HIV/AIDS - its evolution and possible effects on evolution.
Ye Old One
to cost many millions more before a real cure is found.
I would be interested, as one recent arrival on T.O. seems to be
trying to hide from questions related to HIV/AIDS, in exploring up to
date thinking on:-
The evolution of the HIV/AIDS virus.
Its effects (real or possible) on the future evolution of man.
Anyone who wants is more than happy to contribute but I'm really keen
to see "drdach" put forward his views on the subject as he has put so
much effort into trying to avoid Marc's questions over the last few
days.
--
Bob.
Woland
Its beyond me to make inferences about it but this was a really good
show on PBS having to due with a mutation of the CCR5 and how its
related to resistance to HIV and the plague.
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/case_plague/interview.html
Marc
Plague was mentioned in a particular paper (Stephens et al, 1998)
that also mentioned smallpox and other possible pathogens, and
it was the plague thing that the media really picked up on. (This
paper is available in free full text form, but note that their genetic
map of the marker locations is not correct with respect to the now
complete human genome project data.) Many researchers feel
that smallpox is a much more likely choice, but a recent school
of thought is that no pathogen at all was involved (a paper from
Steve Schaffner's group suggests this). Still, some good biology
suggests the pox virus model is valid but all in all the plague
idea has been completely shot down.
"Dating the origin of the CCR5-Delta32 AIDS-resistance allele bythe
coalescence of haplotypes.
Am J Hum Genet. 1998 Jun;62(6):1507-15. PMID: 9585595
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pubmed&pubmedid=9585595
Many more recent papers have discounted the plague idea on
several grounds - one event over just a few years isn't enough
selection pressure (see Slatkin's data in various papers), there
is no survival benefit for mice where CCR5 was knocked out,
and if you look at the book by British epidemiologists Scott
and Duncan "The Biology of Plagues", they make a *very*
good case that a haemorraghic fever virus rather than bubonic
plague caused the Black Death.
http://www.hero.ac.uk/sites/hero/uk/research/archives/2001/bubonic_plague_is_innocen1184.cfm
This book has chapters on the biology of Yersinia, the life cycle
of fleas and how rats carry them and so forth and while it may
take another couple of decades, people will have to stop using
"bubonic plague" to mean "The Black Death".
CCR5 is a cell surface receptor for three different chemokines and
functions as a means for immune related cells to migrate in specific
fashion (as the immune system needs to do). The ancestor of both
SIV and HIV somehow picked up part of a gene for a chemokine and
added that code to it's envelope gene, giving the virus the ability to
use the chemokine receptor as something to hold on to (HIV uses
another structure as well, and CXCR4 can be swapped for CCR5).
In attaching itself to such a receptor, the area of the cell surface
near such a group of bound receptors is "endocytosed", or drawn
into the cell as a small bubble - like if you took a partly inflated
balloon and pushed your finger deep inside - or better, push
a marble deep into the balloon until it was completely enclosed.
This is how HIV gets into cells, and so people who have lower
levels of CCR5 or who lack CCR5 all together are partly or even
nearly completely protected from disease progression.
If anybody wants to try a 10meg download, my (now dated) thesis
is available in PDF form - google being your friend, just search
for "buhler ccr5 thesis" and go make a cup of tea.
(signed) marc
rupert....@gmail.com
able to find.
Marc
rupert....@gmail.com wrote:
> Ah, some of that intellectual stimulation that drqach seems not to be
> able to find.
Thanks for the thought, but I don't see that my post
here has all that much in the way a PoTM type one
should have.... or was it my thesis you nominated?
[grin]
(signed) marc
.
drdach
> The HIV/AIDS epidemic has already cost millions of lives and is likely
drdach replies:
Number one I am not a recent arrival. I have been here since Oct 29,
and already baptized with fire.
Number Two the HIV retrovirus connection with evolutionary theory is a
fabrication in order to generate research funding for ridiculous grant
ideas.
Number Three: there will never be a real cure found because there was
never a real disease caused by HIV which is a benign passenger
retrovirus which has been present in the human genome for millennia.
AIDS is a real syndrome; however it is simply not caused by HIV.
Number Four: My recent two articles which discuss data presented in
JAMA Sept 27, prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that HIV does not cause
AIDS.
http://barnesworld.blogs.com/barnes_world/2006/10/by_jeffrey_dach.html
http://barnesworld.blogs.com/barnes_world/2006/11/the_final_nail_.html
Please email me on the contact page of my web site if you need any
further explanation.
regards from www.drdach.com
Jon G
> drdach replies:
> Number Three: there will never be a real cure found because there was
> never a real disease caused by HIV which is a benign passenger
> retrovirus which has been present in the human genome for millennia.
> AIDS is a real syndrome; however it is simply not caused by HIV.
>From physician to biologist, how many reported cases are there of the
occurrence of AIDS in patients with NO HIV virus?
If the answer is none, then we have a correlation (not nec.ly causal)
If the answer is at least one, then you may be on to something, if
no-one can isolate the virus from the patient.
Why would HAART therapy work?
> Number Four: My recent two articles which discuss data presented in
> JAMA Sept 27, prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that HIV does not cause
> AIDS.
this is true only if there is a lack of reason. the evidence points
somewhere, but could be many things.
drdach
> > drdach replies:
>
> > Number Three: there will never be a real cure found because there was
> > never a real disease caused by HIV which is a benign passenger
> > retrovirus which has been present in the human genome for millennia.
> > AIDS is a real syndrome; however it is simply not caused by HIV.
>
>
> >From physician to biologist, how many reported cases are there of the
> occurrence of AIDS in patients with NO HIV virus?
drdach: About 4,000 in the medical literature. This is well known.
>
> If the answer is none, then we have a correlation (not nec.ly causal)
>
> If the answer is at least one, then you may be on to something, if
> no-one can isolate the virus from the patient.
>
> Why would HAART therapy work?
drdach: Recent Lancet article shows no mortality benefit from HAART.
The Lancet came out with a mega study of 22,000 patients over the past
10 years on meds, entitled, "HIV Treatment Response and Prognosis in
Europe and North America In The First Decade of HAART: A Collaborative
Analysis." The conclusion? "Virological Response after starting HAART
improved over calendar years, but such improvement has not translated
into a decrease in mortality." (pg 453).
In short, it doesn't work. Yes, there is a short term benefit in pts
with opportunistic infection because of antibiotic effect of HAART. It
kills everything. This has been described as the Lazarus effect.
>
> > Number Four: My recent two articles which discuss data presented in
> > JAMA Sept 27, prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that HIV does not cause
> > AIDS.
http://barnesworld.blogs.com/barnes_world/2006/11/the_final_nail_.html
http://barnesworld.blogs.com/barnes_world/2006/10/by_jeffrey_dach.html
>
> this is true only if there is a lack of reason. the evidence points
> somewhere, but could be many things.
drdach: Yes, there is a cause of for the AIDS syndrome. HIV retrovirus
just isn't it.
The JAMA Sept 27 data is very convincing and shows non-correlation of
HIV viral load with CD4 cell count.. (translation: HIV doesn't cause
AIDS).
Regards from www.drdach.com
Jon G
drdach wrote:
> Jon G wrote:
> > > drdach replies:
> >
> > > Number Three: there will never be a real cure found because there was
> > > never a real disease caused by HIV which is a benign passenger
> > > retrovirus which has been present in the human genome for millennia.
> > > AIDS is a real syndrome; however it is simply not caused by HIV.
> >
> >
> > >From physician to biologist, how many reported cases are there of the
> > occurrence of AIDS in patients with NO HIV virus?
>
> drdach: About 4,000 in the medical literature. This is well known.
I was not aware of this, could I have a reference of this?
Were the patients with HIV-less AIDS ever exposed to the virus? Abs?
> >
> > Why would HAART therapy work?
>
> drdach: Recent Lancet article shows no mortality benefit from HAART.
>
"Virological Response after starting HAART
> improved over calendar years, but such improvement has not translated
> into a decrease in mortality." (pg 453).
Doesn't this mean that the virus responds to the treatment initially,
but other than prolonging the life of the patient, it does not prevent
death? It doesn't mean the therapy doesn't work.
> >
> > this is true only if there is a lack of reason. the evidence points
> > somewhere, but could be many things.
>
> drdach: Yes, there is a cause of for the AIDS syndrome. HIV retrovirus
> just isn't it.
> The JAMA Sept 27 data is very convincing and shows non-correlation of
> HIV viral load with CD4 cell count.. (translation: HIV doesn't cause
> AIDS).
No it doesn't. It means only what it says, viral loads are not directly
proportionate to CD-4 cell counts and should not be used as the only
means of testing the progress of the infection. To demonstrate that HIV
does not cause AIDS, you need infections-free people that had a
successuful immune response to the virus after being exposed to it (and
never developped AIDS). In areas where the virus is endemic, you would
expect immunity to it, if it doesn't cause mortality nor AIDS. I think,
it's a bit late though. Even then, there are children born from AIDS
mothers and they develop some sort of immunity. Don't they develop AIDS
if untreated?
Grandbank
An excellent resource on this subject:
http://www.aidstruth.org/answering-aids-denialists.php
The parallel between evoluton denial and HIV/AIDS denial is striking.
KP
Marc
drdach wrote:
....... snip.....
> drdach replies:
>
> Number one I am not a recent arrival. I have been here since Oct 29,
> and already baptized with fire.
1) posting style "drdrch replies" isn't necessary..
the ..... ">" tells us that you replied
2) Appearing here on Halloween makes sense I guess.
3) Being here since Oct. 29th isn't even a fortnight so by any
measure within this group you are a newbie (and it shows).
Perhaps if you post regularly for a couple of months you will
lose the newbie status, but all the claims you have made about
what this group should consider topical show just how little
you know about talk origins. Have you been Chez Watt'ed yet?
Have you voted for your quote in the monthly CW vote? Or PoTM?
Maybe by next year you will have a better idea about this
group and how it works, but for now you are just a new guy.
> Number Two the HIV retrovirus connection with evolutionary theory is a
> fabrication in order to generate research funding for ridiculous grant
> ideas.
And your radiologist training lets you see through all that, right?
(signed) marc
rupert....@gmail.com
Then what is the cause, and where is the evidence for it? You don't
save any lives by saying what the cause isn't.
Marc
That was part of my thinking in insisting that Jeff accept this
as being on-topic within this group.... he has also insisted that
this be made as it's own thread and Ye Old One kindly enough
started the thread for us according to Jeff's rules.
Now if we could just have SeanPit back for a while to see
how he feels about the HIV question... (I can't believe what
I'm wishing for, but I really feel this way!)
(signed) marc
Chris Noble
Your two articles appearing on a "rethinking" webblog prove beyond a
shadow of a doubt that you are mathematically incompetent.
What is the "center bar for each of the five Gaussian distribution
charts" that you refer to? Is it supposed to be the mean or median? How
did you calculate it?
When are you going to submit your brilliant mathematical analysis to
JAMA?
Chris Noble
Grandbank
Marc wrote:
>
>
> That was part of my thinking in insisting that Jeff accept this
> as being on-topic within this group.... he has also insisted that
> this be made as it's own thread and Ye Old One kindly enough
> started the thread for us according to Jeff's rules.
>
> Now if we could just have SeanPit back for a while to see
> how he feels about the HIV question... (I can't believe what
> I'm wishing for, but I really feel this way!)
>
> (signed) marc
I think it goes to the existence of a syndrome I call "The Denial of
Specialization".
It is a kind of mental autointoxication that leads the sufferer to
view himself as a Renaissance Man - to imagine that the human knowledge
base is still small enough that insight into subjects that have become
very complex technically can still be gained by untutored inspiration,
as often as not driven by ideological or emotional or political need.
Note that I do not deny the possibility of outside insight, I only
demand the reconciliation of such claims with the literature of the
specialty.
This syndrome is tragically common in clinical professions (like my
own, or Dr.D's) where a gussied up trade school education is sometimes
mistaken for scientific insight.
KP
Chris Noble
Jon G wrote:
> drdach wrote:
> > Jon G wrote:
> > > > drdach replies:
> > >
> > > > Number Three: there will never be a real cure found because there was
> > > > never a real disease caused by HIV which is a benign passenger
> > > > retrovirus which has been present in the human genome for millennia.
> > > > AIDS is a real syndrome; however it is simply not caused by HIV.
> > >
> > >
> > > >From physician to biologist, how many reported cases are there of the
> > > occurrence of AIDS in patients with NO HIV virus?
> >
> > drdach: About 4,000 in the medical literature. This is well known.
>
> I was not aware of this, could I have a reference of this?
The only references are papers by Peter Duesberg who denies that HIV
causes AIDS.
Duesberg uses his own definition of AIDS to create this number
> Were the patients with HIV-less AIDS ever exposed to the virus? Abs?
>
> > >
> > > Why would HAART therapy work?
> >
> > drdach: Recent Lancet article shows no mortality benefit from HAART.
> >
> "Virological Response after starting HAART
> > improved over calendar years, but such improvement has not translated
> > into a decrease in mortality." (pg 453).
>
> Doesn't this mean that the virus responds to the treatment initially,
> but other than prolonging the life of the patient, it does not prevent
> death? It doesn't mean the therapy doesn't work.
What it actually means is that although the introduction of HAART
produced a large decrease in mortality it has not improved in the past
10 years despite apparent improvements in virological response. The
study compared p[atients on HAART over the past 10 years. The only
possible conclusion that could be derived from the study is that HAART
is no better now than it was 10 years ago and possibly a little bit
worse. The typical "rethinker" claim that the study demonstrates that
HAART does not work is just plain stupid.
> > >
> > > this is true only if there is a lack of reason. the evidence points
> > > somewhere, but could be many things.
> >
> > drdach: Yes, there is a cause of for the AIDS syndrome. HIV retrovirus
> > just isn't it.
> > The JAMA Sept 27 data is very convincing and shows non-correlation of
> > HIV viral load with CD4 cell count.. (translation: HIV doesn't cause
> > AIDS).
>
> No it doesn't. It means only what it says, viral loads are not directly
> proportionate to CD-4 cell counts and should not be used as the only
> means of testing the progress of the infection. To demonstrate that HIV
> does not cause AIDS, you need infections-free people that had a
> successuful immune response to the virus after being exposed to it (and
> never developped AIDS). In areas where the virus is endemic, you would
> expect immunity to it, if it doesn't cause mortality nor AIDS. I think,
> it's a bit late though. Even then, there are children born from AIDS
> mothers and they develop some sort of immunity. Don't they develop AIDS
> if untreated?
Once again DrQuach completely misrepresents the paper.
Read the paper or the authors commentary.
http://www.aidstruth.org/rodriguez-lederman.php
DrQuach tries his best to avoid admitting that on average patients with
a high viral load had greater CD4 declines than patients with low viral
loads. All patients were HIV positive and the vast majority also saw a
decline of about 50 CD4+ cells/ml per year. Something was causing the
decline in CD4 cells. What was it?
Chris Noble
Marc
Chris Noble wrote:
> Jon G wrote:
...... snip...
> Read the paper or the authors commentary.
> http://www.aidstruth.org/rodriguez-lederman.php
Note to lurkers, other readers, Jeff D. etc.
This insight into the paper written by the authors is an
excellent statement of facts and the issues related to them.
(signed) marc
.
drdach
> Ye Old One wrote:
> > The HIV/AIDS epidemic has already cost millions of lives and is likely
> > to cost many millions more before a real cure is found.
> >
> > I would be interested, as one recent arrival on T.O. seems to be
> > trying to hide from questions related to HIV/AIDS, in exploring up to
> > date thinking on:-
> >
> > The evolution of the HIV/AIDS virus.
> >
> > Its effects (real or possible) on the future evolution of man.
> >
> > Anyone who wants is more than happy to contribute but I'm really keen
> > to see "drdach" put forward his views on the subject as he has put so
> > much effort into trying to avoid Marc's questions over the last few
> > days.
