"Considering that there is little scientific proof of the exact linkage of HIV and AIDS is It ethical to prescribe AZT, a toxic chain terminator of DNA developed 30 years ago as cancer chemotherapy, to 150,000 Americans-among them pregnant women and newborn babies-as an anti-HIV drug?"----Rep. 'GIl Gutknecht, US House Of Representatives
"The orthodoxy will collapse because it flunks the practical tests. The AIDS epidemic was a mirage."---Professor Hiram Caton, ethicist
HIV: Anyone Really Positive?
"People who receive gamma globulin shots for chickenpox, measles and hepatitis could test positive for HIV even If they've never been infected. The Food and Drug Administration says that a positive test could be caused by antibodies found In most of Americas supply of gamma globulin.
Gamma globulin is made from blood collected from thousands of donors and is routinely given to millions of people each year as temporary protection against many infectious diseases.
Dr. Thomas Zuck of the FDA's Blood and Blood Products Division says the government didn't release the Information because 'we thought it would do more harm than good"-----USA Today, October 2, 1987
"The techniques of the HIV test have not been standardized, and the magnitude and the consequences of Inter-laboratory variations have not been measured. Its results require interpretation, and the criteria for this interpretation vary not only from lab to lab, but also from month to month."----New England Journal of MedicIne, 317:238-241
"The test for the existence of antibodies against AIDS-associated virus is not diagnostic for AIDS and AIDS-like diseases. Negative tests do not exclude the possibility of contact or infection with the AIDS-associated virus. Positive tests do not prove AIDS or pre-AIDS disease status nor that these diseases will be acquired." Manufacturer's statement In leaflet accompanying Western Blot (HIV) test kit
"The only way to distinguish between real reactions and cross-reactions Is to use HIV isolation. All claims of HIV isolation are based on a set of phenomena detected in tissue culture, none of which are isolation and none of which are even specfity of the HIV antibody tests for HIV infection."----Bio/Technology Journal, 11:696-707
'Electron microscopy reveals retrovirus-like particles in 90% of enlarged lymph n odes from AIDS patients, but the identical particles can be found in 9O% of enlarged lymph nodes from patients who do not have AIDS and are not at r!sk for developing AIDS. If the particles seen in lymph nodes from A!DS patients are, as the AIDS experts assure us, HIV, what are the particles seen in patients who are not at risk for AIDS?"
Dr. Valendar Turner, Australian Broadcasting Commission program, 1994
"With public health officials and politicians thrashing out who should be tested for HIV, the accuracy of the test Itself has been nearly Ignored. A study last month by Congress's Office of Technology Assessment found that HIV tests can be very inaccurate indeed. For groups at very low risk-people who don't use IV drugs or have sex with gay or bi-sexual men-9 In 10 positive findings are called false positives, Indicating Infection where none exists."-----US News & World Report, November23, 1987
"HIV tests are notoriously unreliable in Africa. A 1994 study published in the Journal of Infectious Diseases concluded that HIV tests were useless in central Africa, where the microbes responsible for tuberculosis, malaria and leprosy were so prevalent that they registered over 70% false positive."----Sacramento Bee, October 30,1994
"In the September 4 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, the CDC announced that a diagnosis of AIDS no longer requires an HIV test. The government now considers you an AIDS carrier If you suffer from any of the maladies on its new list of diseases indicative of AIDS, including such relatively common infections as herpes simplex, tuberculosis, Salmonellosis and a shockingly broad 'other bacterial infections. This broad definition will lead to countless new AIDS diagnoses-whether or not the person actually has AIDS.
A major problem with the new AIDS definition is that It ignores the man environmental causes of immune suppression. Exposure to toxins, alcoholism, heavy drug use or heavy antibiotic use all can cause onset the list of "diseases" indicative of AIDS.
The CDC itself conceded In a stunning remark near the end of the JAMA article that the new AIDS ground rules are highly suspect. 'The diagnostic criteria accepted by the AIDS surveillance case definition should not be interpreted as the standard of good medical practice; warned the CDC."-----Los Angeles Weekly, December 18, 1987
"The PCR detects at best single genes and most often, only bits of genes. Your PCR finds two or three genetic fragments out of a possible dozen co plete genes, this is not proof that you have all the genes (the whole genome).
HIV experts admit that the majority of HIV genomes studied are incomplete; they are defective and could never orchestrate the synthesis of a viral particle. And even if all genomes were complete, basic virology teaches that you can carry a whole retroviral genome around inside your cells all your life without ever making a viral particle.
Cont ...