by Paul Philpott
One of the many arguments used by critics against
the HIV theory of AIDS has been the absolute lack of AIDS among
the 150 HIV-positive laboratory chimpanzees experimentally inoculated
over ten years ago. Advocates of the HIV theory now have what they
consider an answer to this challenge: one of those chimps has finally
developed AIDS, according to scientists at the Yerkes Primate Research
Center at Emory University in Atlanta.
Jerom, one of 13 Yerkes chimpanzees participating
in various HIV-positive primate studies at several institutions
nation-wide, developed one AIDS symptom (thrombocytopenia) in 1989,
recovered, then remained healthy until March, 1995, reported Newsday
[Jan. 31, 1996, pA25]. At that time, correspondent Laurrie Garrett
wrote, Jerom "came down with one ailment after another in a
sequence familiar to those who treat human AIDS: chronic-to-severe
diarrhea, cytomegalovirus-induced eye damage and acute pneumonia.
The chimp's CD4 [also called T4] immune cell [count] dropped from
about one thousand to 90" prior to developing clinical symptoms.
As is typical of most developments in HIV/AIDS research,
these results were revealed at a public forum rather than in a scientific
journal. In the case of Jerom, his AIDS status was announced by
Yerkes scientist Dr. Francis Novembre at January's Third Conference
on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in Washington, D.C.
None of the other twelve HIV-positive Yerkes chimps have ever developed
any AIDS conditions. But "last fall, Novembre transfused about
40 milliliters of the ailing chimp's blood into another chimpanzee
[Nathan] that had never been exposed to either SIV [the so-called
Simian Immunodeficiency Virus] or HIV. In just two weeks, the second
chimp's CD4 levels dropped from 1,200 to 320. By last week [January],
they had fallen to 10" without Nathan developing any clinical
AIDS symptoms.
More detailed information followed on February 13
in the form of a news release issued by Yerkes' Cathy Yarbrough
[cathy@rmy.emory.edu]. Jerom's most dire symptom evidently was anemia,
which "was becoming more severe and untreatable." For
this reason, Jerom was "humanely euthanized." According
to the press release, Jerom never received any "anti-HIV"
drugs, including AZT, but was "treated...for clinical diseases
that occurred secondary to the HIV infection." As for his pneumonia,
Yarbrough described it as "low grade," in contrast to
the Newsday article, which called it "acute."
Yarbrough did not acknowledge CMV infection, but did list coughing--not
mentioned by Newsday --as one of Jerom's symptoms.
Twelve other Yerkes chimps were also infected along
with Jerom in 1984 (Garrett had incorrectly reported the number
as nine), but none has developed any of the thirty or so official
AIDS conditions. Neither have any of the other 125 to 150 total
HIV-positive laboratory chimps, located at a variety of institutions
world-wide, who were experimentally injected over ten years ago
with preparations made from blood serum from human AIDS patients
[Duesberg, Inventing the AIDS Virus , Regnery Press;
and Infectious AIDS: Have We Been Misled? , North Atlantic
Books].
Dr. Thomas R. Insel, M.D., director of the Yerkes
Center "explained that to prove scientifically that an infectious
agent is responsible for a disease, researchers must show that the
agent creates a similar infection and disease experimentally."
In the case of HIV and AIDS, both people and chimps can become HIV-positive
when exposed to HIV, but until Jerom, HIV-positiveness was associated
with AIDS conditions only in people.
Yarbrough's release included this quote from Insel:
"Over ten years ago, through chimpanzee studies conducted at
several institutes including Yerkes, we knew that HIV caused the
same infection in chimpanzees that occurs in people who eventually
develop AIDS. Results with Jerom proved that HIV also caused the
clinical disease in chimpanzees. The results with Jerom have provided
the missing piece to the puzzle."
Revelation: HIV-AIDS Model Unproved
So, until Jerom developed AIDS conditions, Dr. Insel considered
the HIV model of AIDS unproved. This is big news.