> >
> > --
> > Bob.
>
>
> Number one I am not a recent arrival. I have been here since Oct 29,
> and already baptized with fire.
>
> fabrication in order to generate research funding for ridiculous grant
> ideas.
>
> never a real disease caused by HIV which is a benign passenger
> retrovirus which has been present in the human genome for millennia.
> AIDS is a real syndrome; however it is simply not caused by HIV.
>
> Number Four: My recent two articles which discuss data presented in
> JAMA Sept 27, prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that HIV does not cause
> AIDS.
>
> http://barnesworld.blogs.com/barnes_world/2006/10/by_jeffrey_dach.html
>
> http://barnesworld.blogs.com/barnes_world/2006/11/the_final_nail_.html
>
> Please email me on the contact page of my web site if you need any
> further explanation.
>
> regards from www.drdach.com
Chris Noble wrote:
> Jon G wrote:
> > drdach wrote:
> > > Jon G wrote:
> > > > > drdach replies:
> > > >
> > > > > Number Three: there will never be a real cure found because there was
> > > > > never a real disease caused by HIV which is a benign passenger
> > > > > retrovirus which has been present in the human genome for millennia.
> > > > > AIDS is a real syndrome; however it is simply not caused by HIV.
> > > >
> > > >
> Read the paper or the authors commentary.
> http://www.aidstruth.org/rodriguez-lederman.php
>
> DrQuach tries his best to avoid admitting that on average patients with
> a high viral load had greater CD4 declines than patients with low viral
> loads. All patients were HIV positive and the vast majority also saw a
> decline of about 50 CD4+ cells/ml per year. Something was causing the
> decline in CD4 cells. What was it?
>
>
> Chris Noble
Dear Marc,
Now you went and did it. You imported one of your new misc.aids
newsgroup friends over to T.O. You new buddy, Krish is a statistician
at an MRI facility in Australia. Maybe you know him. (I won't
digress into his past history which is extensive). Perhaps you should
explain some etiquette to your new friend about how it's impolite to
intentionally misspell names. (oops...I went and did it , too)
A quick note about the Rodriguez / Lederman comments: "What our work
really means" which was the link your new friend provided, and which
you appear to have accepted at face value:
The web post by Rodriguez and Lederman makes an unprecedented and
childish defense of their work which does not fit the data they present
in the article, nor the conclusions they draw in their article, nor the
conclusions of the accompanying JAMA editorial by Dr. Henry. See this
discussion:
http://barnesworld.blogs.com/barnes_world/2006/11/the_final_nail_.html
Simply by drawing a pencil line vertically though the Gaussian
distribution charts of the data, one can easily see that this statement
by your new friend which he mindlessly parrots from a cut and paste web
site is completely false:
"Patient with a high viral load had greater CD4 declines than
patients with low viral
loads. " (this is completely false statement)
In fact, Figure Two shows that the center bar of the Gaussian
distributions all line up indicating the CD4 cell count decline was
THE SAME for all 5 different viral loads sub groups (from very low
viral load to very high viral load). You dont need to be a rocket
scientist to see this.
Go look for yourself. Don't take my word for it. The reader has the
liberty of coming to their own conclusions. That is the power and the
beauty of the internet. The truth is there for everyone to see.
The jpeg of figure 2 with a pencil line drawn on it can be seen here:
http://barnesworld.blogs.com/barnes_world/2006/11/the_final_nail_.html
If you have any questions about it, feel free to ask. Explanation will
be forthcoming..
Regarding my previous statement that the HIV retrovirus connection with
evolutionary theory is a fabrication in order to generate research
funding for ridiculous grant ideas: I would retract this statement
should you be able to provide three examples of HIV used to support
modern synthesis evolutionary theory.
Regards from www.drdach.com
drdach
give it a rest Krish, you were just destroyed.
rupert....@gmail.com
Are you implying that his future will not be extensive? That sounds
like a threat.
> Perhaps you should
> explain some etiquette to your new friend about how it's impolite to
> intentionally misspell names. (oops...I went and did it , too)
If it was intentional, why the "oops"? Yet again, your attempts at
humor fail miserably.
>
> A quick note about the Rodriguez / Lederman comments: "What our work
> really means" which was the link your new friend provided, and which
> you appear to have accepted at face value:
>
> The web post by Rodriguez and Lederman makes an unprecedented and
> childish defense of their work which does not fit the data they present
> in the article, nor the conclusions they draw in their article, nor the
> conclusions of the accompanying JAMA editorial by Dr. Henry. See this
> discussion:
Perhaps they should have skipped the statistics and just said it was
intuitively obvious. End of story, right?
And I will retract all my statements in favour of evolution if you
provide me three examples of asteroids painted like pool balls. The
examples you request do not falsify your statement. If they did, one
would be sufficient.
>
> Regards from www.drdach.com
Don't you have some wrinkles you could be removing?
Marc
drdach wrote:
> drdach wrote:
> > Ye Old One wrote:
..... snip
> Dear Marc,
>
> Now you went and did it. You imported one of your new misc.aids
> newsgroup friends over to T.O. You new buddy, Krish is a statistician
> at an MRI facility in Australia. Maybe you know him.
... snip
Don't be stupid, Jeffrey - I had nothing at all to do with Chris
joining into the discussions here. Why should I? Earlier today
I got the three papers (the JAMA one and two from J. Imm.)
to read and discuss with you.... he has perhaps saved me a
bit of bother though it sounds like I will have to look at the
reports since you are being blind to reason.
All Chris did - at a guess - was to click on your profile from
your previous posts at m.h.a. and Google Groups would show
him where your most recent posts were being made. Or he
just wandered over to see how you were treating us. (You
came in here being a right asshole, truth be known, and
the jury is still out on any improvement.)
I seem to recall Chris here in the past but I could be wrong,
still - what is that to you? This is usenet and *you* don't
make the rules. I'll join back into the HIV discussion when
I've looked at the papers - but seeing the essay from the
authors I doubt I will find much support for your position.
(signed) marc
.
Ye Old One
this group when s/he wrote:
>Ye Old One wrote:
>> The HIV/AIDS epidemic has already cost millions of lives and is likely
>> to cost many millions more before a real cure is found.
>>
>> I would be interested, as one recent arrival on T.O. seems to be
>> trying to hide from questions related to HIV/AIDS, in exploring up to
>> date thinking on:-
>>
>> The evolution of the HIV/AIDS virus.
>>
>> Its effects (real or possible) on the future evolution of man.
>>
>> Anyone who wants is more than happy to contribute but I'm really keen
>> to see "drdach" put forward his views on the subject as he has put so
>> much effort into trying to avoid Marc's questions over the last few
>> days.
>>
>> --
>> Bob.
>
>drdach replies:
>
>Number one I am not a recent arrival. I have been here since Oct 29,
>and already baptized with fire.
Oh! Such a long time. Should be getting your long service award very
soon.
>
>Number Two the HIV retrovirus connection with evolutionary theory is a
>fabrication in order to generate research funding for ridiculous grant
>ideas.
Nonononoono.
First, HIV mutated into a form that affected humans. That is evolution
in action.
>
>Number Three: there will never be a real cure found because there was
>never a real disease caused by HIV which is a benign passenger
>retrovirus which has been present in the human genome for millennia.
>AIDS is a real syndrome; however it is simply not caused by HIV.
If you could prove that you would be on the fast track to a Nobel
prize for medicine.
You see you have a basic problem, you are going against many years of
observation and experimentation. People do not get AIDS without first
having an HIV infection.
>
>Number Four: My recent two articles which discuss data presented in
>JAMA Sept 27, prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that HIV does not cause
>AIDS.
Please provide evidence for this startling claim.
>
>http://barnesworld.blogs.com/barnes_world/2006/10/by_jeffrey_dach.html
>
>http://barnesworld.blogs.com/barnes_world/2006/11/the_final_nail_.html
This is usenet, post your evidence here.
>
>Please email me on the contact page of my web site if you need any
>further explanation.
No. This is usenet. Post your evidence here and it will be looked at.
>
>regards from www.drdach.com
Stop advertising.
--
Bob.
Ye Old One
this group when s/he wrote:
Call the doctor fast - before you get worse :)
--
Bob.
drdach
Humor is in the laughter of the beholder.
>
> >
> > A quick note about the Rodriguez / Lederman comments: "What our work
> > really means" which was the link your new friend provided, and which
> > you appear to have accepted at face value:
> >
> > The web post by Rodriguez and Lederman makes an unprecedented and
> > childish defense of their work which does not fit the data they present
> > in the article, nor the conclusions they draw in their article, nor the
> > conclusions of the accompanying JAMA editorial by Dr. Henry. See this
> > discussion:
>
> Perhaps they should have skipped the statistics and just said it was
> intuitively obvious. End of story, right?
When it comes down to where the rubber meets the road, all knowledge
goes through that step during processing. It is intuitively obvious
that ......
(intentionally left blank)
> And I will retract all my statements in favor of evolution if you
> provide me three examples of asteroids painted like pool balls. The
> examples you request do not falsify your statement. If they did, one
> would be sufficient.
>
> >
> > Regards from www.drdach.com
>
> Don't you have some wrinkles you could be removing?
Dear Rupert,
Thanks for taking a look at the jpeg of Figure 2. The wrinkles are the
result of carrying that JAMA issue around in my brief case for two
weeks, and pulling it out and stuffing it back in multiple times.
The jpeg of Figure 2 comes from my own NIKON D-70 digital camera. I
toyed with the idea of removing the wrinkles, but left them in for
authenticity.
By the way, you can click on the jpeg and it expands.
Here is the link to jpeg on figure 2:
http://barnesworld.blogs.com/barnes_world/2006/11/the_final_nail_.html
The asteroid thing.... It's a trick question? Right?
Is it on your web site?
Regards from www.drdach.com
drdach
> On 7 Nov 2006 16:38:43 -0800, "drdach" <drd...@drdach.com> enriched
> this group when s/he wrote:
>
> >Ye Old One wrote:
> >> The HIV/AIDS epidemic has already cost millions of lives and is likely
> >> to cost many millions more before a real cure is found.
> >>
> >> I would be interested, as one recent arrival on T.O. seems to be
> >> trying to hide from questions related to HIV/AIDS, in exploring up to
> >> date thinking on:-
> >>
> >> The evolution of the HIV/AIDS virus.
> >>
> >> Its effects (real or possible) on the future evolution of man.
> >>
> >> Anyone who wants is more than happy to contribute but I'm really keen
> >> to see "drdach" put forward his views on the subject as he has put so
> >> much effort into trying to avoid Marc's questions over the last few
> >> days.
> >>
> >> --
> >> Bob.
> >
> >drdach replies:
> >
> >Number one I am not a recent arrival. I have been here since Oct 29,
> >and already baptized with fire.
>
> Oh! Such a long time. Should be getting your long service award very
> soon.
Thanks please send it to my office address listed on my web site:
> >
> >Number Two the HIV retrovirus connection with evolutionary theory is a
> >fabrication in order to generate research funding for ridiculous grant
> >ideas.
>
> Nonononoono.
> First, HIV mutated into a form that affected humans. That is evolution
> in action.
OK, fine. Please elaborate on this. Any references in the literature
you are referring to here? Any nucleotide sequencing studies? What did
the HIV mutate from, and in what host species are you referring to?
When did this happen? Let's get into it.
> >
> >Number Three: there will never be a real cure found because there was
> >never a real disease caused by HIV which is a benign passenger
> >retrovirus which has been present in the human genome for millennia.
> >AIDS is a real syndrome; however it is simply not caused by HIV.
>
> If you could prove that you would be on the fast track to a Nobel
> prize for medicine.
>
Not really, Kary Mullis who already won a Nobel Prize (for inventing
PCR) has been saying the above for 20 years. It's obvious to any
high school kid.
>
> You see you have a basic problem, you are going against many years of
> observation and experimentation. People do not get AIDS without first
> having an HIV infection.
>
Yes this is a commonly believed myth which is quickly dispeleed once
youread Gallo's original article in 1984 associated with the famous
NIH press conference with Nargaret Heckler that HIV was the cause of
AIDS. He could not demonstrate HIV in all AIDS patients as you can
read for yourself. This hasn't changed after 20 years.
Gallo RC, Salahuddin SZ, Popovic M, et al. Frequent Detection and
Isolation of Cytopathic Retroviruses (HTLV-III) from Patients with AIDS
and at Risk for AIDS. Science 1984;224:500-502.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=6200936&dopt=Abstract
abstract:
Retroviruses HTLV-III were isolated from a total of 48 subjects
including 18 of 21 patients with pre-AIDS, three of four clinically
normal mothers of juveniles with AIDS, 26 of 72 adult and juvenile
patients with AIDS, and from one of 22 normal male homosexual subjects.
No HTLV-III was detected in or isolated from 115 normal heterosexual
subjects. Other data show that serum samples from a high proportion of
AIDS patients contain antibodies to HTLV-III. That these new isolates
are members of the HTLV family but differ from the previous isolates
known as HTLV-I and HTLV-II is indicated by their morphological,
biological, and immunological characteristics. These results and those
reported elsewhere in this issue suggest that HTLV-III may be the
primary cause of AIDS.
> >
> >Number Four: My recent two articles which discuss data presented in
> >JAMA Sept 27, prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that HIV does not cause
> >AIDS.
>
> Please provide evidence for this startling claim.
Just click here and read, if Rupert can do it so can you :
http://barnesworld.blogs.com/barnes_world/2006/10/by_jeffrey_dach.html
http://barnesworld.blogs.com/barnes_world/2006/11/the_final_nail_.html
>
> This is usenet, post your evidence here.
This is the internet, use it.
> >
> >Please email me on the contact page of my web site if you need any
> >further explanation.
>
> No. This is usenet. Post your evidence here and it will be looked at.
No, this is the internet, use it.
> >
> >regards from www.drdach.com
>
> Stop advertising.
Bob, we had a long discussion about this, remember? Posting one's
personal web site is a common practice and is not advertising. It
merely shows the individual has an identity and not an anonymous web
surfer, the lowest life-form on the internet.
Regards from www.drdach.com
Friar Broccoli
> Jon G wrote:
>>> drdach replies:
.
>>> Number Three: there will never be a real cure found because there was
>>> never a real disease caused by HIV which is a benign passenger
>>> retrovirus which has been present in the human genome for millennia.
>>> AIDS is a real syndrome; however it is simply not caused by HIV.
.
>>>From physician to biologist, how many reported cases are there of the
>> occurrence of AIDS in patients with NO HIV virus?
.
> drdach: About 4,000 in the medical literature. This is well known.
There are now over 40,000,000 cases worldwide, so this is
1/10,000. It looks like a person's immune system can collapse
from other causes and then be misdiagnosed as AIDS.
Are you suggesting that the HIV virus is completely harmless?
[rest snipped]
Friar Broccoli
Robert Keith Elias, Quebec, Canada Email: EliasRK (of) gmail * com
Best programmer's & all purpose text editor: http://www.semware.com
--------- I consider ALL arguments in support of my views ---------
drdach
Friar Broccoli wrote:
> drdach wrote:
> > Jon G wrote:
> >>> drdach replies:
>
> >>> never a real disease caused by HIV which is a benign passenger
> >>> retrovirus which has been present in the human genome for millennia.
> >>> AIDS is a real syndrome; however it is simply not caused by HIV.
>
> >> occurrence of AIDS in patients with NO HIV virus?
>
>
> There are now over 40,000,000 cases worldwide, so this is
> 1/10,000. It looks like a person's immune system can collapse
> from other causes and then be misdiagnosed as AIDS.
>
> Are you suggesting that the HIV virus is completely harmless?
