AIDS and the House of Numbers documentary

Regardless of your opinion on HIV/AIDS this is a truely great documentary. It raises certain questions about the accepted orthodoxy. It challenges us to reexamine our own level of education on this issue. Normally the "you will die a horrible death" point of view.

As for myself,
I've never believed that HIV causes AIDS nor do I believe that HIV is "deadly." But than again, I tend not believe in most things that are marketed using a base of fear. And I also tend to look at things from a satistical and factual point of view. Those statistics being that second hand cigarette smoke kills more than AIDS in the USA and AIDS is a mulity billion dollar a year industry.

I have also always believed that condom use should be limited to a temporary form of birthcontrol. Humanbeings need full sexual contact in order to be mentally healthy and loving. To that effect, it comes down to the quality of life. So even if the orthodoxy is real, you must decide for yourself if living 20 years without full contact is better than living 10 with.

Afterall, you might be the healthiest person on earth but still find yourself with Cancer or being run over by a truck.

Well that's just my 2 cents on a great documentary and on the subject of AIDS

 

Never believe any statistics that you you have not falsified personally.

 

I've got a file cabinet drawer with old cases against cigarette companies.

 

If you are a man that engages exclusively in hetero vaginal and oral sex you have literally nothing to worry about catching aids/hiv

Yeah with the meds you can be almost "cured" and live a long normal life but it isn't a picnic, they still make you feel like shit.

 

Well I used to be a swinger in my younger days. (Still might be given half a chance) But I've never been one for extreme sex stunts. I'm very happy to just penetrate a vagina with nothing more than my masculinity.

From what I've read and from what a college informed of from a suit he settled against Glaxo-Wellcome, the makers of AZT and other drugs used to treat HIV. That being that if these drugs were given to healthy person, they would produce the exact same symptoms as if they were suffering from AIDS. Including death in the same way.

Thats something worth thinking about.

Especially when you the large sums of money the AIDS industry makes each year and that big pharmatceutical companies do NOT have a very good repuations. They tend to use poor africans and the citizens of other 3rd world nations like giant lab mice.

Above all, when you consider that their shared business model is to make money from suffering. You all might want to be more careful before you believe everything these "researchers" claim.

So let me ask all of you this question,
Considering that AIDS is in the top 10 of money making industries in this world. If our government did find out that this entire AIDS thing was just a lie to make money. Would you trust them to do the right thing and inform the public?

Think cafefully, when you ask yourself if you believe if our government (or any government) would be willing to blow the whistle on them?

 

I think I'll put my faith in medical doctors and science rather than a bunch of conspiracy nuts, thanks.

The way I see it we live in such a litigious society that if there really was some sort of conspiracy someone would have or will sue to expose it.

Or you can live in denial like Christine Maggiore and her dead daughter til it kills you.

 

When is this labeling anything that differs with the popular opinon/belief a "conspiracy theory" garbage going to stop? Will it be when this nation's right-wing decides to call the concept of evolution a conspiracy theory? Or will Walmart start selling pictures of our great-great grandparents Adam and Eve?

Ok,
Unlike most people, I actually do my own research and take a moment to eduate myself about a subject before trying to participate in the conversation. Doing otherwise not only expounds the ignorance of the individual but also their impolitness. And in my opinion, a parent should raise their children with better manners than that.

Therefore,
Here are serveral names of well educated professionals and their opinions when dealing with the issues of HIV=AIDS and the drug AZT that the large the large pharmeceuticals would prefer expunged.

" Extended follow-up of patients in one [major AZT] trial, the Concorde study, has shown a significantly increased risk of death among the patients treated early. "

- Phillips et al. New England Journal of Medicine 336: 958-959
​

" We have not been able to discover why doctors prescribe a toxic drug called AZT (Zidovudine) to people who have no other complaint than the presence of antibodies to HIV in their blood. In fact, we cannot understand why humans would take that drug for any reason. "
​

- Dr Kary Mullis PhD, 1993 Chemistry Nobel Laureate,
​

"United Nations Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa Stephen Lewis expressed concern on Tuesday over Malawi's rising number of deaths among people receiving HIV/AIDS treatment in the country. Lewis was speaking at the end of his three-day visit to the impoverished southern African country when he was briefed by Malawian government officials that the country was grappling with an 11 percent death rate of people who were receiving free antiretroviral (ARV) drugs in public hospitals. Malawi has managed to increase the number of people receiving free ARVs from about 4,000 two years ago to 70,000 at present. "

