However, unless one accepts that millions of heterosexual males (including Africans) are haemophiliacs, transfusion recipients or drug addicts, this is a highly unlikely explanation. [I venture it exceeds the distance to Alpha Centauri]. Hence, one is obliged to search for evidence for an alternative interpretation in the passive [female] partners...That is, factors other than a retroviral infection that can explain acquired immune deficiency (low T4 cell count) and antibody reactions with test kit antigens". The latter means a positive antibody test [1].
Bear in mind the only proof for sexual transmission is epidemiological studies. Unpacking these, there are no RCT type studies. RCTs are inconceivable because they are ethically forbidden. One would need to recruit a group of people and randomly assign half to become the sexual partners of people with HIV infection, and then compare the proportion that develop HIV infection in this group to the corresponding proportion in the other half that did not have sexual partners with HIV infection. That leaves observational studies which are not randomised. The vast majority of these are cross-sectional which, by definition, have no time element. Thus they cannot prove transmission. In its Basic Epidemiology book, even the WHO concedes cross-sectional studies “weak” in the hierarchy of different types of study to "prove" causation” [2]. “Weak” does not justify pitching Grim Reapers at 30 billion heterosexuals [3]. There are a few prospective studies and even fewer regularly held up as proof.
Professor Stuart Brody, who has published numerous papers on sex and HIV, unpacked the epidemiologists' strategy. “The primary basis for considering heterosexual intercourse to be a significant source of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infections is the logical exclusion process: patients acknowledge heterosexual intercourse, but deny homosexual and recreational intravenous activity (and contaminated transfusions)”. Furthermore, “At first, such a deductive process seems quite sound. But as one begins to consider the garbled nature of the sexual practice categories and the invalid reports of both fairly normal and psychopathological patient groups, the reasoning underlying this exclusion process disintegrates”. Brody concludes, “the basic issue of whether the patient or subject is responding honestly about their sexual and drug history is often given minimal attention. When it is addressed, it is noted as a source of error variance, but the transmission assumptions remain fixed”.
A propos, in regard to the scant numbers of men infected by women, it is hard to beat the New York City Department of Health (NYCDOH), “AIDS Surveillance Update” data, 25th January 1989: “In New York City, the heterosexual AIDS capital of the United States, out of 18,000 cases diagnosed by early 1989, only 7 males have been identified as having gotten AIDS from heterosexual intercourse” [3].
If there is no retroviral explanation for HIV positive tests in female heterosexuals, how can one invoke a retroviral infection in anyone who tests HIV positive? In other words, the heterosexual data, even the female-to-male data alone, are sufficient reason to re-examine the HIV theory of AIDS.
Endnotes
1. Sixth file at http://theperthgroup.com/hivexist.html
2. Bonita, Ruth, Beaglehole, Robert, Kjellström, Tord & World Health Organization. (2006). Basic epidemiology, 2nd ed. World Health Organization. https://apps.who.int/iris/handle/10665/435413.
3. In 1987 Australia, heterosexual sex=death begat the three million dollar Grim Reaper campaign. This slick TV commercial was based on the belief that AIDS could "kill more Australians than World War II". For just over a minute young and old alike were treated to a nefarious, hooded, scythe-bearing animated corpse in black garb, launching a gigantic, two metre bowling ball at ten mums, dads, a footballer, terrified kids and a woman holding a baby. As the ball struck, nine fell to their deaths. The woman and baby required a second ball. The finale, redolent of the solitary, monumental cymbal clash in Bruckner’s Seventh Symphony, had the baby’s head snapping off. Eleven lifeless bodies, laying in a disjointed heap of smoke laden, end-of-times rubble, were then scraped away to make way for the next lot of victims. 72,814 Australian service men and women died in World War II. As of Dec 31st 2020, a cumulative total of 7962 Australians had died from AIDS. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSmaWEK_rD4
4. Michael Fumento. 1990. The Myth of Heterosexual AIDS. New York: Basic Books. page 17.
5. In the 1980s and 1990s Papadopulos managed to get some papers published in peer-reviewed scientific journals. After that the orthodoxy grew tired of, and increasingly hostile to, dissidents. They did everything possible to prevent even a hint of heterodoxy reaching the populace. For instance, see [6] and Professor John Moore. In 2007 Moore emailed an AIDS dissident, "This IS a war, there ARE no rules, and we WILL crush you, one at a time, completely and utterly (at least the more influential ones; foot-soldiers like you aren't worth bothering with)” (his emphasis).
In 1993 Papadopulos argued that the HIV antibody tests have not been proven fit for purpose [7]. That is, to diagnose HIV infection. This paper was comprehensively ignored and her claim stands. Pragmatically Papadopulos then began focusing on other elements of the HIV theory, assuming, for the sake of argument, that HIV, HIV “isolation” and viral load are bona fide. By pointing out several “downstream” problems, she hoped scientists would eventually transplant their attention to the root cause of the HIV theory. That is, to HIV itself, and the tests claimed to prove infection with it. Note that she did have one last attempt at the root but no editor would touch it [8]. Such is the realpolitik of life as a scientist. Julius Robert Oppenheimer was surely reminiscing an antediluvian Eden in his 1953, “House of Science” BBC Reith Lecture: “We go in and out; even the most assiduous of us is not bound to this vast structure. One thing we find throughout the house: there are no locks; there are no shut doors; wherever we go there are the signs and usually the words of welcome. It is an open house, open to all comers [9].
6. http://theperthgroup.com/HIV/TPGVirusLikeNoOther.pdf#page=36. (From line 4).
7. http://www.theperthgroup.com/SCIPAPERS/EPENatBioTech1993.pdf
8. http://theperthgroup.com/HIV/TPGVirusLikeNoOther.pdf
9. http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/rmhttp/radio4/transcripts/1953_reith6.pdf
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p00hg2d6