>
> [rest snipped]
>
drdach replies:
Apparently so, for the humans called elite controllers, and also for
chimpanzees.
regards from www.drdach.com
Friar Broccoli
> Friar Broccoli wrote:
> > drdach wrote:
> > > Jon G wrote:
> > >>> drdach replies:
> >
> > >>> Number Three: there will never be a real cure found because there was
> > >>> never a real disease caused by HIV which is a benign passenger
> > >>> retrovirus which has been present in the human genome for millennia.
> > >>> AIDS is a real syndrome; however it is simply not caused by HIV.
> >
> > >>>From physician to biologist, how many reported cases are there of the
> > >> occurrence of AIDS in patients with NO HIV virus?
> >
> > > drdach: About 4,000 in the medical literature. This is well known.
> >
> > There are now over 40,000,000 cases worldwide, so this is
> > 1/10,000. It looks like a person's immune system can collapse
> > from other causes and then be misdiagnosed as AIDS.
> >
> > Are you suggesting that the HIV virus is completely harmless?
> >
> > [rest snipped]
.
> Apparently so, for the humans called elite controllers, and also for
> chimpanzees.
So you are suggesting that the vast majority of us
who have the CCR5 receptor, are unimportant and
should just be left to die because we are not well
adapted?
Why did you fail to respond to my main point
that 1/10,000 AIDS cases have simply been
misdiagnosed?
Bryan Heit
> The HIV/AIDS epedemic has already cost millions of lives and is likely
> to cost many millions more before a real cure is found.
>
> I would be interested, as one recent arrival on T.O. seems to be
> trying to hide from questions related to HIV/AIDS, in exploring up to
> date thinking on:-
>
> The evolution of the HIV/AIDS virus.
>
> Its effects (real or possible) on the future evolution of man.
>
> Anyone who wants is more than happy to contribute but I'm really keen
> to see "drdach" put forward his views on the subject as he has put so
> much effort into trying to avoid Marc's questions over the last few
> days.
>
> --
> Bob.
Well, I'm not "drdach", but I do study HIV for a living...
HIV already has had some evolutionary effects on humans. For example,
in Nairobi (Kenya) there is a group of prostitutes who have been
identified who have some degree of immunity to HIV:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=8918278&query_hl=3&itool=pubmed_docsum
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=11160158&query_hl=3&itool=pubmed_docsum
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=9802890&query_hl=3&itool=pubmed_docsum
The last study is the most relevant in this discussion, as it
identifies specific alleles which are associated with this resistance.
Specifically the HLA-A*6802 and HLA-B18 alleles (these are alleles of
the MHC class I genes, which our bodies use to identify pathogens).
These studies suggest (and the data is pretty strong today), that in
areas with high levels of HIV transmission, that selection has occurred
among those most at risk (i.e. prostitutes), and as a result, these
protective alleles have now been selected for in that population.
Textbook-perfect case of natural selection.
A little more theoretical, but interesting none-the-less, is the
potential impact in Europe, where the delta-CCR5 mutation exists. This
mutation prevents HIV infection, and one would expect that this would
get enriched in the population if HIV were to become prevalent enough.
Given that CCR5 is an immnoregulatory receptor, selecting for people
who lack it could have some interesting outcomes on the way their
immune systems work:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=11477473&query_hl=7&itool=pubmed_docsum
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=9806029&query_hl=7&itool=pubmed_docsum
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=9466996&query_hl=7&itool=pubmed_docsum
One of the more interesting, but more out there, ideas is the potential
impact of HIV should it enter our genomes and begin to transmit
vertically. This has happened before - our genome is full of
retroviurses which have done this - some cells even begin to produce
virus-like particles under stress (these "viruses" are called "human
endogenous retroviruses"). We know that this type of event can lead to
speciation - the Australian Rock Wallaby is currently undergoing a
ERV-mediated speciation event - so its interesting to postulate what
could happen to humans if HIV were to incorporate. We could be looking
at the driving factor behind the next big step in human evolution.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=16093697&query_hl=13&itool=pubmed_DocSum
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=16093684&query_hl=13&itool=pubmed_DocSum
Of course, at this moment HIV is not able to enter the cells required
for this to happen (i.e. the cells which give rise to sperm/eggs,
sperm/eggs themselves, or the earlier stages of gastulation), so at
this point this is nothing more then speculation...
Bryan
Ye Old One
Stop advertising.
>
>> >
>> >Number Two the HIV retrovirus connection with evolutionary theory is a
>> >fabrication in order to generate research funding for ridiculous grant
>> >ideas.
>>
>> Nonononoono.
>> First, HIV mutated into a form that affected humans. That is evolution
>> in action.
>
>OK, fine. Please elaborate on this. Any references in the literature
>you are referring to here?
You can start with "The causes and consequences of HIV evolution"
Rambaut A, Posasa D, Crandall KA & Holmes EC (2004) Nature Reviews
Genetics 5, 52-61.
>Any nucleotide sequencing studies?
I would imagine there are lots.
>What did
>the HIV mutate from, and in what host species are you referring to?
Non-human primates.
>When did this happen? Let's get into it.
When? Well it didn't happen once, it has happened many times. Earliest
know case is in the 1930s but there may have been many earlier than
that.
>
>> >
>> >Number Three: there will never be a real cure found because there was
>> >never a real disease caused by HIV which is a benign passenger
>> >retrovirus which has been present in the human genome for millennia.
>> >AIDS is a real syndrome; however it is simply not caused by HIV.
>>
>> If you could prove that you would be on the fast track to a Nobel
>> prize for medicine.
>>
>
>Not really, Kary Mullis who already won a Nobel Prize (for inventing
>PCR) has been saying the above for 20 years. It's obvious to any
>high school kid.
So, it seems, is creationism in your country :(
>
>>
>> You see you have a basic problem, you are going against many years of
>> observation and experimentation. People do not get AIDS without first
>> having an HIV infection.
>>
>
>Yes this is a commonly believed myth which is quickly dispeleed once
>youread Gallo's original article in 1984 associated with the famous
>NIH press conference with Nargaret Heckler that HIV was the cause of
>AIDS. He could not demonstrate HIV in all AIDS patients as you can
>read for yourself. This hasn't changed after 20 years.
Actually, yes it has. 20 years is a long time in HIV research.
>
>
>Gallo RC, Salahuddin SZ, Popovic M, et al. Frequent Detection and
>Isolation of Cytopathic Retroviruses (HTLV-III) from Patients with AIDS
>and at Risk for AIDS. Science 1984;224:500-502.
>
>http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=6200936&dopt=Abstract
>
>abstract:
>
>Retroviruses HTLV-III were isolated from a total of 48 subjects
>including 18 of 21 patients with pre-AIDS, three of four clinically
>normal mothers of juveniles with AIDS, 26 of 72 adult and juvenile
>patients with AIDS, and from one of 22 normal male homosexual subjects.
>No HTLV-III was detected in or isolated from 115 normal heterosexual
>subjects. Other data show that serum samples from a high proportion of
>AIDS patients contain antibodies to HTLV-III. That these new isolates
>are members of the HTLV family but differ from the previous isolates
>known as HTLV-I and HTLV-II is indicated by their morphological,
>biological, and immunological characteristics. These results and those
>reported elsewhere in this issue suggest that HTLV-III may be the
>primary cause of AIDS.
>> >
>> >Number Four: My recent two articles which discuss data presented in
>> >JAMA Sept 27, prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that HIV does not cause
>> >AIDS.
>>
>> Please provide evidence for this startling claim.
>
>Just click here and read,
No. You provide it here. This is where we are talking, a usenet
newsgroup no someones "blog".
> if Rupert can do it so can you :
>
>http://barnesworld.blogs.com/barnes_world/2006/10/by_jeffrey_dach.html
>
>http://barnesworld.blogs.com/barnes_world/2006/11/the_final_nail_.html
>
>>
>> This is usenet, post your evidence here.
>
>This is the internet, use it.
This is usenet, post your evidence here.
>
>> >
>> >Please email me on the contact page of my web site if you need any
>> >further explanation.
>>
>> No. This is usenet. Post your evidence here and it will be looked at.
>
>No, this is the internet, use it.
This is usenet, post your evidence here.
>
>> >
>> >regards from www.drdach.com
>>
>> Stop advertising.
>
>Bob, we had a long discussion about this, remember? Posting one's
>personal web site is a common practice and is not advertising.
Yes it is. Stop it.
> It
>merely shows the individual has an identity and not an anonymous web
>surfer, the lowest life-form on the internet.
>
>Regards from www.drdach.com
Stop advertising.
--
Bob.
Friar Broccoli
DavidT
> give it a rest Krish, you were just destroyed.
He has a valid point, Jeffery.
You have lied about the bar charts in Fig 2 from the Rodriguez paper.
Firstly you say they are all normally distributed, which even a school
boy doing maths could tell you is untrue, the distribution being
markedly skewed for the 2 charts with highest viral loads.
Secondly you have said the median is identical for all 5 charts. Each
chart actually states what the median CD4 count is for each Viral load
grouping. For those with the lowest viral load decline at a median of
37 CD4 cells per year, and those with the highest viral loads decline
at 52 cells per year.
You get out a pencil, draw a smudgy line down the charts and conclude
this proves HIV does not cause AIDS.
F*ing brilliant!
drdach
drdach replies:
The anonymous internet surfer from misc.aids is back lurking in T.O and
spewing obnoxious 4 letter words. Apparently he thinks he's back at
misc.aids where 4 letter words are the norm.
The jpeg for figure 2 JAMA Sept 27 is there for anyone to see. Even a
high school student can see those charts have all the same center bars
on a gaussian distribution. They all line up with simple pencil line
drawn with a simple ruler. That's all it takes to show the truth to
the world.
Enjoy the wrinkles:
http://barnesworld.blogs.com/barnes_world/2006/11/the_final_nail_.html
Maybe you need to learn simple subtraction: 52 minus 37 is 15 cells.
Not enough difference to account for even a good case of toenail
fungus.
Go back to your monkeys and goats, Dr. veterinary pathologist from
Edinburgh, Scotland. The caged monkeys will no doubt be more
agreable with your nonsense.
regards from www.drdach.com
drdach
Sorry not sure what your numbers represent.
Could you clarify the numbers and where they came from please?
regards drdach
noctiluca
Grandbank wrote:
> Marc wrote:
> >
> >
> > That was part of my thinking in insisting that Jeff accept this
> > as being on-topic within this group.... he has also insisted that
> > this be made as it's own thread and Ye Old One kindly enough
> > started the thread for us according to Jeff's rules.
> >
> > Now if we could just have SeanPit back for a while to see
> > how he feels about the HIV question... (I can't believe what
> > I'm wishing for, but I really feel this way!)
> >
> > (signed) marc
>
>
>
> I think it goes to the existence of a syndrome I call "The Denial of
> Specialization".
> It is a kind of mental autointoxication that leads the sufferer to
> view himself as a Renaissance Man - to imagine that the human knowledge
> base is still small enough that insight into subjects that have become
> very complex technically can still be gained by untutored inspiration,
> as often as not driven by ideological or emotional or political need.
I think this is a worthy insight. It dovetails nicely with the
Dunning/Kreuger observations. I have always wondered if the increasing
specialization of the sciences (as well as many other technical fields)
will lead to increasing societal fragmentation. Your "Denial" is
perhaps a symptom of the fears of impotence that widening knowledge gap
engenders.
Is this observation your own - i.e. can I read of it elsewhere and do I
owe attribution to anyone else?
> Note that I do not deny the possibility of outside insight, I only
> demand the reconciliation of such claims with the literature of the
> specialty.
A sensible provision.
> This syndrome is tragically common in clinical professions (like my
> own, or Dr.D's) where a gussied up trade school education is sometimes
> mistaken for scientific insight.
Can you elaborate as to your experience with this phenomenon? If not I
understand.
Robert
> KP
Friar Broccoli
Sure. You said:
>>>>>>>From physician to biologist, how many reported cases are there of the
>>>>>> occurrence of AIDS in patients with NO HIV virus?
>>>>
>>>>> drdach: About 4,000 in the medical literature. This is well known.
Since there are known to be AT LEAST 40,000,000 AIDS cases
worldwide that's 4,000/40,000,000 => 1/10,000.
Again, since misdiagnosis is not uncommon for essentially all
medical conditions (due, for example, to identical symptoms from
different causes), a reasonable interpretation of your 4,000
AIDS patients without HIV is simply that 4,000 patients were
misdiagnosed.
Consequently, your 4,000 AIDS patients without HIV doesn't appear
to be evidence of anything.
noctiluca
Hmmm...and all it takes to see the truth of "intelligent design" is to
look at the world around us, right?
At least the depth of your reasoning is consistent.
> Enjoy the wrinkles:
>
> http://barnesworld.blogs.com/barnes_world/2006/11/the_final_nail_.html
>
> Maybe you need to learn simple subtraction: 52 minus 37 is 15 cells.
> Not enough difference to account for even a good case of toenail
> fungus.
>
> Go back to your monkeys and goats, Dr. veterinary pathologist from
> Edinburgh, Scotland. The caged monkeys will no doubt be more
> agreable with your nonsense.
Your inflated self opinion is exceeded only by your need to disparage
others.
Robert
> regards from www.drdach.com
rupert....@gmail.com
drdach wrote:
[snip]
> Posting one's
> personal web site is a common practice and is not advertising. It
> merely shows the individual has an identity
Identity has nothing to do with whether or not you answer HTTP GETs. I
use my real name on my posts, as do several others in this group.
Almost all the rest are pseudonymous, which is not the same thing as
anonymous.
The ident service usually listens on port 113:
Connecting To www.drdach.com...Could not open connection to the host,
on port 113: Connect failed
Why will your server tell us you exist? Are you anonymous?
>and not an anonymous web
> surfer, the lowest life-form on the internet.
Lower than spammers, phishers and child pornographers? Those are some
interesting ethical standards you've got there. Many of the Federalist
Papers were published anonymously or pseudonynmously. Do you consider
your Founding Fathers to be low life forms? What difference does the
internet make?
rupert....@gmail.com
drdach wrote:
> rupert....@gmail.com wrote:
> > drdach wrote:
[big snip]
> > > A quick note about the Rodriguez / Lederman comments: "What our work
> > > really means" which was the link your new friend provided, and which
> > > you appear to have accepted at face value:
> > >
> > > The web post by Rodriguez and Lederman makes an unprecedented and
> > > childish defense of their work which does not fit the data they present
> > > in the article, nor the conclusions they draw in their article, nor the
> > > conclusions of the accompanying JAMA editorial by Dr. Henry. See this
> > > discussion:
> >
> > Perhaps they should have skipped the statistics and just said it was
> > intuitively obvious. End of story, right?
>
> When it comes down to where the rubber meets the road, all knowledge
> goes through that step during processing. It is intuitively obvious
> that ......
> (intentionally left blank)
Why do you give out free thyroid scans at your seminars? Isn't it
intuitively obvious to you that someone does or does not have a thyroid
problem?
Your statement is incorrect. At some point, all knowledge comes down to
"either my senses are deceiving me, or ...". This is why science relies
on replication. It allows us to strengthen the conclusion to "either
everyone's senses are deceiving them, or ...". Neither intuition nor
obviousness are involved, just an agreement that if everyone's senses
deceive them all the time, science is pretty pointless, so let's assume
they don't and get on with it.
rupert....@gmail.com
rupert....@gmail.com wrote:
> drdach wrote:
> [snip]
> > Posting one's
> > personal web site is a common practice and is not advertising. It
> > merely shows the individual has an identity
>
> Identity has nothing to do with whether or not you answer HTTP GETs. I
> use my real name on my posts, as do several others in this group.
> Almost all the rest are pseudonymous, which is not the same thing as
> anonymous.
>
> The ident service usually listens on port 113:
> Connecting To www.drdach.com...Could not open connection to the host,
> on port 113: Connect failed
> Why will your server tell us you exist? Are you anonymous?
