Discerning the Difference
Conditions for the Emergence and Decline of Scientific Theories
Never before has such a wealth of resources been invested in the research and treatment of a disease as with HIV/AIDS. Two decades later, however, we are faced with a sobering lack of success and with forecasts that have failed to come true.
In a paper published in the British Medical Journal, Roger England states: “It is no longer heresy to point out that far too much is spent on HIV relative to other needs and that this is damaging health systems“.(1)
“For over twenty years, the general public has been greatly misled and ill-informed“,
says Rebecca Culshaw-Smith, a scientist who works on mathematical models of HIV infection. (2)
A ten-year study conducted by the U.S. physician Dr Padian involving 176 couples, each with one HIV-positive and one HIV-negative partner, yielded a plain result: not a single “infection“ of any of the HIV-negative partners. (3)
Has the virus become harmless? Plenty of evidence suggests that it always has been harmless - an endogenous virus (i.e. produced naturally in the body) such as may occur in any healthy placenta. Faulty interpretations of observations are likely to lead to flawed conclusions.
Inaccurate forecasts, invariably unsuccessful attempts to develop vaccines, the obviously erroneous assumption of infectivity and the existence of HIV-positive individuals who have been in perfect health for twenty years without having had any treatment at all - these facts manifestly elucidate what critical physicians and scientists have argued since the very beginning, and what they are now able to vindicate and substantiate even more cogently: acquired immunodeficiencies can be caused by a variety of factors, but they are not the result of a malignant retrovirus.
Unfortunately we are inclined to attach more credibility to familiar thoughts, a phenomenon that is also – and indeed especially - typical of scientists. Questioning such thoughts is frequently tantamount to sacrilege, an affront to an inviolable truth, in complete unawareness and of the circumstances that have contributed to its existence.
Habit and ignorance are forms of passive resistance to new insights. However, where new insights meet with active opposition without any objective discussion, we may suspect other underlying motives than the acquisition of knowledge. This sociology of science, its manifold conditions and dependencies with respect to its high relevance for the foundations of our health system are the second subject area of the conference.
Literature
Here you find some Articles about the theme:
Aids: are we being deceived?
Christian Fiala for the Dutch daily NRC, 18 Sept. 2008
www.nrc.nl/international/opinion/article1984104.ece/Aids_are_we_being_deceived
1)
The writing is on the wall for UNAIDS
Roger England in BMJ 2008;336:1072 (10 May),
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/336/7652/1072
2)
Science Sold Out: Does HIV Really Cause AIDS?
A book by Rebecca V. Culshaw on the problems with the HIV/AIDS theory and the alleged epidemic
www.amazon.com/Science-Sold-Out-Really-Cause/dp/1556436424
3)
Heterosexual transmission of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in Northern California’
Padian NS, Shiboski SC, Glass SO, Vittinghoff E.
American Journal of Epidemiology 1997 Aug 15;146(4):350-7
http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/146/4/350