Læknaneminn - 01.04.1997, Blaðsíða 118

Peter Duesberg and David Rasnick
antivirals since I’ve been following them since the very
beginning... They’ve watched all of their friends go on
the antiretroviral bandwagon and die, so they’ve chose
to remain naive to therapy. More and more, however,
are now succumbing to pressure that protease
inhibitors are it ... We are in the middle of the honey-
moon period, and whether or not this is going to be an
enduring marriage is unclear to me at this time, so I’m
advising my patients if they still have time, to wait.”
180
Unknowingly the vast majority of HlV-positives are
long-term survivors! Worldwide, they number 17 mil-
lion, including 1 million HlV-positive, healthy
Americans and 0.5 million HlV-positive, healthy
Europeans 269, 27°. Most of these must have been HIV-
positive for at least 10 years now because the numbers
of the HlV-positive Americans and Europeans have not
changed during the period 1984 to 1988 when the epi-
demic of HlV-testing began in the respective countries
26'29 (Fig.l).
Since no more than 6% of the 17 million people
worldwide with antibodies to HIV have developed
AIDS over the last 7 to 10 years, the risk of AIDS to an
HlV-carrier is less than 1% peryear 27°. However, even
this low figure is not corrected for the normal
occurence of the 30 AIDS-defming diseases in HIV-
free controls. There is not a single controlled study in
the vast AIDS literature proving that HlV-positive peo-
ple who are not drug users have a higher morbidity or
mortality than HlV-free controls n’225. (See 7., Tables
4 and 5)
To save the reputation of the “deadly virus” in the
face of long-term survivors, orthodox HIV researchers
have already posted warnings that “regrettably ... the
proportion of individuals who might demonstrate such
a benign course is very small” 271. Others have postu-
lated rare HIV attenuating mutations without provid-
ing functional evidence 248,25°. Gallo et al. went even
further by postulating human mutants, who fall victim
of HIV because they lack “major HlV-suppressive fac-
tors” 272. According to Gallo’s hypothesis most
American homosexuals, hemophiliacs and intravenous
drug users are mutants!
2) Drug users developing AIDSprior to HIV infection.
Prospective studies have demonstrated that the T-cells
of male homosexuals using psychoactive drugs and sex-
ual stimulants may decline prior to infection with HIV.
For example, the T-cells of 37 homosexual men from
San Francisco declined steadily prior to HIV infection
for 1.5 years from over 1200 to below 800 per pl 273.
Some even had fewer than 500 T-cells 1.5 years before
seroconversion 274. Although recreational drug use was
not mentioned in these articles, other studies of the
same cohort of homosexual men from San Francisco
described extensive use of recreational drugs including
nitrites 80, 112, 1K l45,275. Likewise, 33 HlV-free male
homosexuals from Vancouver, Canada, had "acquired”
immunodeficiency prior to HIV infection 276. Again
this study did not mention drug use, but in other arti-
cles the authors reported that all men of this cohort
had used nitrites, cocaine and amphetamines 4a-,K-2T7.
The MAC study reported that about 450 (16% of
2795) HlV-free, homosexual American men from
Chicago, Baltimore, Pittsburgh and Los Angeles had
acquired immunodeficiency, having less than 600 T-
cells per pl, prior to HIV infection 103. Many HIV-
positive and -negative men of this cohort had essential-
ly the same degree of lymphadenopathy: "Although
seropositive men had a significantly higher mean num-
ber of involved lymphnode groups than seronegative
men (5.7 compared to 4.5 nodes, p<0.005), the
numerical difference in the means is not striking” 27S.
According to previous studies on this cohort, 71% of
these men had used -based on self reporting- nitrite
inhalants, in addition to other drugs 278; 83% had used
one drug, and 60% had used two or more drugs dur-
ing sex in the previous six months 279.
Indeed, not a single prospective study of male homo-
sexual cohorts at risk for AIDS ever measured drug use
directly. Instead, each relied only on self reporting,
using questionnaires that focused on recent use of a few
selective drugs 31-48,229,275 (see 7.). By contrast, all HIV
tests were based on experimental methods that maxi-
mize positivity such as antibodies against the virus
instead of the virus itself, or amplification of fragments
of viral nucleic acid instead of standard infectivity tests
(see 7.).
Another study of the same cohort observed that the
risk of developing AIDS correlated with the frequency
of receptive anal intercourse prior to and after HIV
infection 280, which correlates directly with the use of
nitrite vasodilaters 26,10°’104,130,281 (see 3.).
Thus, in male homosexuals at risk for AIDS, AIDS
often precedes infection by HIV, not vice versa. Since
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