Should be:
Why won't your server tell us you exist? Are you anonymous?
rupert....@gmail.com
It would seem to me that a veterinary pathologist is *more* qualified
to speak on this subject than an MD peddling the fountain of youth.
>
> regards from www.drdach.com
Jeff Lanam
>
>A little more theoretical, but interesting none-the-less, is the
>potential impact in Europe, where the delta-CCR5 mutation exists. This
>mutation prevents HIV infection, and one would expect that this would
>get enriched in the population if HIV were to become prevalent enough.
>Given that CCR5 is an immnoregulatory receptor, selecting for people
>who lack it could have some interesting outcomes on the way their
>immune systems work:
I saw a program on the Discovery Health channel about this. An
analysis of the neighboring genes to delta-CCR5 indicated that it
arose about 700 years ago, during the Black Death. Researchers found
a town north of London that was affected by the Great Plague of 1663
but had a high incidence of survival of the plague. They found that
delta-CCR5 appeared with a greater than average frequency among
people with ancestry dating back to the 17th century.
Found it: Secrets of the Great Plague
http://health.discovery.com/tuneins/great_plague.html?clik=netmain_feat1
Chris Noble
In recent millennia there has been this advance called mathematics.
Concepts such as mean and median are commonly used to describe sets of
data. What are the "center bars" that you refer to? The medians are
given in the figure and are not at all related to your hand drawn
"center bars". Are the authors lying? Perhaps you meant the mean but if
you want you can pull out the data from the bar charts and calculate a
mean from this. The means are aslo nothing like your "center bars".
If you can't describe your mathematical methods then I can only
conclude that you started with your initial premise that HIV does not
cause AIDS and then saw the "center bars" that you desired. Your
analysis is so transparently stupid that it is a wonder that even
fellow "rethinkers" find it at all credible.
I eagerly await the publication of your insightful analysis complete
with handdrawn "center bars" in JAMA.
>
> Enjoy the wrinkles:
>
> http://barnesworld.blogs.com/barnes_world/2006/11/the_final_nail_.html
>
> Maybe you need to learn simple subtraction: 52 minus 37 is 15 cells.
> Not enough difference to account for even a good case of toenail
> fungus.
Once again all patients were HIV positive. The vast majority had
significant CD4 cell depletion.
The major determining factor is HIV infection.
Chris Noble
Chris Noble
Don't take his words for the 4,621 figure. The only source for that
figure is Peter Duesberg who denies that HIV causes AIDS. He uses his
own definition of AIDS and includes people that would never be
diagnosed as AIDS. As you rightly point out even is these people really
were indistinguisahble from immune suppression cause by HIV then they
are also a tiny, tiny fraction of all cases of AIDS caused by HIV.
Chris Noble
drdach
Its not polite to ascribe statements to another person that have not
been made by that other person. Are you an internet bully? That's what
internet bullies usually do.
>
> Why did you fail to respond to my main point
> that 1/10,000 AIDS cases have simply been
> misdiagnosed?
The numbers you quote are incorrect. Which countries have the 40
million AIDS cases you are referring to? To what data sources are you
referring ? Please elaborate.
The 4,000 cases are documented in the peer review medical literature.
This is quite different for the total cases in the population which is
not known.
The belief that all AIDS patients are HIV positive is a myth. The
first paper published by Gallo in 1984 showed HIV in high proportion
(but not all) of AIDS he examined. This has continued to be the case
over the past 22 years even though definitions have changed many times.
If we change the definition of AIDS to be the tautology that only HIV
patients can be said to have AIDS, and all others have one of 29
underlying diseases which make up the syndrome, then you are quite
correct in making the statement: All AIDS patients must be HIV positive
or they are not AIDS patients. But this is a tautology.
Read Gallo's original article from 1984 associated with the famous
NIH press conference with Margaret Heckler that HIV was the cause of
AIDS. He could not demonstrate HIV in all AIDS patients as you can
read for yourself. This hasn't changed after 20 years.
Gallo RC, Salahuddin SZ, Popovic M, et al. Frequent Detection and
Isolation of Cytopathic Retroviruses (HTLV-III) from Patients with AIDS
and at Risk for AIDS. Science 1984;224:500-502.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&...
abstract:
Retroviruses HTLV-III (HIV) were isolated from a total of 48 subjects
including 18 of 21 patients with pre-AIDS, three of four clinically
normal mothers of juveniles with AIDS, 26 of 72 adult and juvenile
patients with AIDS, and from one of 22 normal male homosexual subjects.
No HTLV-III was detected in or isolated from 115 normal heterosexual
subjects. Other data show that serum samples from a high proportion of
AIDS patients contain antibodies to HTLV-III. These results and those
reported elsewhere in this issue suggest that HTLV-III may be the
primary cause of AIDS.
Regards www.drdach.com
drdach
drdach replies:
The reader is at liberty to review the data and come to their own
conclusons. That includes you rupert, live and be well.
Click here to see the Gausian distribution charts which show no
significant left shift as viral load increases. You can come to your
own conclusions based on what you see.
http://barnesworld.blogs.com/barnes_world/2006/11/the_final_nail_.html
regards wwww.drdach.com
Marc
drdach wrote:
> The 4,000 cases are documented in the peer review medical literature.
> This is quite different for the total cases in the population which is
> not known.
Jeff... such a statement is best backed up with a citation
to at least an example of the literature you are quoting. It
doesn't have to be much more than the PubMed listing
of the title, journal citation and PMID.
I'd be interested to see what paper(s) you cite,
(signed) marc
.
Marc
Jeff Lanam wrote:
> On 8 Nov 2006 07:00:57 -0800, "Bryan Heit" <wart...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> >
> >A little more theoretical, but interesting none-the-less, is the
> >potential impact in Europe, where the delta-CCR5 mutation exists. This
> >mutation prevents HIV infection, and one would expect that this would
> >get enriched in the population if HIV were to become prevalent enough.
> >Given that CCR5 is an immnoregulatory receptor, selecting for people
> >who lack it could have some interesting outcomes on the way their
> >immune systems work:
>
> I saw a program on the Discovery Health channel about this. An
> analysis of the neighboring genes to delta-CCR5 indicated that it
> arose about 700 years ago, during the Black Death. Researchers found
> a town north of London that was affected by the Great Plague of 1663
> but had a high incidence of survival of the plague. They found that
> delta-CCR5 appeared with a greater than average frequency among
> people with ancestry dating back to the 17th century.
Way up near the top of this thread, I replied about how Yersinia
has been discounted with respect to CCR5-delta32 in several
studies. Population dynamics of how the allele was spread
throughout Europe include movement by the Vikings and so
if there is a Viking ancestry in that region it is a much more
likely source than selection by Plague. Also, note the idea
that much of the Plague was a haemorraghic fever virus.
There is a link to comments about Duncan and Scott's book
this in my earlier reply. It is possible that such a virus may
have selective pressure that favours CCR5-d32 but the
biology of smallpox makes more sense to a number of
researchers (including those I'm working on a manuscript
with on my Khazar - Ashkenazi / Viking model). Note also
that the MIT group has suggested no selection was needed
at all, just normal population movement and genetic drift.
(signed) marc
.
drdach
drdach replies:
Perhaps you would consider Gallo a more reliable source.
Read Gallo's original article from 1984 associated with the famous
NIH press conference with Margaret Heckler that HIV was the cause of
AIDS. He could not demonstrate HIV in all AIDS patients as you can
read for yourself.
Gallo RC, Salahuddin SZ, Popovic M, et al. Frequent Detection and
Isolation of Cytopathic Retroviruses (HTLV-III) from Patients with AIDS
and at Risk for AIDS. Science 1984;224:500-502.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&...
abstract:
Retroviruses HTLV-III (HIV) were isolated from a total of 48 subjects
including 18 of 21 patients with pre-AIDS, three of four clinically
normal mothers of juveniles with AIDS, 26 of 72 adult and juvenile
patients with AIDS, and from one of 22 normal male homosexual subjects.
No HTLV-III was detected in or isolated from 115 normal heterosexual
subjects. Other data show that serum samples from a high proportion of
AIDS patients contain antibodies to HTLV-III. These results and those
reported elsewhere in this issue suggest that HTLV-III may be the
primary cause of AIDS.
I must excuse myself here from the discussion and make the statement
for all to read that I am not going to continue making replies to Chris
Noble and David Thomson, who are old AIDS political activists and have
been doing this type of internet newsgroup mischief for many years. I
will be glad to discuss this topic with any one of the T.O. people.
Perhaps it would be best, at this point, that anyone interested in
pursuing this further respond either to the blog address mentioned
above or to my contact page on my web site.
More information can be obtained by viewing this video:
HIV = AIDS is this a Fact or a Fiction?
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4396856850556632563
regards from www.drdach.com
Grandbank
noctiluca wrote:
>
> I think this is a worthy insight. It dovetails nicely with the
> Dunning/Kreuger observations. I have always wondered if the increasing
> specialization of the sciences (as well as many other technical fields)
> will lead to increasing societal fragmentation. Your "Denial" is
> perhaps a symptom of the fears of impotence that widening knowledge gap
> engenders.
>
> Is this observation your own - i.e. can I read of it elsewhere and do I
> owe attribution to anyone else?
Well I just made that particular phrase up right then, but I'm sure the
idea isn't novel. I've observed pseudoscience for many years and it
seems to be a common phenomenon for people to follow a strict consensus
in *their* field and to ignore it in others.
>
> > Note that I do not deny the possibility of outside insight, I only
> > demand the reconciliation of such claims with the literature of the
> > specialty.
>
> A sensible provision.
>
> > This syndrome is tragically common in clinical professions (like my
> > own, or Dr.D's) where a gussied up trade school education is sometimes
> > mistaken for scientific insight.
>
> Can you elaborate as to your experience with this phenomenon? If not I
> understand.
>
I'm thinking specifically of Dentistry (me), Medicine, Engineering, and
the like. Science based to be sure, but generally learned by rote, and
the resulting degree mistaken as a tool that permits in depth analysis
of far flung fields without deep academic exposure. Typical scenario
is the engineer/creationist - pick your favorite creationist institute
for examples.
On dental BB's (where a wide variety of things are discussed) I see the
same thing. Individuals who get remarkably anal about the most
esoteric of nuances in our literature will hand-wave away the entire
field of evolutionary biology as "biased" or "a religion" without ever,
even once in their whole life, having cracked a page of the primary
literature there.
KP
drdach
drdach replies:
Give it a rest Chris. These people are trained scientists and know a
gaussian distribution chart when they see one. Go back to your MRI
scanner and pull out the oxygen tank from the core.
The reader is at liberty to review the charts and come to their own
conclusions:
The data charts can be seen here: Click on the chart to expand:
http://barnesworld.blogs.com/barnes_world/2006/11/the_final_nail_.html
At this point I am announcing to the T.O. group that I am no longer
going to reply to Chris Noble or David Thomson. As posted above, they
are long standing AIDS political activists who have spent years doing
this. They usually hangout at misc.aids and have been following me
around. I suppose I should be flattered that I get all this atttention.
But I am not. I am merely a humble country doctor and have neither
the time or patience for them. So I bid you all farewell. Until the
next time...
Anyone interested in pursuing further discussions that are not spiked
by David Thomson or Chris Noble, please email me directly or at the
blog listed above.
Further information about the topic can be see at this video:
noctiluca
Thanks for your response. I agree with you that these ideas have been
around for awhile. As I said previously I have wondered and worried
about the phenomenon. I think that your point regarding specialization
offers some new angles.
Thanks again.
Robert
> KP
rupert....@gmail.com
See the question mark at the end of his sentence (like this one)? He's
asking you if that's your position. If not, say so. You are remarkably
thin-skinned. It's probably a side effect of the anti-aging treatment.
> Are you an internet bully? That's what
> internet bullies usually do.
Actually, what internet bullies usually do is bring in information such
as a person's location and employment which have no relevance to the
debate, in an attempt to intimidate. If a person posts personal details
on his or her website and then repeatedly spam a newsgroup with the
URL, it's obviously not bullying to refer to it.
Chris Noble
Once again you completely misrepresent the study. Do you have a school
where you learn this or does it come naturally.
The first antibody tests were not as sensitive or specific as those
used today. Do you really think that they would be perfect right from
day 1?
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pubmed&pubmedid=2298875
HIV can be cultured from 100% of AIDS patients.
>
> I must excuse myself here from the discussion and make the statement
> for all to read that I am not going to continue making replies to Chris
> Noble and David Thomson, who are old AIDS political activists and have
> been doing this type of internet newsgroup mischief for many years. I
> will be glad to discuss this topic with any one of the T.O. people.
> Perhaps it would be best, at this point, that anyone interested in
> pursuing this further respond either to the blog address mentioned
> above or to my contact page on my web site.
The real point is that I have been following the HIV "rethinkers" for
several years and I know almost all their lies and misrepresentations.
Many of the same old tired refuted arguments keep on coming up time
after time.
In this respect HIV "rethinkers" strongly resemble evolution
"rethinkers". The same patterns of quote mining, selective citations
and misrepresentation is a common feature of both groups. There is also
a strong overlap between the two groups as DrQuach demonstrates. Many
prominent evolution "rethinkers" also "rethink" HIV.
I suspect that most readers of TO will also be able to recognise your
pseudoscientific twaddle for what it is. If you feel that your
brilliance is not being appreciated then stick to "rethinker" webblogs.
Chris Noble
drdach
> drdach wrote:
> > Friar Broccoli wrote:
> > > drdach wrote:
> > > > Friar Broccoli wrote:
> > > > > drdach wrote:
> > > > > > Jon G wrote:
> > > > > >>> drdach replies:
> > > > >
> > > > > >>> Number Three: there will never be a real cure found because there was
> > > > > >>> never a real disease caused by HIV which is a benign passenger
> > > > > >>> retrovirus which has been present in the human genome for millennia.
> > > > > >>> AIDS is a real syndrome; however it is simply not caused by HIV.
> > > > >
> > > > > >>>From physician to biologist, how many reported cases are there of the
> > > > > >> occurrence of AIDS in patients with NO HIV virus?
> > > > >
> > > > > > drdach: About 4,000 in the medical literature. This is well known.
> > > > >
> > > > > There are now over 40,000,000 cases worldwide, so this is
> > > > > 1/10,000. It looks like a person's immune system can collapse
> > > > > from other causes and then be misdiagnosed as AIDS.
> > > > >
> > > > > Are you suggesting that the HIV virus is completely harmless?
> > > > >
> > > > > [rest snipped]
> > >
> > >
> > > > chimpanzees.
> > >
> > > So you are suggesting that the vast majority of us
> > > who have the CCR5 receptor, are unimportant and
> > > should just be left to die because we are not well
> > > adapted?
> > >
> > > Why did you fail to respond to my main point
> > > that 1/10,000 AIDS cases have simply been
> > > misdiagnosed?
> >
> > Friar Broccoli wrote:
> > > drdach wrote:
> > > > Friar Broccoli wrote:
> > > > > drdach wrote:
> > > > > > Jon G wrote:
> > > > > >>> drdach replies:
> > > > >
> > > > > >>> Number Three: there will never be a real cure found because there was
> > > > > >>> never a real disease caused by HIV which is a benign passenger
> > > > > >>> retrovirus which has been present in the human genome for millennia.
> > > > > >>> AIDS is a real syndrome; however it is simply not caused by HIV.
> > > > >
> > > > > >>>From physician to biologist, how many reported cases are there of the
> > > > > >> occurrence of AIDS in patients with NO HIV virus?
> > > > >
> > > > > > drdach: About 4,000 in the medical literature. This is well known.
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > Are you suggesting that the HIV virus is completely harmless?
> > > > >
> > > > > [rest snipped]
> > >
> > >
> > > > chimpanzees.
