When I got taken in by an AIDS denial film a while back, in amongst the scoldings from outraged rationalists (including Ben Goldacre) I got this message from one Seth Kalichman: "You have no reason to feel bad about this. AIDS denialists are very convincing. They are a mix of narcissists and conmen. I think I know these guys and what makes them tick as well as anyone can. It is extremely easy to buy into their crap."
Kalichman is the author of Denying AIDS, a definitive account of the global AIDS denial movement. While researching the book he went undercover and met many of the key players, including Peter Duesberg (that's undercover-Seth on the right with Duesberg in the picture). And he proves he does know these guys well, in the piece he kindly wrote for New Humanist exposing the sinister tactics of the denialists, as well the motives of this strange band of shysters and victims. It's a brilliant piece. I urge you to read it.
Tuesday, 3 November 2009
How to spot an AIDS denialist
Posted by Caspar Melville at Tuesday, November 03, 2009
Labels: Aids, Aids-denial, conspiracy theories
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7 comments:
The "impure virus" gambit is actually steeped in irony, and the explanation for its origin dispenses with two denialist canards in one go.
The tendency for gradient-purified HIV to also contain microvesicle contaminants results from another capacity of the virus that denialists deny: it's ability to cause cell death.
http://jvi.asm.org/cgi/content/full/74/3/1168
"HIV-1 infection leads to pronounced cytopathic effects in the later stages of infection, causing release of cellular vesicles which tend to copurify with virions (16, 37). For preparation of high-titered HIV-1 stocks devoid of major cellular contaminants, it would therefore appear optimal to harvest virus from a synchronized infection of highly productive cells at an early time point, well before cell lysis occurs."
This electron micrograph shows purified virions obtained by this method of earlier harvesting (panels E & F):
http://jvi.asm.org/cgi/content/full/74/3/1168/F2
And this image is from another study that used the same approach, it shows multiple purified virions:
http://www.nature.com/emboj/journal/v22/n7/fig_tab/7595054a_F1.html
And they look just like the photos of purified Friend virus that AIDS denialists say retroviruses are supposed to look like:
http://www.healtoronto.com/emphotos.html
www.twitter.com/hivquestions ~ www.youtube.com/hivquestions (and healing alternatives)
Why don't you replace the epithet "denialist" with another epithet?
Perhaps it should read, "How to spot a nigger."
It is essentially the same thing isn't it? Or maybe how to spot a commie? You are our new Modern McCarthy.
Cheers to you Professor Kalichman
TD, the "pure virus" goalposts have been moved when you weren't looking.
The denialists, or at least one faction, are now denying the existence of the Friend Virus.
http://www.tig.org.za/Friend.pdf
and as a response to "Anonymous" this pattern of moving the goalposts and impossible to fulfill criteria is just one of the reasons why 'denialist' is a better description than 'skeptic', 'dissident', 'rethinker' or any other term that they would like to use to describe themselves. There is one single common theme - deny the evidence.
You have written nothing that would convince me NOT to question the hiv=aids=death orthodoxy.
You said they are looking to make a "quick buck." But I don't know if that's enough for me, because the same could be said of Big Pharma who push toxic anti-retrovirals, who are making billions off of this.
And if they've isolated HIV, why do the tests only look for antibodies?
Everyone should be a skeptic in all regards of our health and the officials who claim to have our best interests at heart while they're holding hands with pharmaceutical companies.
TD & Noble,
The things they grew and "isolated" are molecular clones. Nobody denies that scientists are able to make those, but it has nothing to do with original purification isolation and identification of a novel virus.
Actually, global warming denialists tend to deny global warming, not just the fallacy that all scientists agree about the extent of human impact on climate. You fall for the disingenious debating trick of lumping climate skeptics with the denialists. There is hardly another field of science so politicized that this trick is given a pass, even among humanists it seems.
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