- 'UN concerned about Malawi's rising deaths of AIDS patients on ARVs', China People's Daily Online, 1 November 2006
​

" The drug [ AZT ] can inhibit the production of red blood cells and may reduce white blood cell counts to the point where the drug has to be discontinued to avoid infections. "

- US Food and Drug Administration press release, 5 March 1990 "
​

I think AZT can only hasten the demise of the individual. It's an immune disease and AZT only further harms an already decimated immune system. "

- Professor Jay Levy, Director of the Laboratory for Tumor and AIDS Virus Research, University of California at San Francisco, Newsday, 12 June 1990
​

" RETROVIR (ZIDOVUDINE) MAY BE ASSOCIATED WITH HEMATOLOGIC TOXICITY INCLUDING GRANULOCYTOPENIA AND SEVERE ANEMIA [ massive destruction of white (immune) and red blood cells respectively ]. … ANTIRETROVIRAL NUCLEOSIDE ANALOGUES, INCLUDING RETROVIR … ARE POTENTIALLY FATAL. "

- GlaxoSmithKline: AZT 'Product Information
​

" [AZT and other nucleoside analogue drugs] are much more toxic than we considered previously. … The layer of fat-storing cells directly beneath the skin, which wastes away … is loaded with mitochondria … other common side effects of [AZT and similar drugs are] nerve and muscle damage, pancreatitis and decreased production of blood cells … all resemble conditions caused by inherited mitochondrial diseases. "

- Brinkman et al. Lancet354(9184):1112-5 (1999)
​

25 mg AZT supplied by Sigma-Aldrich Chemie Gmbh to research laboratories (GlaxoSmithKline recommends a daily dose of between 500-1500 mg). The label warns: TOXIC Toxic to inhalation, in contact with skin and if swallowed. Target organ(s): Blood Bone marrow. In case of accident or if you feel unwell, seek medical advice immediately (show the label where possible). Wear suitable protective clothing

(The latest version of the label also carries a cancer warning.)
​

I'm a retired lawyer. Trust me, there are thousands of suits each and everyday. Perhaps they should create "sue channel" instead of cooking or sports channel. Perhaps then the american public might have a clue.

I've already said this to one other person in this forum.

What you are doing is tantamount to searching the proverbial garbage can to find a right-souding-emotional-commentary that will be sufficiently inflammatory in an attempt to win a sterile debate not based on the grounds of logic or facts but on the basis of emotional provocation. You're attempting to appeal to a puerile and base mentality in order to elicit favorable response from other readers for your paradigm.

 

I like how all your quotes are from the 90's and all the current ones are from people who aren't doctors. And it has always been a fact that aids medications make you feel like shit and have inherent dangers but it beats dying of aids.

Oh OK then, why don't you post some testimony from people who live with HIV who deny it and don't take any medication and are just fine and dandy and live long lives.

 

"United Nations Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa Stephen Lewis expressed concern on Tuesday over Malawi's rising number of deaths among people receiving HIV/AIDS treatment in the country. Lewis was speaking at the end of his three-day visit to the impoverished southern African country when he was briefed by Malawian government officials that the country was grappling with an 11 percent death rate of people who were receiving free antiretroviral (ARV) drugs in public hospitals. Malawi has managed to increase the number of people receiving free ARVs from about 4,000 two years ago to 70,000 at present. "
​

- 'UN concerned about Malawi's rising deaths of AIDS patients on ARVs', China People's Daily Online, 1 November 2006
​

You really should read everything before commenting. Furthermore, neither the orthodoxy and its proponents nor the method in which it is approached have significantly changed since the 1990s. Therefore the commentaries remain valid.

And I do apologize but I'm not about to cut and past hundreds of pages that you're not likely to read.

There are thousands and you need to stop making reductionist arguments based on emotions and/or popular opinion.

Might I suggest that you conduct little independant research that is based on facts and examine all sides of the debate before drawing a conclusion. It's best not to base your arguements on this hooey that's constantly being pumped into the idiot boxes that sit in the homes of most americans.

After you've done that and have formed an opinion structured on a suitable fondation, we can then discuss this issue without the continued use of puerile provocations.

Might I suggest you start by at least watching the documentary House of Numbers and examine the evidence I provided. Howerver, if you want me to present another example as a point of depart, might I suggest the hookers of the Philippines. Where the vast majority of them are HIV positive and continue to engage in unprotected sex on a regular bases and never develop "AIDS".