> > >
> > > So you are suggesting that the vast majority of us
> > > who have the CCR5 receptor, are unimportant and
> > > should just be left to die because we are not well
> > > adapted?
> >
> > Its not polite to ascribe statements to another person that have not
> > been made by that other person.
>
> See the question mark at the end of his sentence (like this one)? He's
> asking you if that's your position. If not, say so. You are remarkably
> thin-skinned. It's probably a side effect of the anti-aging treatment.
>
Please provide the literature reference which states that having the
CCR5 receptor equates death from HIV. This is an incorrect assumption.
>
>
> [snp stuff about marc, since we made a truce ]
>
>
> > >
> > > Why did you fail to respond to my main point
> > > that 1/10,000 AIDS cases have simply been
> > > misdiagnosed?
> >
> > The numbers you quote are incorrect. Which countries have the 40
> > million AIDS cases you are referring to? To what data sources are you
> > referring ? Please elaborate.
Why do you fail to respond to the above request for elaboration?
Why do you not respond to the information in Gallo's article?
Regards www.drdach.com
Chris Noble
Your inability to give a straight answer to a simple question is very
telling. What do you mean by "center bar". The distributions are only
very roughly Gaussian. Even if the were perfectly Gaussian it would not
justify your "center bars" which are obviously not in the centre and
are neither the mean,mode or median of the distribution.
Anybody can look at the figures and see that for the <500 copies/ml
distribution there is far more black ink to the right of your line than
to the left. You have to be extremely deluded to claim that your line
is in the centre of the distribution. The figure also has the median
printed on it, -37.3, which is nowhere near your "center bar".
It should be a simple matter for you to describe the mathematical
procedure that you used to calculate your "center bars". The fact that
you choose to insult me rather than address the question demontsrates
your lack of integrity.
> The reader is at liberty to review the charts and come to their own
> conclusions:
>
> The data charts can be seen here: Click on the chart to expand:
>
> http://barnesworld.blogs.com/barnes_world/2006/11/the_final_nail_.html
>
> At this point I am announcing to the T.O. group that I am no longer
> going to reply to Chris Noble or David Thomson. As posted above, they
> are long standing AIDS political activists who have spent years doing
> this. They usually hangout at misc.aids and have been following me
> around. I suppose I should be flattered that I get all this atttention.
> But I am not. I am merely a humble country doctor and have neither
> the time or patience for them. So I bid you all farewell. Until the
> next time...
>
I am not an "AIDS political activist". I am someone that get annoyed by
pseudoscience. HIV "rethinking" is one branch of pseudoscience that has
the possibility of resulting in thousands of unnecessary deaths.
If you do not want to answer diificult questions then restrict yourself
to "rethinker" websites. You'll find lots of friends that will
credulously believe whatever bullshit "center bars" you come up with
and will appreciate your true brilliance.
Chris Noble
Steve Schaffner
> Note also
> that the MIT group has suggested no selection was needed
> at all, just normal population movement and genetic drift.
That would be us. We're right, of course. Note, by the way,
that it wasn't just the MIT group: the authors on our paper
(PLoS Biol 3(11):e378) included one of the senior authors on
the paper that originally proposed a recent origin or and selection
for the CCR5 mutation.
--
Steve Schaffner s...@broad.mit.edu
Immediate assurance is an excellent sign of probable lack of
insight into the topic. Josiah Royce
drdach
> [snp nonsense]
>
>
>
> Chris Noble
Chris is a political activist who has been at this for years.
He follows me around the internet like a shadow.
It is not my intention to debate with him in this forum. So I wont.
Any reader has the liberty of looking at the data and coming to their
own conclusions about Sept 27 JAMA : Enjoy the wrinkles: Click on the
jpeg to enlarge:
data for Figure 2
http://barnesworld.blogs.com/barnes_world/2006/11/the_final_nail_.html
data for figure 3
http://barnesworld.blogs.com/barnes_world/2006/10/by_jeffrey_dach.html
jeffrey dach md
www.drdach.com
Chris Noble
What is your definition of a political activist? Somebody who points
out your pseudoscientific nonsense.
> He follows me around the internet like a shadow.
I followed you over here because Marc complained about MHA sending
their loons to TO.
http://groups.google.com/group/misc.health.aids/msg/10c4401a78922f70
It appears that your brilliance has also gone unrecognised at TO.
> It is not my intention to debate with him in this forum. So I wont.
It is apparently your intention to avoid answering any difficult
questions. You cannot provide any mathematical justification for your
"center bars" because there is none.
The median CD4+ cell losses are given for each of the groups based on
HIV viral load. They do not correspond to your hand drawn "center
bars".
Chris Noble
Marc
> drdach wrote:
> > Chris Noble wrote:
> > > Friar Broccoli wrote:
> > I must excuse myself here from the discussion and make the statement
> > for all to read that I am not going to continue making replies to Chris
> > Noble and David Thomson, who are old AIDS political activists and have
> > been doing this type of internet newsgroup mischief for many years. I
> > will be glad to discuss this topic with any one of the T.O. people.
> > Perhaps it would be best, at this point, that anyone interested in
> > pursuing this further respond either to the blog address mentioned
> > above or to my contact page on my web site.
Jeff...
Please hear me out on one thing.
This newsgroup is archived in a neutral way - perhaps it will
all disappear at some point when something crashes but it
is more than likely going to be there years from now. Blogs
and web sites are elsewhere and not going to be supported
and kept available for years to come, are they? Messages
that we take outside this group and put elsewhere will be
subject to whatever ISP supports the site, could be edited
and altered, need to be searched for in different ways and are
just not where this forum is taking place. This newsgroup is
available via many pathways - Google Groups, various types
of newsreader packages etc. and this group has a specific
readership (as you are seeing) of lay people, various types
of professionals, net-kooks (you haven't met most of them yet
as you are still quite the newbie), students, IT types and many
people of faith. Please don't try to hijack the discussions here.
Also, don't let your baggage from previous discussions (or wars)
with specific people shut you down. Ignore someone if you don't
get along with them but at least make answers to questions if
questions are being asked - even if you answer a third party to
not have to reply to a specific person. The readers, lurkers and
casual visitors (and those who might read your comment months
months or even years from now) can judge is you are being
pestered by somebody, OK? Remember - you have chosen to
take the unorthodox position so you should expect a fight here.
> The real point is that I have been following the HIV "rethinkers" for
> several years and I know almost all their lies and misrepresentations.
> Many of the same old tired refuted arguments keep on coming up time
> after time.
>
> In this respect HIV "rethinkers" strongly resemble evolution
> "rethinkers". The same patterns of quote mining, selective citations
> and misrepresentation is a common feature of both groups. There is also
> a strong overlap between the two groups as DrQuach demonstrates. Many
> prominent evolution "rethinkers" also "rethink" HIV.
>
> I suspect that most readers of TO will also be able to recognise your
> pseudoscientific twaddle for what it is. If you feel that your
> brilliance is not being appreciated then stick to "rethinker" webblogs.
Chris...
Just on the side, I sent you an e-mail yesterday to comment
on something but am not at work today, if you replied there.
(Or if you didn't reply or even see it, it's not any great matter.
Also, if you ever get to visit the Parramatta area, stop in. )
Let's see if we can keep Jeff on the hook here, so to speak,
as there are HIV issues and also evolution, abiogenesis etc.
and if we can convert Jeff on one maybe we can do the other
as well and add him to the small list of those who have seen
the darwinian light here. Calling him funny names is a step
back at the moment, so I'll ask you and others to respect this
for now.... Ta. (SeanPit's been missing since I promised to
fire both barrels at him for being stupid, but I can't say that is
the reason or not... I also said if he could prove me wrong I
would resign my job and leave the field.)
After a rough introduction Jeff seems to have settled down a
bit and requested something of a truce so I for one have stopped
calling him "radio-gopher" and such and he did comment that
he was sorry for throwing details about me around. (Anyone who
didn't see that, go find it and visit the link Jeff posted that has a
picture of me giving my XIX Genetics Congress talk... my Ph.D
had yet to be awarded when I was introduced as "Dr. Buhler" I
had to say "not quite...", but the chairman said nice things and
news was in BioMedNet and the SMH about my talk afterwards.)
Jeff's calling me "Viking-Man" and "Fruit-Fly Killer", while trying
to be rude was also silly since Prof. Gerard Lucotte in Paris had
the Viking idea (and he graded my thesis, too), and whilst I gave
a Genetics talk, my background is Immunology. (Maybe he should
have called me anti-marc instead.)
So that's all put aside in a "truce" now. Let's kick back a bit
and if Jeff will keep the debate here we will do so under the
truce for the time being. We have two birds lined up here
and let's give T.O. a good shot at it. This could be history.
Also, two passages in this thread are PoTM nominated so
far - appropriately not seconded IMHO - but perhaps this
thread can generate a more worthy meta-PoTM debating
the meta-data in the paper that seems to have started it.
Jeff -
1) do you agree now that HIV in a number of ways is
quite on-topic in this group?
2) will you keep the debate here? and can you move
the webpage link to your Google Group Profile so that
might make others happier? Ta.
(signed) marc
.
Nic
drdach wrote:
<snip>
> The belief that all AIDS patients are HIV positive is a myth.
Why use the word "myth", if all you really mean is "not an absolute"?
> The
> first paper published by Gallo in 1984 showed HIV in high proportion
> (but not all) of AIDS he examined. This has continued to be the case
> over the past 22 years even though definitions have changed many times.
> If we change the definition of AIDS to be the tautology that only HIV
> patients can be said to have AIDS, and all others have one of 29
> underlying diseases which make up the syndrome, then you are quite
> correct in making the statement: All AIDS patients must be HIV positive
> or they are not AIDS patients. But this is a tautology.
Just wanted to comment that tautology is not a valid critisism here.
That is how medical science usually progresses: getting by with
syndrome names until such time as a mechanism is discovered, and
thereafter preferring words that uniquely identify a desease mechanism,
even if is not coextensive with the original syndrome name.
<snip>
Chris Noble
Marc wrote:
<snip>
> Calling him funny names is a step
> back at the moment, so I'll ask you and others to respect this
> for now....
<snip>
Point taken. I generally try to avoid this. I stopped using the term
"HIV Denial" because although it is in my view a fairly accurate
description most "rethinkers" conflate it with Holocaust denial and
take offence. Or perhaps more accurately they get political mileage
out of it by pretending that they are being accused of Holocaust
Denial. The use of the term is generally unproductive for any sort of
debate.
I shouldn't provide an excuse for Dach to avoid answering my questions.
Chris Noble
rupert....@gmail.com
Why? It's absolutely irrelevant to the point I was making. You are
whining about impoliteness when all Friar Broccoli did was to ask you
to clarify your position.
>
> >
> >
> > [snp stuff about marc, since we made a truce ]
> >
> >
> > > >
> > > > Why did you fail to respond to my main point
> > > > that 1/10,000 AIDS cases have simply been
> > > > misdiagnosed?
> > >
> > > The numbers you quote are incorrect. Which countries have the 40
> > > million AIDS cases you are referring to? To what data sources are you
> > > referring ? Please elaborate.
>
> Why do you fail to respond to the above request for elaboration?
Because that's not my argument.
Why would I? Perhaps if you learned to quote properly you wouldn't get
confused about who was making which argument.
>
> Regards www.drdach.com
Ye Old One
enriched this group when s/he wrote:
>The real point is that I have been following the HIV "rethinkers" for
>several years and I know almost all their lies and misrepresentations.
>Many of the same old tired refuted arguments keep on coming up time
>after time.
>
>In this respect HIV "rethinkers" strongly resemble evolution
>"rethinkers". The same patterns of quote mining, selective citations
>and misrepresentation is a common feature of both groups. There is also
>a strong overlap between the two groups as DrQuach demonstrates. Many
>prominent evolution "rethinkers" also "rethink" HIV.
>
>I suspect that most readers of TO will also be able to recognise your
>pseudoscientific twaddle for what it is. If you feel that your
>brilliance is not being appreciated then stick to "rethinker" webblogs.
>
>Chris Noble
What I really cannot understand is why people want to deny HIV? Why do
so many people think they know better than real scientists?
--
Bob.
DavidT
> The anonymous internet surfer from misc.aids is back lurking in T.O and
> spewing obnoxious 4 letter words. Apparently he thinks he's back at
> misc.aids where 4 letter words are the norm.
> The jpeg for figure 2 JAMA Sept 27 is there for anyone to see.
The unadulterated data are in JAMA for everyone to see. I am sure they
would rather see that, with calculated medians for each group and
interquartile ranges, rather than having to rely on your wall-eyed
interpretation and pencil smudges from a badly scanned jpeg of a
dog-eared paper.
> Even a high school student can see those charts have all the same center bars
> on a gaussian distribution. They all line up with simple pencil line
> drawn with a simple ruler. That's all it takes to show the truth to
> the world.
You have a rather inflated sense of self importance when it comes to
revealing what you term "the truth to the world".
> Maybe you need to learn simple subtraction: 52 minus 37 is 15 cells.
> Not enough difference to account for even a good case of toenail
> fungus.
Maybe you need a calculator as well as a new ruler, doctor.
Over 10 years, the CD4 loss in the high viral load group would amount
to 520 cells.
The loss in the low viral load group would be 370 cells.
Assuming each person starts with a normal number of cells (say 800),
where do you think that leaves them 10 years down the line?
I'll help you as your math is a bit suspect..... the high viral load
group would have a CD4 count of only 280, the low viral load group have
a count of 430.
In clinical terms these are significant differences, not that you'd
know seeing as how you have never looked after AIDS cases.
I notice you have studiously avoided mentioning Fig 1 from the paper.
For those who cannot see the data, I will recap: It estimates annual
CD4 cell loss in patients according to presenting viral load. The
groups are split according to viral load. Those with <500 viral
copies/ml lose 20 cells per year and those with viral loads >40 000
lose 80 cells per year.
How do you explain that, doctor??
Perhaps you can stop pretending to your denialist chums at Barnesworld
that there is no difference between the groups.
The study authors state that there is a clear correlation between the
magnitude of viraemia and the rate of CD4 cell loss. What is not clear
is that on an individual basis this correlation holds true and can be
used to make predicitions about CD4 loss in any particular individual.
You are a doctor, no?
Perhaps an analogy might be helpful. I'll try and make it simple.
High blood sugar is not a good thing (think diabetes). However, in a
single individual, the height of their glucose at first presentation
does not necessarily accurately predict or determine long term outcome
or development of complications. (You might need other markers to
determine this, like glycosylated haemoglobin).
Marc
Steve Schaffner wrote:
> "Marc" <marcb...@aapt.net.au> writes:
>
> > Note also
> > that the MIT group has suggested no selection was needed
> > at all, just normal population movement and genetic drift.
>
> That would be us. We're right, of course. Note, by the way,
> that it wasn't just the MIT group: the authors on our paper
> (PLoS Biol 3(11):e378) included one of the senior authors on
> the paper that originally proposed a recent origin or and selection
> for the CCR5 mutation.
Hi Steve...
Yeah... I wasn't going into details of course, but am still
interested in looking at some of our samples with the
sort of haplotypes your group selected and was talking
with Jeremy Martinson earlier today about this. A lack of
selection is really a surprise when pox viruses often have
chemokine-type mechanisms at work, and smallpox has
a good potential role that way. The argument by Scott and
Duncan about the Black Death and Plague makes sense
but while the biology of ebola-type viruses may allow for
effects with regard to chemokine receptors it isn't the sort
of candidate that smallpox is. (I can't see that anybody
will let us test this with the remaining smallpox stocks.)
Are you so sure your group is right that we should have
a wager of a pint of amber, foamy fluid on this?
(signed) marc
Marc
DavidT wrote:
...... snip
> You are a doctor, no?
Gee, I hope Jeff doesn't reply with something about
you being from a country somewhere or having some
specific career .... albeit true or not.
