The September 7, 1995 issue of Nature presented an
article that remains often-cited by those promoting AIDS as a contagious
syndrome and caused by HIV. The study was authored by a team of
Oxford cancer epidemiologists and hemophiliac researchers headed
by Sarah Darby. Darby's team attempted to test the noncontagious
AIDS theory proposed by Cal-Berkeley biologist Peter Duesberg. They
collected mortality data among Britain's hemophiliac population
from 1977 through 1992, and documented a startling climb in mortality
beginning sometime between the years 1984 and 1986 that exclusively
effected subjects testing HIV-positive (see accompanying Charts
1 and 2). At first glance, Darby seems justified in concluding that
her data does "demonstrate particularly clearly the enormity
and specificity of the effect of HIV-1 infection on mortality in
this population." But like all conclusions favoring the HIV-AIDS
theory, this one collapses when carefully considered.
Duesberg's View
Duesberg proposes that the original (pre-1985) outbreak of AIDS
mortality did not include hemophiliacs, and represented the long-term
consequence of the injection- and gay-drug cultures that had only
grown to appreciable numbers a few years before. Duesberg points
out that of the original AIDS patients, approximately 12% turned
out to be HIV-negative when testing was finally introduced in 1985,
and 66% harbored no active HIV infections (Gallo, Science
, May 4, 1984). Meanwhile, positiveness for a variety of other germs
was even more prevalent than for HIV [Fauci, JAMA 257:19, May 15,
1987, p2617-2621]. Early on, professional "virus hunters"
had proposed an infectious AIDS model. Inspired doctors sought out
such generally-unhealthy populations as hemophiliacs, transfusion
patients, and residents of developing nations. They found immune
suppression and other AIDS conditions at levels that were long-established
and probably caused by the health factors--including the medical
treatments--that defined these groups. They also found high rates
of positiveness for many of the same germs found in injection and
gay drug users, including, when testing became available, HIV. That
compelled them to coincidentally predict outbreaks of AIDS mortality
in these groups, and, ironically, to introduce a novel brand of
medicine that unintentionally made this prediction come true. [Duesberg,
"Inventing the AIDS Virus", and "Infectious AIDS:
Have We Been Misled?"]
Darby's Data
Darby's group recorded annual mortality rates every two years for
4,043 British hemophiliacs who "received potentially [HIV]
infected treatments" between the years 1977 and 1992. Their
data (presented here in Charts 1 and 2) revealed that between the
years 1977 and 1984, annual mortality was stable and low, at about
4 deaths per 1,000 for patients with mild-to-severe hemophilia,
and twice as high for patients with severe hemophilia, at about
8 per 1,000. HIV testing was introduced in 1985, and administered
to most of Darby's subjects by the end of that year. When annual
mortality was next calculated, at the end of 1986, it was found
to have tripled to about 24 per 1,000 for severe hemophiliacs, and
to have increased by about five times to 20 per 1,000 for mild-to-severe
hemophiliacs who had tested HIV-positive. No increased mortality
was observed for those who tested HIV-negative. Both trends continued
through the course of the study. When annual mortality rates were
recorded for the last time, at the end of 1992, both severe and
mild-to-moderate hemophiliacs who tested HIV-positive showed nearly
the same mortality: about 80 per 1,000, which represented roughly
a ten-fold increase for severe hemophiliacs and roughly a 20-fold
increase for mild-to-severe hemophiliacs over their pre-1986 rates.
Meanwhile annual mortality rates for both severe and mild-to-moderate
hemophiliacs who tested HIV-negative remained at their low pre-1986
levels .
"During 1985-'92," Darby writes, "there were 403
deaths in HIV seropositive patients, whereas 60 would have been
predicted from rates in seronegatives, suggesting that...[the 343
excess] deaths in seropositive patients were due to HIV infections."
Darby was able to reach this conclusion only by ignoring one obvious
feature of her data: there was no detectable mortality increase
prior to the introduction of HIV testing in 1985. Charts 1 and 2,
constructed from data presented in Darby's paper, particularly her
Table 2, shows that the explosion in HIV-positive mortality occurred
as if cued to do so by the massive HIV screening that immediately
proceeded it.
If Not HIV, What?