Most people do not appear to understand that the simple fact is that AIDS is not a virus. It is a "Syndrome." Even the AIDS orthodoxy agrees with this point.

In medicine and psychology, a syndrome is the association of several clinically recognizable features, signs (observed by a physician), symptoms (reported by the patient), phenomena or characteristics that often occur together, so that the presence of one or more features alerts the physician to the possible presence of the others. Specific syndromes tend to have a range of possible etiologies or diseases that could create such a set of circumstances. I.e. there is an important distinction between Parkinson's disease and a Parkinsonian syndrome, whereby the latter could be caused by the former, but also by other conditions such as a progressive supranuclear palsy or multiple system atrophy.

In other words, in a medical setting, a syndrome might narrow down the possible diseases a patient may possess, just as speaking English might focus a guess as to the country in which that person originates.

Whereas HIV is the virus and there still remains nothing but weak circumstantial evidence that links HIV to the syndrome commonly refered to as AIDS. And no one has ever developed the syndrome without having first been put on the medication. Thereby significantly linking the use of the medication as the cause of the syndrom and not the HIV virus.

 

Stephen Lewis is a Canadian politician, not a doctor or a scientist.

You're right I would probably only skim them but the first thing I would look at is where they came from, sources are the most important thing.

That's kind of like saying you want to talk about Nazi, Germany but want to skip over the holocaust. Facts are facts.

The wikipedia article on house of numbers tells me everything I need to know about it.

OK, chief.

 

It's the UNITED NATIONS and he is the special envoy. In 2005 he was one of the '100 most influential people in the world'. He was also awarded the by the International Council of Nurses their prestigious Health and Human Rights Award.

The United Nations may very well be considered dysfunctional in my areas. But rest assured, no one is so stupid as to ask anyone to operate within a sterile enviroment with little or no access to resources and/or to individuals who's expertise lay in these domains.

You've skimmed over everything and this "conflict" you are attempting to impose upon me, and by defacto other readers, has nothing to do with fact finding or examining a paradigm from another perspective.

It has everything to do with you attempting to solicit and subsequently win an argument. And doing it in the most infantile and reductionist fashion available to you. You don't want to read, having yourself stated your prefernce for skimming, unless those sources listed support current othordoxy and thereby, your opinions.

All of which causes me to wonder if you're agenda is simply to cause an argument and win it by doing little or no work.

Using terms and anologies such as Nazi, holocaust, etc is fear mongering and catering to the most ingnorant and uneducated of readers. I refuse to go sink to that level in any conversation.

As for the wikipedia article on the House of Numbers documentary,

It says 2 groups criticized the film.
​

1) A Denver Fox affiliate TV station, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal condemned it. To use your own methodology against you. You should note that none of these publications are medical or scientific in their nature. Therefore due to your negationism of Stephen Lewis and the United Nations investigation, use of them as sources is hypocrisy on your part.

2) The scientific community that supports the current orthodoxy and a claim that the scientist interviewed were mis-quoted. With the only source for these claims being Goldacre in the Gardien. Although Goldacre is a highly crediable source, the lack of sufficient rebuttle from the alledged defamed is insufficient.
​

 

Again it's the only current quote you list and it's from a canadian politician. An examining the quote, it says there is an 11% death rate of people taking anti viral medication in Africa. Causation does not equal correlation. It could be more about poor health care conditions than implying the evil hiv medicine is doing it, and even if it where the medicine 11% would seem like an acceptable risk. Same goes for regular vaccines there is an inherent risk of death or injury but it beats having plagues of small pox and polio.

I don't need to read a detailed history of leprechauns to know they aren't real.

The Lancet, a peer reviewed general medicine journal, was critical of the film.

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree man. My only agenda is wanting to promote skeptical rationalism.

Anyways it led me to this ball of crazy: http://www.baywindows.com/index.php?ch=news&sc=glbt&sc2=news&sc3=&id=90259

so I thank you for my laugh of the day

 

"Skeptical rationalism?" If you want to promote healthy "skepticism". I would recomend you do so without trying to discuss leprechauns, nazis or any other form of illicit sensationalism.

Still I appreciate the link to the article. I'll sit down give it and its commentaries a second read tonight. My current impression is that it's just more of the standard controversy surrounding AIDS and the inablity to discuss it without resorting to name calling and childish behavior.