I hope he can just reply to the points you make.
> Perhaps an analogy might be helpful. I'll try and make it simple.
> High blood sugar is not a good thing (think diabetes). However, in a
> single individual, the height of their glucose at first presentation
> does not necessarily accurately predict or determine long term outcome
> or development of complications. (You might need other markers to
> determine this, like glycosylated haemoglobin).
A reasonable question - will it get an appropriate answer?
(signed) marc
.
DavidT
Marc wrote:
> Gee, I hope Jeff doesn't reply with something about
> you being from a country somewhere or having some
> specific career .... albeit true or not.
He has been scouring the net to try and find my real identity.
He hasn't got a clue, something which clearly annoys him. First he
thought I was a clerical officer on an Infectious Diseases ward, then I
became a computer programmer, now I am meant to be a veterinary
pathologist in Scotland.
> I hope he can just reply to the points you make.
I doubt it, judging on past experience.
Marc
DavidT wrote:
> Marc wrote:
> > Gee, I hope Jeff doesn't reply with something about
> > you being from a country somewhere or having some
> > specific career .... albeit true or not.
>
> He has been scouring the net to try and find my real identity.
> He hasn't got a clue, something which clearly annoys him. First he
> thought I was a clerical officer on an Infectious Diseases ward, then I
> became a computer programmer, now I am meant to be a veterinary
> pathologist in Scotland.
You accent doesn't sound scottish. Do you follow the rugby?
A picture. He needs your picture! (He found mine!)
You have to wonder if computer printouts are pasted
up and down the walls of his apartment like in the
various cop shows, or is that a bit too creepy?
(signed) marc
DavidT
Marc wrote:
> You accent doesn't sound scottish. Do you follow the rugby?
Ay wis rait scunnered by the sassenachs victory a't rugby league oor
the Ozzies, but their pasting a't union by tha Kiwis made up for it!
(Being neither English nor Scottish but colonial in origin, I'm an
"anyone but England" type, especially with regard to the rugby).
However, cricket wise - Let's keep the Ashes! Ozzies can go to h3ll!
>You have to wonder if computer printouts are pasted
> up and down the walls of his apartment like in the
> various cop shows, or is that a bit too creepy?
No - it has an uncanny ring of truth about it.
And I understand he pastes your emails/[phone numbers around the
internet too..
Bob Pease
dear "Doctor" Daft
PLONK!!!
RJ P
Don Cates
>
>rupert....@gmail.com wrote:
>> drdach wrote:
>> > DavidT wrote:
>> > > drdach wrote:
>> > > > give it a rest Krish, you were just destroyed.
>> > >
>> > > He has a valid point, Jeffery.
>> > >
>> > > You have lied about the bar charts in Fig 2 from the Rodriguez paper.
>> > >
>> > > Firstly you say they are all normally distributed, which even a school
>> > > boy doing maths could tell you is untrue, the distribution being
>> > > markedly skewed for the 2 charts with highest viral loads.
>> > >
>> > > Secondly you have said the median is identical for all 5 charts. Each
>> > > chart actually states what the median CD4 count is for each Viral load
>> > > grouping. For those with the lowest viral load decline at a median of
>> > > 37 CD4 cells per year, and those with the highest viral loads decline
>> > > at 52 cells per year.
>> > >
>> > > You get out a pencil, draw a smudgy line down the charts and conclude
>> > > this proves HIV does not cause AIDS.
>> > > F*ing brilliant!
>> >
>> > drdach replies:
>> >
>> > The anonymous internet surfer from misc.aids is back lurking in T.O and
>> > spewing obnoxious 4 letter words. Apparently he thinks he's back at
>> > misc.aids where 4 letter words are the norm.
>> >
>> > The jpeg for figure 2 JAMA Sept 27 is there for anyone to see. Even a
>> > high school student can see those charts have all the same center bars
>> > on a gaussian distribution. They all line up with simple pencil line
>> > drawn with a simple ruler. That's all it takes to show the truth to
>> > the world.
>> >
>> > Enjoy the wrinkles:
>> >
>> > http://barnesworld.blogs.com/barnes_world/2006/11/the_final_nail_.html
>> >
>> > Maybe you need to learn simple subtraction: 52 minus 37 is 15 cells.
>> > Not enough difference to account for even a good case of toenail
>> > fungus.
>> >
>> > Go back to your monkeys and goats, Dr. veterinary pathologist from
>> > Edinburgh, Scotland. The caged monkeys will no doubt be more
>> > agreable with your nonsense.
>>
>> It would seem to me that a veterinary pathologist is *more* qualified
>> to speak on this subject than an MD peddling the fountain of youth.
>>
>>
>>
>> >
>> > regards from www.drdach.com
>
>drdach replies:
>
>The reader is at liberty to review the data and come to their own
>conclusons. That includes you rupert, live and be well.
>
>Click here to see the Gausian distribution charts which show no
>significant left shift as viral load increases. You can come to your
>own conclusions based on what you see.
>
>http://barnesworld.blogs.com/barnes_world/2006/11/the_final_nail_.html
>
Well, I had a look at it. The line you drew is not in the middle of the
distributions (except for the middle graph), it is on the longest bar
(slightly to the left of that bar in the top two graphs) which would be
the mode, not the mean or median. The distribution of the values shows
a larger number to the right of your line in the top two graphs, a
fairly even number to either side in the middle graph and a larger
number to the left in the bottom two graphs. Whether this shift is
significant is a stats matter, but eyeballing it in comparison to
similar data sets I have seen it does look significant.
I really don't think you understood the graphs.
noctiluca
Marc - a quick two cents.
I am one of those following this thread. I find it quite interesting
and important in a number of ways, not the least of which is its clear
relevance to the psuedo-science of evolution denial.
My only frustration has been Dr. Dach's penchant for evasion and
digression into personal attacks.
I hope you guys do keep him on the hook. This is one of those rare
threads where empirical understanding and insight into the thought
processes of the opposition come without a lot of sifting through
nonsense and invective.
Thanks for your efforts so far.
And to Chris Noble and DavidT - thanks for stopping by the monkey house
and offering your perspectives on this issue. Take your shoes off, sit
a spell.
Robert
Marc
DavidT wrote:
> Marc wrote:
> > You accent doesn't sound scottish. Do you follow the rugby?
>
> Ay wis rait scunnered by the sassenachs victory a't rugby league oor
> the Ozzies, but their pasting a't union by tha Kiwis made up for it!
> (Being neither English nor Scottish but colonial in origin, I'm an
> "anyone but England" type, especially with regard to the rugby).
> However, cricket wise - Let's keep the Ashes! Ozzies can go to h3ll!
Did you hear how the aussies all got up on the podium in India
and the head of cricket there was in front of them so a gentle
hand on his back moved him aside to get out him of the photos?
Big mistake. India has the atom bomb and Australia doesn't.
> >You have to wonder if computer printouts are pasted
> > up and down the walls of his apartment like in the
> > various cop shows, or is that a bit too creepy?
>
> No - it has an uncanny ring of truth about it.
> And I understand he pastes your emails/[phone numbers around the
> internet too..
Here in this very newsgroup, with a link to my photo, too!
(Perhaps McDoufus will fax me his book disproving evolution.)
(signed) marc
Mark Isaak
On Wed, 08 Nov 2006 21:23:09 -0800, Marc wrote:
> ([...] I also said if he could prove me wrong I
> would resign my job and leave the field.)
To me, that is a warning sign of dogmatism. You have just given a major
incentive for *not* admitting that you are wrong, so if Pitman did prove
you wrong, you are less likely to see it. In science (in every field,
actually, but especially in science), admitting to being wrong is
something that should be rewarded. That's part of how science advances.
A better thing to say is, "If wrong, I would redirect my attention to the
new line of research you have opened up for me." Of course, that may have
been what you intended, in which case ignore this message.
--
Mark Isaak eciton (at) earthlink (dot) net
"Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of
the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are
being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and
exposing the country to danger." -- Hermann Goering
Mark Isaak
>[...]
> Any reader has the liberty of looking at the data and coming to their
> own conclusions about Sept 27 JAMA : Enjoy the wrinkles: Click on the
> jpeg to enlarge:
>
> data for Figure 2
>
> http://barnesworld.blogs.com/barnes_world/2006/11/the_final_nail_.html
>
> data for figure 3
>
> http://barnesworld.blogs.com/barnes_world/2006/10/by_jeffrey_dach.html
Dr. Dach,
You need new glasses. The graphs do not show what you say they show.
Marc
Mark Isaak wrote:
> Completely tangential to the original thread. . . .
>
> On Wed, 08 Nov 2006 21:23:09 -0800, Marc wrote:
> > ([...] I also said if he could prove me wrong I
> > would resign my job and leave the field.)
>
> To me, that is a warning sign of dogmatism. You have just given a major
> incentive for *not* admitting that you are wrong, so if Pitman did prove
> you wrong, you are less likely to see it. In science (in every field,
> actually, but especially in science), admitting to being wrong is
> something that should be rewarded. That's part of how science advances.
I see your point.
It is true that accepting my position was wrong would occur
only when the hair-splitting between Sean and myself was
resolved in some way independent of our attitudes, but if
such a basic issue was one I so misunderstood it would
be hard for me to justify staying in the field. (If you were
to accept god did not exist, would you still go to worship?)
I actually didn't make the statement directly to Sean but
in a different thread, and it is a simple point. If after nearly
30 years of working on genetics of the immune system and
in clinical immunology I didn't understand the biology of
lymphocytes at such a basic level, I should resign and
go do something I was more in tune with. And I would.
(I was trained as a high school science teacher and do
think about returning to a classroom for various reasons
like being able to move away from Sydney be it to the
states or just up the NSW coast where we might be able
to afford to buy a house. Of course, then I would hit the
evolution / creation debate head on, even if I was to go
and teach algebra!)
> A better thing to say is, "If wrong, I would redirect my attention to the
> new line of research you have opened up for me." Of course, that may have
> been what you intended, in which case ignore this message.
In a nutshell (since Sean and my debate went for months...)
Sean said that evolution occurred when B-cells mutated a bit
to improve their antibody binding. I agreed, but said that the
evolution of an immune response was not the same creature
as the process of evolution in population gene pools leading
to the transitions from one species to another. Mutations in
the B-cells are not mutations in the germline. My reason for
sticking to the point is that Sean's web page used the "flaw"
of evolution of antibodies only making antibodies to show that
new functions could not be gained by evolution, and my issue
is that he is switching the term "evolution" defined in one way
for it defined another way to argue a mistaken point.
Evolution of the immune system (germline) is not the same
as evolution of an immune response (somatic). That's it.
If I am wrong, then I will quite happily learn to make pizzas.
(signed) marc
.
Friar Broccoli
drdach wrote:
> Chris Noble wrote:
>> Friar Broccoli wrote:
>>> drdach wrote:
>>>> Friar Broccoli wrote:
>>>>> drdach wrote:
>>>>>> Friar Broccoli wrote:
>>>>>>> drdach wrote:
>>>>>>>> Jon G wrote:
>>>>>>>>>> drdach replies:
>>>>>>>>>>From physician to biologist, how many reported cases are there of the
>>>>>>>>> occurrence of AIDS in patients with NO HIV virus?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> drdach: About 4,000 in the medical literature. This is well known.
.
>>>
>>> Since there are known to be AT LEAST 40,000,000 AIDS cases
>>> worldwide that's 4,000/40,000,000 => 1/10,000.
>>>
>>> Again, since misdiagnosis is not uncommon for essentially all
>>> medical conditions (due, for example, to identical symptoms from
>>> different causes), a reasonable interpretation of your 4,000
>>> AIDS patients without HIV is simply that 4,000 patients were
>>> misdiagnosed.
>>>
>>> Consequently, your 4,000 AIDS patients without HIV doesn't appear
>>> to be evidence of anything.
.
> I must excuse myself here from the discussion and make the statement
> for all to read that I am not going to continue making replies to Chris
> Noble and David Thomson, who are old AIDS political activists and have
> been doing this type of internet newsgroup mischief for many years.
I don't know the history here, but imagine it has been hot.
> I will be glad to discuss this topic with any one of the T.O. people.
Good, then again, could you explain how 1 wrong diagnosis in
10,000 (or even 1 in 10) is evidence that HIV is not deadly?
> Perhaps it would be best, at this point, that anyone
> interested in pursuing this further respond either to the blog
> address mentioned above or to my contact page on my web site.
I would prefer to see your reply here, since I am a complete
know nothing, and would benefit from the views of others, even
if you do not respond to them.
Friar Broccoli
Robert Keith Elias, Quebec, Canada Email: EliasRK (of) gmail * com
Best programmer's & all purpose text editor: http://www.semware.com
--------- I consider ALL arguments in support of my views ---------
david ford
> The HIV/AIDS epedemic has already cost millions of lives and is likely
> to cost many millions more before a real cure is found.
>
> I would be interested, as one recent arrival on T.O. seems to be
> trying to hide from questions related to HIV/AIDS, in exploring up to
> date thinking on:-
>
> The evolution of the HIV/AIDS virus.
Meaning of "evolution"?
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
Meaning of "evolution"?
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=dford3-386md9F5lsv5cU1%40individual.net
> Its effects (real or possible) on the future evolution of man.
Meaning of "evolution"?
> Anyone who wants is more than happy to contribute but I'm really keen
> to see "drdach" put forward his views on the subject as he has put so
> much effort into trying to avoid Marc's questions over the last few
> days.
Grandbank
david ford wrote:
>
> Meaning of "evolution"?
>
Evident from context.
KP
Chris Noble
The similarities between HIV "rethinking" and evolution "rethinking"
are uncanny.
You see the same pattern of rhetoric and logical fallacies from both
crowds.
Quote mining.
Selective citation
Cherry picking of data.
Use of bad mathematics.
Strawman arguments.
Appeals to "common" sense - it's obvious.
Appeals to authority (at least of selected few that agree with them)
Willingness to believe that the vast majority of scientists are
ignorant and/or stupid sheep.
.....
An ability to recognise these common characteristics of pseudoscience
provides a general immunity to all types of pseudoscience.
> My only frustration has been Dr. Dach's penchant for evasion and
> digression into personal attacks.
>
> I hope you guys do keep him on the hook. This is one of those rare
> threads where empirical understanding and insight into the thought
> processes of the opposition come without a lot of sifting through
> nonsense and invective.
>
> Thanks for your efforts so far.
>
> And to Chris Noble and DavidT - thanks for stopping by the monkey house
> and offering your perspectives on this issue. Take your shoes off, sit
> a spell.
>
> Robert
Thanks. I've been following the creation science pseudodebate for a
long time. Some years ago I realised that HIV "rethinkering" is the one
pseudoscience that probably has the greatest capacity to kill kore
people than any other.
Chris Noble
Chris Noble
drdach wrote:
> Ye Old One wrote:
> > to cost many millions more before a real cure is found.
> >
> > I would be interested, as one recent arrival on T.O. seems to be
> > trying to hide from questions related to HIV/AIDS, in exploring up to
> > date thinking on:-
> >
> > The evolution of the HIV/AIDS virus.
> >
> >
> > to see "drdach" put forward his views on the subject as he has put so
> > much effort into trying to avoid Marc's questions over the last few
> > days.
> >
> > Bob.
>
> drdach replies:
>
> Number one I am not a recent arrival. I have been here since Oct 29,
> and already baptized with fire.
>
> Number Two the HIV retrovirus connection with evolutionary theory is a
> fabrication in order to generate research funding for ridiculous grant
> ideas.
>
> Number Three: there will never be a real cure found because there was
> never a real disease caused by HIV which is a benign passenger
> retrovirus which has been present in the human genome for millennia.
> AIDS is a real syndrome; however it is simply not caused by HIV.
If HIV has been present in the human genome for millennia then HIV DNA
should be found in every cell in every human. It isn't.