Duesberg's risk-AIDS theory states that HIV is too harmless to cause
any of the AIDS conditions (low T4 counts, various opportunistic
infections, three specific cancers, dementia, and wasting). Among
hemophiliacs, Duesberg asserts that AIDS conditions, above their
background incidences within the general population, result from
two factors:
(1) Chronic immunological exposure to foreign blood proteins that
contaminate un-purified Factor VIII injections. This can ultimately
result in general immune suppression, including low T4 counts and
opportunistic infections. A number of academic papers document those
symptoms even in HIV-negative hemophiliacs, and also correlate immune
dysfunction with doses of unpurified--but not contaminant-free--Factor
VIII, even among HIV-positive subjects [Duesberg, ibid.].
(2) "HIV medicine", which is administered to even the
healthiest symptom-free people who test positive for the harmless
virus HIV. HIV medicine has a chemical and a psychological component.
Chemically, HIV medicine consists of aggressive prophylactic, therapeutic,
and often experimental treatments with powerful antibiotics, antifungals,
and even cancer chemotherapies such as AZT and ddI. Nearly every
one of the AIDS conditions are to be found among the multitudinous
"side effects" of these many drugs. The most famous of
these drugs is AZT, which was originally proposed as a leukemia
treatment because of its ability to kill all replicating human cells,
particularly those comprising the immune system. AZT also kills
intestinal cells, damages brain, nerve, and muscle cells, and is
even a good theoretical candidate for causing lymphoma, one of the
three official AIDS cancers. For this reason, the 1994 Physician'
Desk Reference (p.742-746) entry for AZT states: "It is often
difficult to distinguish adverse effects possibly associated with
AZT administration from underlying signs of [so-called] HIV disease."
Perhaps one-third [Ascher, Science, Feb 24, 1995,
p.1080] to one-half [British Medical Journal, July 15, 1995] of
all AIDS patients begin AZT treatment prior to developing their
first symptoms. Although AZT was not introduced until 1987, a year
after British hemophiliac mortality began its steep climb, AZT is
far from the only harsh drug administered even to symptom-free people
who test HIV-positive. Anti-fungal drugs against PCP, one of the
AIDS pneumonias, are even more likely to be administered prophylactically
than AZT [BMJ, ibid]. Symptom-free HIV-positives are the first group
of healthy humans to ever be administered such medications indefinitely,
and in such combinations. That these people would display ever-growing
mortality should surprise no honest observer.
While some healthy people labeled HIV-positive may
be spared aggressive prophylaxis, few escape the psychological aspect
of HIV medicine, which consists of intense anxiety from receiving
a fatal and profoundly-stigmatized diagnosis. The terror can be
intense indeed. The Australian mathematician Mark Craddock has publicized
the following startling fact: of 1,300 deaths among HIV-positive
Australians over a recent two-year period, 500 (more than one-third)
were medically-assisted suicides ["Doctors Admit Helping in
AIDS Deaths", Sydney Morning Herald, November 17, 1995, p.3].
This does not necessarily mean that many or even some of the deaths
among Darby's HIV-positive subjects resulted from suicide. But it
does offer direct support for the contention that HIV terror is
biologically relevant.
Reappraising Darby
Darby's study must address the following points if it is to judge
the two competing theories of AIDS:
(1) Hemophiliac mortality increased only after the introduction
of HIV medicine in 1985. Since about half of Darby's 2,037 severe
hemophiliacs were already HIV-positive by this time, surely HIV-caused
mortality should have exerted a detectable influence prior to 1985
in this group. Only Duesberg's theory can explain why the explosion
of hemophiliac mortality should occur only on the heels of HIV testing:
the increased mortality was caused by the pharmaceutical drugs and
terror that invariably accompany a positive HIV test.
(2) Of the 403 HIV-positive deaths recorded by Darby during the
course of her study, 235 were attributed to AIDS. How many of these
cases developed only after the patients received their HIV-positive
diagnoses? Darby does not provide the data needed to answer this
question directly, but the data she does present points in Duesberg's
favor: no increased mortality could be detected until after most
of the HIV-positive subjects had been identified. This is consistent
with Duesberg's prediction that AIDS conditions which develop in
hemophiliacs mostly do so in those who are first labeled as HIV-positive
and consequently subjected to HIV terror and anti-AIDS prophylaxis.
However, Duesberg also expects a few hemophiliacs will develop AIDS
symptoms (in the form of immune suppression from Factor VIII contaminants)
prior to HIV screening. Of these, Duesberg predicts, those who subsequently
test negative should usually recover since they would not be subjected
to HIV medicine, whereas those who subsequently test positive should
usually deteriorate to "full-blown AIDS" as a consequence
of HIV medicine. Too bad Darby didn't understand Duesberg's theory
well enough to collect the data that would have tested this very
obvious aspect of it.