One of the continuing scandals attending the HIV/AIDS doctrine is
that its adherents considered the hypothesis to have been proven
instantaneously upon its proposal. A live-broadcast press conference
in April, 1984 announced a set of studies that were not even published
until a week later. Those studies showed that of 72 AIDS patients,
12% lacked antibodies that react with HIV proteins, and 66% lacked
any HIV proteins at all [Gallo, Science , May 4]. Yet
since the press conference, examinations of alternative AIDS hypotheses
have been banned from US research institutions such as Yerkes.
Those data hardly justified the instant effect of
the press conference that proceeded their publication: the absolute
prohibition of non-HIV AIDS explanations from examination--or even
consideration--at all all research institutions, including Yerkes.
Yet Insel admits now that an animal model for the
HIV-AIDS model has not existed for the past eleven years, even as
he acknowledges that such a model is required "to prove scientifically
that an infectious agent is responsible for a disease."
Certainly Insel did not realize that by speaking
honestly and stating the obvious he would implicate himself in a
great scandal: for eleven years now, AIDS causation has been an
open question, but only one possible answer has been permitted for
consideration, even by himself.
Dishonest Experiments
Not only are alternative theories banned from consideration,
the HIV-AIDS theory is never tested honestly. For example, when
none of the 150 or so HIV-positive chimps developed AIDS after ten
years, that should have falsified the official view, which holds
that 50% to 95% of all HIV-positive individuals develop severe AIDS
conditions within ten years. Instead, the primate experiments were
continued into their eleventh year. When one (Jerom) finally developed
some AIDS conditions, they were automatically blamed on HIV. The
other chimps, who on average are about 15 years old, according to
the reports, every day grow closer to the end of their natural life
expectancy. At some point they are bound to start losing body mass
and mental capacity, and become susceptible to opportunistic infections
such as pneumonia, just like aging humans.
As those official AIDS conditions inevitably appear
in this aging population, will each one be used as "proof"
for the HIV-AIDS model? The likely answer is Yes, and this exemplifies
the fundamental dishonesty that characterizes HIV "research."
Chimp AIDS?
There are many problems with Insel's conclusion
that the Yerkes results support the HIV theory of AIDS.
(1) After observing 125 to 150 HIV-positive chimps
for eleven years, researchers have reported only two cases of AIDS,
in Jerom and Nathan, yielding a rate of 1.6% to 1.3%. Those are
remarkably low figures compared to the official view--which the
primate experiments are supposed to be testing--that 50% to 95%
of all humans will develop AIDS within ten years of becoming HIV-positive.
(2) That eleven-year rate for AIDS conditions in
HIV-positive lab chimps is so low that it is hard to imagine that
it could be even lower in HIV-negative chimps. Yet
that is exactly what Insel would have to demonstrate if he is to
assert logically that HIV-chimps are at increased risk for AIDS
conditions. But of course he has not done so, and this rather obvious
point seems to have never even occurred to the elaborately funded
HIV researchers.
(3) Jerom's most serious clinical symptom was anemia,
which is not an AIDS condition. HIV infects T4 immune cells, not
the oxygen-carrying red blood cells that are lost in anemia. Thus
there is not even a theoretical basis for linking HIV (or even immune
suppression presumably caused by HIV) to loss of red blood cells.
Yet many AIDS patients do develop anemia, as Yarbrough
reminds us in her press release: "anemia...occurs in people
with AIDS." But that does not mean AIDS-anemia is caused by
HIV. A more likely cause is AZT, the "anti-AIDS" drug
that is a demonstrably effective killer of bone marrow, which produces
red blood cells. Since Jerom was not treated with AZT, and HIV is
unable to effect red blood cell counts, his case is a curiosity,
not a clear example of AIDS,
(4) The case of Nathan, the chimp whose T4 counts
began a profound decline immediately upon being transfused with
Jerom's blood, is also a curiosity, not a clear example of AIDS.
Naturally Nathan's low T4 counts were automatically
blamed on HIV. Yet nowhere in the medical literature is there a
precedent for AIDS appearing so quickly upon exposure to HIV, which
is why a ten year latency period is claimed for it. It is odd indeed
that of the first 150 HIV-positive lab chimps, the only one to develop
persistent AIDS conditions should do so in the eleventh year, but
the next chimp should develop a persistent AIDS condition immediately.