Even HIV "rethinkers" make a big deal of the observation that HIV DNA
is only found in a fraction of CD4+ cells. This is supposedly evidence
that HIV does not cause AIDS. It is actually evidence that HIV is not
an endogenous retrovirus that has been present in the human genome for
millennia.
At least try to put forward a logically consistent argument.
Chris Noble
> Number Four: My recent two articles which discuss data presented in
> JAMA Sept 27, prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that HIV does not cause
> AIDS.
>
> http://barnesworld.blogs.com/barnes_world/2006/10/by_jeffrey_dach.html
>
> http://barnesworld.blogs.com/barnes_world/2006/11/the_final_nail_.html
>
> Please email me on the contact page of my web site if you need any
> further explanation.
>
> regards from www.drdach.com
drdach
>
> [Extensive snipping for focus]
>
> > I must excuse myself here from the discussion and make the statement
> > for all to read that I am not going to continue making replies to Chris
> > Noble and David Thomson, who are old AIDS political activists and have
> > been doing this type of internet newsgroup mischief for many years.
>
> I don't know the history here, but imagine it has been hot.
>
> > I will be glad to discuss this topic with any one of the T.O. people.
>
> Good, then again, could you explain how 1 wrong diagnosis in
> 10,000 (or even 1 in 10) is evidence that HIV is not deadly?
drdach: Did you read the articles provided below ?
The JAMA Sept 27 article is recent and very important to understand
what is happening with the HIV /AIDS issue. The JAMA article shows
that HIV is NOT the cause of CD5 decline (sometimes called AIDS). This
was concluded by the JAMA editorial in the same issue.
The study essentially looks at T Cell (CD4) count and HIV Viral Load
PCR.
The original assumption since 1984 was that HIV replication kills T
cells (also called CD4 cells), and this in turn causes immune
suppression leading to one of the many underlying illnesses making up
the syndrome. The data in JAMA Sept 27 Figure 3 shows NO correlation
between CD5 cell count and HIV viral load. The data in Figure 2 shows
negligible shift of Gaussian distribution charts of CD4 cell count data
for 5 different viral load sub groups. Yes there is a decrease in CD4
cell count for these patients, but it is unrelated to magnitude of HIV
viral load. That is the message. Go look at the data at the links
and then we will talk.
>
> > Perhaps it would be best, at this point, that anyone
> > interested in pursuing this further respond either to the blog
> > address mentioned above or to my contact page on my web site.
>
> I would prefer to see your reply here, since I am a complete
> know nothing, and would benefit from the views of others, even
> if you do not respond to them.
>
drdach: Did you download and watch the google video link below?
>
> Friar Broccoli
> Robert Keith Elias, Quebec, Canada Email: EliasRK (of) gmail * com
> Best programmer's & all purpose text editor: http://www.semware.com
> Bob please notice the web site address, this is commonly displayed
> --------- I consider ALL arguments in support of my views ---------
drdach replies:
Please look at the JAMA Sept 27 Article DATA:
data for figure 3 :
http://barnesworld.blogs.com/barnes_world/2006/10/by_jeffrey_dach.html
HIV = AIDS is this a Fact or a Fiction?
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4396856850556632563
regards from www.drdach.com
Chris Noble
drdach wrote:
> Friar Broccoli wrote:
> >
> > [Extensive snipping for focus]
> >
> > > I must excuse myself here from the discussion and make the statement
> > > for all to read that I am not going to continue making replies to Chris
> > > Noble and David Thomson, who are old AIDS political activists and have
> > > been doing this type of internet newsgroup mischief for many years.
> >
> > I don't know the history here, but imagine it has been hot.
> >
> > > I will be glad to discuss this topic with any one of the T.O. people.
> >
> > Good, then again, could you explain how 1 wrong diagnosis in
> > 10,000 (or even 1 in 10) is evidence that HIV is not deadly?
>
> drdach: Did you read the articles provided below ?
>
> The JAMA Sept 27 article is recent and very important to understand
> what is happening with the HIV /AIDS issue. The JAMA article shows
> that HIV is NOT the cause of CD5 decline (sometimes called AIDS). This
> was concluded by the JAMA editorial in the same issue.
The editorial definitely did not conclude that HIV does not cause CD4
cell decline.
What did you do to reach this interpretation? Take every 7th letter of
every 5th line? Did it spell out "DUESBERGISRIGHT"
> The study essentially looks at T Cell (CD4) count and HIV Viral Load
> PCR.
>
> The original assumption since 1984 was that HIV replication kills T
> cells (also called CD4 cells), and this in turn causes immune
> suppression leading to one of the many underlying illnesses making up
> the syndrome. The data in JAMA Sept 27 Figure 3 shows NO correlation
> between CD5 cell count and HIV viral load. The data in Figure 2 shows
> negligible shift of Gaussian distribution charts of CD4 cell count data
> for 5 different viral load sub groups. Yes there is a decrease in CD4
> cell count for these patients, but it is unrelated to magnitude of HIV
> viral load. That is the message. Go look at the data at the links
> and then we will talk.
Direct cell killing has not been believed to be the dominant mechanism
of CD4+ cell depletion for many, many years. Nobody expects to see a
simple linear relation between HIV viral load and the rate of CD4+ cell
depletion except for people who like strawman arguments. Nevertheless
on average people with high HIV viral loads have significantly greater
CD4+ cell declines than those with low viral loads. Far from proving
that HIV does not cause AIDS it is good evidence that it does. Your
hand drawn "center bars" only reveal your unwillingness to accept this.
Your conclusion can not possibly be drawn from this data because all
patients were HIV+. If the study found that HIV- and HIV+ people did
not have significantly different CD4+ declines then you would be able
to make this conclusion. However all studies that have looked at this
found that HIV+ people have much greater CD4 declines than HIV- people.
>
> >
> > > Perhaps it would be best, at this point, that anyone
> > > interested in pursuing this further respond either to the blog
> > > address mentioned above or to my contact page on my web site.
> >
> > I would prefer to see your reply here, since I am a complete
> > know nothing, and would benefit from the views of others, even
> > if you do not respond to them.
> >
>
> drdach: Did you download and watch the google video link below?
>
> >
> > Friar Broccoli
> > Robert Keith Elias, Quebec, Canada Email: EliasRK (of) gmail * com
> > Best programmer's & all purpose text editor: http://www.semware.com
> > Bob please notice the web site address, this is commonly displayed
> > --------- I consider ALL arguments in support of my views ---------
>
> drdach replies:
>
> Please look at the JAMA Sept 27 Article DATA:
>
> data for Figure 2
> http://barnesworld.blogs.com/barnes_world/2006/11/the_final_nail_.html
You have failed to explain the mathematical methods you used to
calculate the "center bars" which are blindingly obviously not in the
centre of the distributions.
Chris Noble
Andrew McClure
> Bryan Heit wrote:
> > Ye Old One wrote:
> > > to cost many millions more before a real cure is found.
> > >
> > > I would be interested, as one recent arrival on T.O. seems to be
> > > trying to hide from questions related to HIV/AIDS, in exploring up to
> > > date thinking on:-
> > >
> > > The evolution of the HIV/AIDS virus.
> > >
> > > Its effects (real or possible) on the future evolution of man.
> > >
> > > Anyone who wants is more than happy to contribute but I'm really keen
> > > to see "drdach" put forward his views on the subject as he has put so
> > > much effort into trying to avoid Marc's questions over the last few
> > > days.
> > >
> > > --
> > > Bob.
> >
> >
> > HIV already has had some evolutionary effects on humans. For example,
> > in Nairobi (Kenya) there is a group of prostitutes who have been
> > identified who have some degree of immunity to HIV:
> >
> > http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=8918278&query_hl=3&itool=pubmed_docsum
> > http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=11160158&query_hl=3&itool=pubmed_docsum
> > http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=9802890&query_hl=3&itool=pubmed_docsum
> >
> > The last study is the most relevant in this discussion, as it
> > identifies specific alleles which are associated with this resistance.
> > Specifically the HLA-A*6802 and HLA-B18 alleles (these are alleles of
> > the MHC class I genes, which our bodies use to identify pathogens).
> >
> > These studies suggest (and the data is pretty strong today), that in
> > areas with high levels of HIV transmission, that selection has occurred
> > among those most at risk (i.e. prostitutes), and as a result, these
> > protective alleles have now been selected for in that population.
> >
> > Textbook-perfect case of natural selection.
> >
> > A little more theoretical, but interesting none-the-less, is the
> > potential impact in Europe, where the delta-CCR5 mutation exists. This
> > mutation prevents HIV infection, and one would expect that this would
> > get enriched in the population if HIV were to become prevalent enough.
> > Given that CCR5 is an immnoregulatory receptor, selecting for people
> > who lack it could have some interesting outcomes on the way their
> > immune systems work:
> >
> > http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=11477473&query_hl=7&itool=pubmed_docsum
> > http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=9806029&query_hl=7&itool=pubmed_docsum
> > http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=9466996&query_hl=7&itool=pubmed_docsum
> >
> > One of the more interesting, but more out there, ideas is the potential
> > impact of HIV should it enter our genomes and begin to transmit
> > vertically. This has happened before - our genome is full of
> > retroviurses which have done this - some cells even begin to produce
> > virus-like particles under stress (these "viruses" are called "human
> > endogenous retroviruses"). We know that this type of event can lead to
> > speciation - the Australian Rock Wallaby is currently undergoing a
> > ERV-mediated speciation event - so its interesting to postulate what
> > could happen to humans if HIV were to incorporate. We could be looking
> > at the driving factor behind the next big step in human evolution.
> >
> > http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=16093697&query_hl=13&itool=pubmed_DocSum
> > http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=16093684&query_hl=13&itool=pubmed_DocSum
> >
> > Of course, at this moment HIV is not able to enter the cells required
> > for this to happen (i.e. the cells which give rise to sperm/eggs,
> > sperm/eggs themselves, or the earlier stages of gastulation), so at
> > this point this is nothing more then speculation...
> >
> > Bryan
Okay, seconded
Perplexed in Peoria
"Chris Noble" <Chris...@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:1163137106.5...@i42g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> drdach wrote:
> > Please look at the JAMA Sept 27 Article DATA:
> >
> > data for Figure 2
> > http://barnesworld.blogs.com/barnes_world/2006/11/the_final_nail_.html
>
> You have failed to explain the mathematical methods you used to
> calculate the "center bars" which are blindingly obviously not in the
> centre of the distributions.
As an unbiased lurker who has barely even heard of Duisberg, I have to say
that my eyeball agrees with Chris Noble. The bars run through the modes
(highest points) in the distributions, but not through the means.
> > data for figure 3 :
> > http://barnesworld.blogs.com/barnes_world/2006/10/by_jeffrey_dach.html
> >
But I have to agree with Dr. Dach that if his account of his run in with
Bennett is not too distorted, then Bennett is an idiot.
I'm sure glad I don't have AIDS nor a positive test result for HIV. Because
the low level of statistical sophistication I'm seeing in the medical
blog-osphere is just appalling. An R^2 of 0.04 does indeed suggest a
very weak causal link, yet even such a low correlation can still be
statistically significant. The game that Bennett played in dividing
the data into groups has some pedagogical value in showing that the
correlation seems to be significant, even though it is not strong.
But then his citation of an R^2 of 0.97 for his grouped-data 5 point
graph is just statistical nonsense.
I now return to my lurking. You may resume throwing stones at each other.
Chris Noble
Perplexed in Peoria wrote:
> "Chris Noble" <Chris...@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:1163137106.5...@i42g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> > drdach wrote:
> > > Please look at the JAMA Sept 27 Article DATA:
> > >
> > > data for Figure 2
> > > http://barnesworld.blogs.com/barnes_world/2006/11/the_final_nail_.html
> >
> > You have failed to explain the mathematical methods you used to
> > calculate the "center bars" which are blindingly obviously not in the
> > centre of the distributions.
>
> As an unbiased lurker who has barely even heard of Duisberg, I have to say
> that my eyeball agrees with Chris Noble. The bars run through the modes
> (highest points) in the distributions, but not through the means.
>
or the medians. The medians are actually printed on the figure. They
bear no relation to Dr Dach's "center bars". Dr Dach claims that the
distributions are Gaussian in that case the mean and median should be
equivalent.
> > > data for figure 3 :
> > > http://barnesworld.blogs.com/barnes_world/2006/10/by_jeffrey_dach.html
> > >
>
> But I have to agree with Dr. Dach that if his account of his run in with
> Bennett is not too distorted, then Bennett is an idiot.
Not an idiot but also not a mathematician.
>
> I'm sure glad I don't have AIDS nor a positive test result for HIV. Because
> the low level of statistical sophistication I'm seeing in the medical
> blog-osphere is just appalling. An R^2 of 0.04 does indeed suggest a
> very weak causal link, yet even such a low correlation can still be
> statistically significant. The game that Bennett played in dividing
> the data into groups has some pedagogical value in showing that the
> correlation seems to be significant, even though it is not strong.
> But then his citation of an R^2 of 0.97 for his grouped-data 5 point
> graph is just statistical nonsense.
I agree that this R^2 value is not meaningful.
A better measure would be to test whether the difference in average
CD4+ depletion rates between the high viral load group >40,000
copies/ml is significantly greater than that for the low viral load
group <500 copies/ml with an appropriate statistical test. Figure 1 in
the paper seems to indicate that the difference is significant. An
explicit test would confirm this.
Dr Dach's theory that HIV has nothing to do with AIDS should predict no
relation whatsoever. A significant difference is evidence against his
theory.
> I now return to my lurking. You may resume throwing stones at each other.
Some of my rocks are valid scientific critiques.
Chris Noble
Ye Old One
Good comments, especially about the blogs :)
Bottom line is, in my non-medical opinion, that there is not one
single known case of AIDS where the person is not HIV positive. That,
to me, proves beyond (way beyond) reasonable doubt the link between
HIV and AIDS.
--
Bob.
drdach
What? No comment on the wrinkles?
drdach
david ford
Below is the "context." Meaning of "evolution"?
drdach
Bryan Heit wrote:
> Ye Old One wrote:
> > The HIV/AIDS epedemic has already cost millions of lives and is likely
> > to cost many millions more before a real cure is found.
> >
> > I would be interested, as one recent arrival on T.O. seems to be
> > trying to hide from questions related to HIV/AIDS, in exploring up to
> > date thinking on:-
> >
> > The evolution of the HIV/AIDS virus.
> >
> >
> > to see "drdach" put forward his views on the subject as he has put so
> > much effort into trying to avoid Marc's questions over the last few
> > days.
> >
Dear Bryan,
Much thanks for your brilliant analysis.
A few of the points raised:
A study in which a group of 239 female prostitutes repeatedly sexually
exposed to HIV, yet fail to convert to HIV positive. (Doesn't this
disprove the assertion that HIV is sexually transmitted)
Another study in which seronegative prostitutes in Nairobi frequently
exposured 3 different types of HIV, for up to 12 yr without becoming
infected. Thus, HIV- immune responses may be responsible for
protection against persistent HIV infection in these African women.
(why not American women as well?)
A CCR5 gene study of 45 perinatally HIV-1-infected children
prospectively followed after 5 years of age. At a median age of 8.3
years, heterozygous children had significantly lower virus load than
homozygous children and higher percentages of CD4 T cells However,
there was no discernible influence of the CCR5 genotype on the
percentages of CD8 T cells or on HIV-specific cytotoxic T lymphocyte
activities. (No mention in the abstract of how many children died of
AIDS...do you have this information...or should we assume it was left
out because there was no data?)
A mutation of the CCR5 gene, Delta ccr5 , was provides strong
resistance against infection by HIV. This mutation happened a few
thousand years ago in Northeastern Europe due to selection advantage.