(3) Darby calculates that 343 more deaths occurred in her HIV-positive
subjects than "would have been predicted from rates in seronegatives."
She concludes then that all of these excess deaths "were due
to HIV infections." Yet her Table 3, which itemizes the causes
of deaths in this study, lists only 279 HIV-positive deaths as resulting
from AIDS (235), and AIDS conditions (44 cases of dementia, non-hepatitis
infections, pneumonia, and lymphoma) which, for some unknown reason,
were not diagnosed as AIDS. But 279 is still 64 short of 343. The
HIV theory can not explain why there should be excessive non-AIDS
deaths among HIV-positive hemophiliacs. Duesberg's theory can. Since
HIV is a rare contaminant of Factor VIII, it takes many injections
to finally become positive for it. Thus hemophiliacs who have become
HIV-positive tend to be those who have acquired the most Factor
VIII (and Factor VIII contaminants), which is to say they tend to
have the most severe hemophilia. That is why 56% of Darby's severe
hemophiliacs were HIV-positive, as compared to only 14% (a fourth
as much) of her mild-to-severe hemophiliacs. Duesberg's theory correctly
predicts both more AIDS conditions (from excess amounts of Factor
VIII contaminants and from HIV medicine) and more hemophilia-related
illnesses (due to the predominance of severe hemophilia) in groups
of HIV-positive hemophiliacs. Indeed, the proportion of severe hemophiliacs
in Darby's HIV-positive population (about 80%) was roughly twice
as high as the proportion in her HIV-negative population (about
40%). Table 3 confirms Duesberg's view by listing nearly twice as
many hemophilia-related deaths among the HIV-positive patients (93
as compared to 56).
(4) Then there is the fascinating question inspired by the news
report of suicides committed by HIV-positive hemophiliacs in Australia:
How many of the deaths among Darby's HIV-positive patients were
actually suicides resulting from HIV anxiety? She records only five
deaths due to "injury, poisoning, [or] suicide", the same
as recorded for HIV-negative subjects. But it is important here
to realize that Darby obtained her cause of death information by
examining death certificates. And according to the press report
from Australia, the suicides there uncovered in HIV-positive hemophiliacs
were not listed as such in the death certificates. Rather, the attending
physicians tended to record the deaths simply as "AIDS related."
If Darby were a thorough researcher, she would know about this news
report and would have considered its implications in any study of
HIV-positive mortality .
HIV Acquitted: Searching For the Real Killers
Over 100,000 papers have been published in the medical literature
about HIV. We know enough about this virus to dismiss it as a dud
incapable of causing any of the AIDS conditions. It can not kill
the cells that it infects, and even if it could, it typically infects
only a few cells (and sometimes none at all) and is usually present
only at trace concentrations (and sometimes not at all) in patients
diagnosed has having AIDS [Duesberg]. Meanwhile all such patients
are subjected to health factors that, unlike HIV, are biologically
significant. Such factors include recreational drugs, immunological
exposure to foreign proteins (from un-purified Factor VIII injections
and other sources), anti-AIDS medicines, HIV terror, and impoverished
living conditions in developing nations [Duesberg].
AIDS in hemophiliacs is remarkably different than AIDS in some other
risk groups. Whereas increased mortality from AIDS diseases among
hemophiliacs occurred only after the introduction of HIV medicine
in 1985, other groups demonstrated increased mortality from AIDS
conditions even before HIV-positiveness could be identified. For
example, the alarming increase in AIDS conditions among young gay
men led to the establishment of this syndrome. But gays who were
developing deadly AIDS before 1985 were exclusively those who participated
in the new recreational drug culture that began in the 1970s. HIV
medicine represented the second new biologically significant phenomenon
introduced into this group. But for hemophiliacs, HIV medicine was
the first biologically significant factor recently introduced to
them prior to the increased mortality observed by Darby.
Darby's study suggests that, at least for hemophiliacs, HIV medicine
is the deadliest factor affecting those diagnosed as having AIDS.
Paul Philpott is a former Florida State University biology student
fired from his lab assistant position and denied an assured admission
to the graduate program expressly as a result of advocating in public
his dissident AIDS position. Today he works in Detroit as a mechanical
engineer.