Odd, that is, if the HIV theory is the only explanation
considered.
In order for Nathan's case to be honestly advanced
as supporting the HIV-AIDS model, it would have to be shown that
chimps do not experience falling T4 counts upon receiving whole
blood transfusions from HIV-negative donors, particularly
from donors who harbor active CMV infections and pneumonia, and
suffer from chronic diarrhea and anemia, as Nathan's donor Jerom
did. It is well known that blood transfusions are inherently immune
suppressive [Root-Bernstein, Rethinking AIDS ]. Nathan's
immunosuppressive reaction to Jerom's transfused blood may have
nothing to do with the blood's HIV status.
A Proposed Chimp Experiment
To find out why even HIV-negative human
beings develop all AIDS conditions [Duesberg, Root-Bernstein, ibid
.], we propose Dr. Insel conduct the following obvious experiment:
compare his fourteen HIV-positive chimps (including Nathan) with
five 14-member groups of HIV-negative chimps. He should subject
four of the HIV-negative groups to different proposed alternative
causes of AIDS, and use the fifth as a control.
One group would be exposed to the factors that characterized
the original gay AIDS patients (some of whom turned out to be HIV-negative
[Gallo, ibid .): chronic consumption of street-grade
recreational drugs such as cocaine, speed, and poppers; regular
exposure to a variety of venereal, parasitic, and blood-born pathogens
such as those that cause syphilis, chlamydia, gonorrhea, herpes,
hepatitis, mononucleosis, and amebiasis; and regular treatments
for those infections.
The second group would be exposed to the factors
that characterized the original drug-injecting AIDS patients (some
of whom also turned out to be HIV-negative [Gallo, ibid
.): repetitive injections with street grade heroin and cocaine,
perhaps using unsterile needles shared by cohort members.
The third group would exposed to the factors that
continue to characterize African AIDS patients (most of whom continue
to be HIV-negative [Duesberg, ibid .]: long term malnutrition,
reliance on untreated drinking water (also used as sewage for the
cohort), chronic exposure to tropical and parasitic infections such
as those that cause malaria, tuberculosis, and amebiasis, and regular
treatments for those infections.
The fourth group would be exposed to the one factor that characterizes
most American AIDS patients today (who by arbitrary definition must
be HIV-positive): AZT, the cancer chemotherapy that destroys the
cells composing the immune and digestive systems, and damages nerve,
brain, and muscle cells.
Whereas only two of 125-plus total HIV-positive
lab chimps (Jerom and Nathan) have developed any AIDS conditions
in over ten years, we offer the following prediction for our proposed
chimp experiment: more than one chimp in each of the four test groups
will develop AIDS conditions within ten years. And it won't surprise
us if one of the control chimps does as well.
A Proposed Human Experiment
Proponents of the HIV theory wonder why AIDS so frequently
occurs in cohorts of HIV-positive humans, but so rarely in cohorts
of HIV-positive chimps. Critics are not surprised.
Every cohort study of HIV-positive humans has exclusively
comprised subjects characterized by extremely compromised underlying
health: gay men who consume non-injected recreational drugs, drug
injectors, hemophiliacs, and patients with a variety of catastrophic
medical conditions requiring blood transfusions. In addition to
these unusually poor health factors, one-third [Ascher, Science
, Feb. 24, 1995, p1080] to one-half [British Medical Journal
, July 15, 1995] consume toxic "anti-AIDS" drugs (such
as the cancer chemotherapy AZT) before they ever develop any AIDS
condistions.
It really is no wonder that 50% to 95% of the people
in these cohorts develop one or more of the 29 AIDS diseases within
ten years.
In contrast, the HIV-positive lab chimps have been
subjected only to an occasional process that causes HIV-positiveness,
with no street drugs, prophylactic medications, or other health-compromising
factors.
We propose that such a study of HIV-positive humans
would result in a similar absence of AIDS.