While it appears at first that only the idea of Gallo’s retrovirus and its transmission has shaped our perception of AIDS and its social relations, it is more complex than this. Gallo and Gallo’s idea are themselves a product of the social and commercial relations which exist inside science and the production of scientific knowledge.

Had Gallo presented his theory thirty years ago in a reputable scientific journal, rather than at a fin de sciècle press conference in Washington, his proposal would have been tested by his peers. A focused and centralised authority which had responsibility for evaluating scientific knowledge would have made a judgment, its clinical basis would have been replicated and a dialectical process would hopefully have forged the truth. As it was, there was no proving, no dialectical process, no clinical proof and no biological proof, no open public critique. Gallo’s idea was passed down in tablets of stone and ‘HIV’ was found guilty without any kind of trial or search for the truth. Science by absolute decree of the idea. This is not how science has been practised nor how truth has been arrived at over the last two centuries.

The traditional form of evaluating research has been peer review, followed by publication in a few established and meritorious journals. This system of gate-keeping clearly had its drawbacks because it meant that orthodoxy retained control not only over standards of research, but inevitably over content. The peer review system attempted to act as a centralised clearing house for research while keeping a continuous if nominal check on standards.

Today, there are no universal standards for the evaluation of non- license application drug trials. Commercial and industrial interests have helped launch a large number of vested interest journals which print the research work which they have funded. Drug trials are overseen primarily by research staff working for the producer company and even the investigators are often supported by the company or work in units which rely for future funding from the company concerned.

For the first five years of AZT’s life, Wellcome controlled almost all the known AIDS cases in Europe and America by drawing them into trials.​

 

Sorry my friend but one is proposed to humor when the man next to you is claiming the world is flat and all evidence suggest it's not.

Another quote from the 90's? got anything from this year?

But again thanks, because falling the long line of crazy I looked into what supposed medical doctors would be on the Aids denialist panel and it led me to this blog http://snoutworld.blogspot.com/2010/06/aids-denialism-at-italian-journal-of.html
and I am now very happy :love:

 

"The world is flat."

Do you base that on the 1969 lunar mission that sent back photos of the earth? Or is your data based on the 1492 voyages of Christopher Columbus? Don't you have anything from last year?


Niether the orthodoxy nor those involved have changed. Therefore, my sources are acceptable. You have obviously never seen the inside of a university. It's laughable to think that someone would rule out data and facts based solely upon the age of the document. As a lawyer I would have been in big trouble had we done that. Because I was researching case law that was in sometimes several hundreds of years old.

Again this form of negationism is poor academics and at best a really bad joke.

Your chosen moniker is AntiHippie and you post messages in a hippie based forum. You're obviously looking for a fight. To this extent I'm not interested in a conversation with Eric Cartman. So in the interest to end this ridiculous verbal dance by giving you the "reaction" you're searching for. I'll stoop to your level in the following analogy but refrain from getting into the gutter with you.

You talk and make analogies to a flat earth, leperchauns, nazis, etc. So to borrow an expression from the French; You will find fault in eveything because you're too busy sodomizing the flies.

Good luck to you Antihippie. I hope there is lots of love and attention in your life. Accept my postive thoughts and the energy I'm sending to you.

Love

A very old hippie.

 

Science is not the same as case law. It evolves and changes, as new discoveries are made. Despite your quote above peer reviewing assures that everyone is watching everyone and trying to one up each other so that science can move forward. Sorry, but more than likely it's not some "big pharma" conspiracy.

Why do you assume I'm attacking you? I was attacking your debate. My personal belief is that Aids denialist are wackos and conspiracy nuts, if you happen to be one I'm sorry, nothing against you that's just what I believe.

You can't be bohemian/hippy if you are a skeptic? Do I have to accept baloney like holistic medicine and other new age bullshit too? Sorry, then maybe I'm not a hippy to your standards, but I have my own ideas and ethos to what being a hippy means.

I'm pretty open minded but only to the point where it doesn't hurt others. I'd end this by posting that famous Life pic of the dude dying from aids but I know it would be pointless. Peace.

 

Thank you for this, here a link where you can watch the entire docu
http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/house-numbers/

 

I`m neither here nor there on this debate, but a close friend of mine did just that. Did not take his cocktail for over 10 years, and died of a stroke (unrelated). Apparently, had a hell of a sex life too. The moral ramifications of it notwithstanding, he lived as though he weren`t sick at all.