Retro-elements form up to 42 % of the human genome and Retro-viral
elements form 8% of the genome. (That's a lot of retro stuff.)
One question for you, Bryan, what are thoughts ? regarding Dr. David
Mindell's paper (see below) in which he concludes that the
retro-viral element known as HIV may have been present in the human
genome for millennia, since he asserts the "new virus" hypothesis
is not supported by the data.
The AIDS Pandemic Is New, But Is HIV New?
By David P. Mindell, Jeffrey W. Shultz, Paul W. Ewald
Systematic Biology, Vol. 44, No. 1 (Mar., 1995), pp. 77-92
http://hydrodictyon.eeb.uconn.edu/systbiol/issues/44_1/mindell/mindell.html
"Evidence currently available does not support the popular view (the
"new virus" hypothesis) that HIVs have recently colonized humans"
Regards from jeffrey dach md
www.drdach.com
======================
For the reader's convenience, the citations you posted have reprinted
below:
Lancet. 1996 Nov 16;348(9038):1347-51.
Resistance to HIV-1 infection among persistently seronegative
prostitutes in Nairobi, Kenya.
Fowke KR, Nagelkerke NJ, Kimani J, Simonsen JN, Anzala AO, Bwayo JJ,
MacDonald KS, Ngugi EN, Plummer FA. Department of Medical Microbiology,
University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada.
BACKGROUND: There is indirect evidence that HIV-1 exposure does not
inevitably lead to persistent infection. Heterogeneity in
susceptibility to infection could be due to protective immunity. The
objective of this study was to find out whether in highly HIV-1-exposed
populations some individuals are resistant to infection. METHODS: We
did an observational cohort study of incident HIV-1 infection-among 424
initially HIV-1-seronegative prostitutes in Nairobi, Kenya, between
1985 and 1994. 239 women seroconverted to HIV-1 during the study
period. Exponential, Weibull, and mixture survival models were used to
examine the effect of the duration of follow-up on incidence of HIV-1
infection. The influence of the duration of exposure to HIV-1 through
prostitution on seroconversion risk was examined by Cox proportional
hazards modelling, with control for other known or suspected risk
factors for incident HIV-1 infection. HIV-1 PCR with env, nef, and vif
gene primers was done on 43 persistently seronegative prostitutes who
remained seronegative after 3 or more years of follow-up. FINDINGS:
Modelling of the time to HIV-1 seroconversion showed that the incidence
of HIV-1 seroconversion decreased with increasing duration of exposure,
which indicates that there is heterogeneity in HIV-1 susceptibility or
acquired immunity to HIV-1. Each weighted year of exposure through
prostitution resulted in a 1.2-fold reduction in HIV-1 seroconversion
risk (hazard ratio 0.83 [95% CI 0.79-0.88], p < 0.0001). Analyses of
epidemiological and laboratory data, show that persistent
seronegativity is not explained by seronegative HIV-1 infection or by
differences in risk factors for HIV-1 infection such as safer sexual
behaviours or the incidence of other sexually transmitted infections.
Interpretation: We conclude that a small proportion of highly exposed
individuals, who may have natural protective immunity to HIV-1, are
resistant to HIV-1.
J Clin Invest. 2001 Feb;107(3):341-9.
Late seroconversion in HIV-resistant Nairobi prostitutes despite
pre-existing HIV-specific CD8+ responses.
Kaul R, Rowland-Jones SL, Kimani J, Dong T, Yang HB, Kiama P, Rostron
T, Njagi E, Bwayo JJ, MacDonald KS, McMichael AJ, Plummer FA.
Department of Medical Microbiology, University of Nairobi, Nairobi,
Kenya. rupertka...@hotmail.com
Resistance to HIV infection in a small group of Kenyan sex workers is
associated with CD8+-lymphocyte responses to HIV cytotoxic T-lymphocyte
(CTL) epitopes. Eleven prostitutes meeting criteria for HIV resistance
seroconverted between 1996 and 1999. The occurrence and specificity of
pre-existing HIV-1 epitope-specific responses were examined using the
IFN-gamma enzyme-linked immunospot assay, and any epitopes
(An epitope is the part of a macromolecule that is recognized by the
immune system)
recognized were cloned and sequenced from the infecting viral isolate.
Immunologic and behavioral variables were compared between late
seroconverters and persistently uninfected sex worker controls. HIV-1
CTL epitope responses were present in four of six cases, 5-18 months
before seroconversion, and their presence was confirmed by bulk CTL
culture. A possible viral escape mutation was found in one of six
epitopes. The key epidemiologic correlate of late seroconversion was a
reduction in sex work over the preceding year. In persistently
uninfected controls, a break from sex work was associated with a loss
of HIV-specific CD8+ responses. Late seroconversion may occur in
HIV-1-resistant sex workers despite preceding HIV-specific CD8+
responses. Seroconversion generally occurs in the absence of detectable
CTL escape mutations and may relate to the waning of HIV-specific CD8+
responses due to reduced antigenic exposure.
J Clin Invest. 1998 Nov 1;102(9):1758-65.
Cytotoxic T cell responses to multiple conserved HIV epitopes in
HIV-resistant prostitutes in Nairobi.Rowland-Jones SL, Dong T, Fowke
KR, Kimani J, Krausa P, Newell H, Blanchard T, Ariyoshi K, Oyugi J,
Ngugi E, Bwayo J, MacDonald KS, McMichael AJ, Plummer FA.
Molecular Immunology Group, Institute of Molecular Medicine, John
Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford OX3 9DS, UK.
sarah.rowland...@ndm.ox.ac.uk
Many people who remain persistently seronegative despite frequent HIV
exposure have HIV-specific immune responses. The study of these may
provide information about mechanisms of natural protective immunity to
HIV-1. We describe the specificity of cytotoxic T lymphocyte responses
to HIV in seronegative prostitutes in Nairobi who are apparently
resistant to HIV infection. These women have had frequent exposure to a
range of African HIV-1 variants, primarily clades A, C, and D, for up
to 12 yr without becoming infected. Nearly half of them have CTL
directed towards epitopes previously defined for B clade virus, which
are largely conserved in the A and D clade sequences. Stronger
responses are frequently elicited using the A or D clade version of an
epitope to stimulate CTL, suggesting that they were originally primed
by exposure to these virus strains. CTL responses have been defined to
novel epitopes presented by HLA class I molecules associated with
resistance to infection in the cohort, HLA-A*6802 and HLA-B18.
Estimates using a modified interferon-gamma Elispot assay indicate a
circulating frequency of CTL to individual epitopes of between 1:3,200
and 1:50,000. Thus, HIV-specific immune responses-particularly
cross-clade CTL activity- may be responsible for protection against
persistent HIV infection in these African women.
J Infect Dis. 1998 Oct;178(4):1019-23.
Impact of heterozygosity for the chemokine receptor CCR5 32-bp-deleted
allele on plasma virus load and CD4 T lymphocytes in perinatally human
immunodeficiency virus-infected children at 8 years of age.
Buseyne F, Janvier G, Teglas JP, Ivanoff S, Burgard M, Bui E, Mayaux
MJ,
The CCR5 gene encodes one of the major human immunodeficiency virus
type 1 (HIV-1) coreceptors. A 32-bp deletion in this gene (delta ccr5)
is associated with relative resistance to disease progression in
heterozygous HIV-1-infected persons. The effect of this mutation on
virologic and immunologic parameters was determined in a cohort of 45
perinatally HIV-1-infected children prospectively followed after 5
years of age. At a median age of 8.3 years, heterozygous children had
significantly lower virus load than homozygous children (median, 3.3
vs. 4.1 log copies/mL, P < .009) and higher percentages of CD4 T cells
(median, 26% vs. 17%, P < .07). However, there was no discernible
influence of the CCR5 genotype on the percentages of CD8 T cells (P <
.27) or on HIV-specific cytotoxic T lymphocyte activities (P < .65).
There was a trend for lower rates of progression to AIDS (CDC stage C)
in heterozygous children. These data confirm a major role for the CCR5
coreceptor in HIV-1 pathogenesis in children. PMID: 9806029
Hum Mol Genet. 1998 Mar;7(3):399-406. Links
The deltaccr5 mutation conferring protection against HIV-1 in Caucasian
populations has a single and recent origin in Northeastern Europe.
Libert F, Cochaux P, Beckman G, Samson M, Aksenova M, Cao A, Czeizel A,
The chemokine receptor CCR5 is encoded by the CMKBR5 gene located on
the p21.3 region of human chromosome 3, and constitutes the major
co-receptor for the macrophage-tropic strains of HIV-1. A mutant allele
of the CCR5 gene, Delta ccr5 , was shown to provide to homozygotes with
a strong resistance against infection by HIV. The frequency of the
Delta ccr5 allele was investigated in 18 European populations. A North
to South gradient was found, with the highest allele frequencies in
Finnish and Mordvinian populations (16%), and the lowest in Sardinia
(4%). Highly polymorphic microsatellites (IRI3.1, D3S4579 and IRI3.2,
D3S4580 ) located respectively 11 kb upstream and 68 kb downstream of
the CCR5 gene deletion were used to determine the haplotype of the
chromosomes carrying the Delta ccr5 variant. A strong linkage
disequilibrium was found between Delta ccr5 and specific alleles of the
IRI3.1 and IRI3.2 microsatellites: >95% of the Delta ccr5 chromosomes
carried the IRI3.1-0 allele, while 88% carried the IRI3.2-0 allele.
These alleles were found respectively in only 2 or 1.5% of the
chromosomes carrying a wild-type CCR5 gene. From these data, it was
inferred that most, if not all Delta ccr5 alleles originate from a
single mutation event, and that this mutation event probably took place
a few thousand years ago in Northeastern Europe. The high frequency of
the Delta ccr5 allele in Caucasian populations cannot be explained
easily by random genetic drift, suggesting that a selection advantage
is or has been associated with homo- or heterozygous carriers of the
Delta ccr5 allele.
Cytogenet Genome Res. 2005;110(1-4):448-56.
Human endogenous retroviruses in the primate lineage and their
influence on host genomes.
Mayer J, Meese E.
Department of Human Genetics, Medical Faculty, University of Saarland,
Homburg/Saar, Germany. jens....@uniklinik-saarland.de
Primates emerged about 60 million years ago. Since that time various
primate-targeting retroviruses have integrated in the germ line of
primate species, and some drifted to fixation. After germ line
fixation, continued activity of proviruses resulted in intragenomic
spread of so-called endogenous retroviruses (ERVs). Variant ERVs
emerged, amplified in the genome and profoundly altered genome
structures and potentially functionality. Importantly, ERVs are genome
modifiers of exogenous origin. The human genome contains about 8% of
sequences of retroviral origin. The human ERVs (HERVs) comprise many
distinct families that amplified to copy numbers of up to several
thousand. We review here the evolution of several well-characterized
HERV families in the human lineage since initial germ line fixation. It
is apparent that endogenous retroviruses profoundly affected the
genomes of species in the evolutionary lineage leading to Homo sapiens.
Cytogenet Genome Res. 2005;110(1-4):318-32.
Human endogenous retroviruses: from infectious elements to human genes
Parseval N, Heidmann T.
Mammalian genomes contain a heavy load (42% in humans) of
retroelements, which are mobile sequences requiring reverse
transcription for their replicative transposition. A significant
proportion of these elements is of retroviral origin, with thousands of
sequences resembling the integrated form of infectious retroviruses,
with two LTRs bordering internal regions homologous to the gag, prt,
pol, and env genes. These elements, named endogenous retroviruses
(ERVs), are most probably the proviral remnants of ancestral germ-line
infections by active retroviruses, which have thereafter been
transmitted in a Mendelian manner. The complete sequencing of the human
genome now allows a comprehensive survey of human ERVs (HERVs), which
can be grouped according to sequence homologies into approximately 80
distinct families, each containing a few to several hundred elements.
As reviewed here, strong similarities between HERVs and present-day
retroviruses can be inferred from phylogenetic analyses on the reverse
transcriptase (RT) domain of the pol gene or the transmembrane subunit
(TM) of the env gene, which disclose interspersion of both classes of
elements and suggest a common history and shared ancestors.
Similarities are also observed at the functional levels, since despite
the fact that most HERVs have accumulated mutations, deletions, and/or
truncations, several elements still possess some of the functions of
retroviruses, with evidence for viral-like particle formation, and
occurrence of envelope proteins allowing cell-cell fusion and even
conferring infectivity to pseudotypes. Along this line, a genomewide
screening for human retroviral genes with coding capacity has revealed
16 fully coding envelope genes. These genes are transcribed in several
healthy tissues including the placenta, three of them at a very high
level. Besides their impact in modelling the genome, HERVs thus appear
to contain still active genes, which most probably have been subverted
by the host for its benefit and should be considered as bona fide human
genes. Some of their characteristic features and possible physiological
roles, as well as potential pathological effects inherited from their
retroviral ancestors are also reviewed.
Bryan Heit
> Bryan Heit wrote:
<snip>
> Dear Bryan,
>
> Much thanks for your brilliant analysis.
>
> A few of the points raised:
>
> A study in which a group of 239 female prostitutes repeatedly sexually
> exposed to HIV, yet fail to convert to HIV positive. (Doesn't this
> disprove the assertion that HIV is sexually transmitted)
No, it does not. For 2 reasons:
1) HIV has been conclusively demonstrated to be passed through sexual
contact, using both human studies as well as animal models.
2) These prostitutes were deliberately selected for their HIV(-) status
after exposure. This was done as the researchers were looking for
people with natural immunity to the virus. However, in order to find
these individuals, the researchers screened several hundred (or
potentially thousands) of HIV-exposed people to find these individuals.
Those who had encountered HIV sexually, and contracted the virus, were
simply excluded form this study.
> Another study in which seronegative prostitutes in Nairobi frequently
> exposured 3 different types of HIV, for up to 12 yr without becoming
> infected. Thus, HIV- immune responses may be responsible for
> protection against persistent HIV infection in these African women.
> (why not American women as well?)
Interesting question, and one I cannot give a conclusive answer to as
the relevant study has not yet been done. Some potential answers are:
1) HIV-immune women (and men) may exist in the US, but have not been
identified yet.
2) The specific MHC alleles which have allowed these Kenyan prostitutes
to develop HIV-resistance do not exist in the US, and therefore this
form of immunity is not seen in the US.
> A CCR5 gene study of 45 perinatally HIV-1-infected children
> prospectively followed after 5 years of age. At a median age of 8.3
> years, heterozygous children had significantly lower virus load than
> homozygous children and higher percentages of CD4 T cells However,
> there was no discernible influence of the CCR5 genotype on the
> percentages of CD8 T cells or on HIV-specific cytotoxic T lymphocyte
> activities. (No mention in the abstract of how many children died of
> AIDS...do you have this information...or should we assume it was left
> out because there was no data?)
I think the first thing I should point out about that article is that
the "homozygous" children were homozygous for the normal allele, not
the protective allele. Basically, that paper shows that 1 copy of the
delta-CCR5 gene doesn't protect from infection, it does slow disease
progression. The number of people born homozygous for the delta-CCR5
mutations are extremely small, so we don't have a lot of studies
looking at those individuals, particularity in children.
Another thing worth pointing out is that perinatal infection is a
special case.
Most adult infections occur via an "M-trophic" HIV virus. This form of
HIV requires the CCR5 gene to infect the patient, hence why CCR5
mutations tend to protect from HIV disease. The dose of virus tend to
be quite small (a few virions in a small amount of sexual fluids or
blood), and the patients tend to have a highly active immune system.
In the case of perinatally infected children, the situation is a little
different. Because the HIV is carried over from maternal blood during
birth, the baby is more likely to encounter T-trophic viruses (which do
not require CCR5 for infection). In addition, the babies immune system
is not very functional for the first few months of life, so the virus
has, in essence, free-reign to do what it likes. Lastly, the dose of
virus tends to be quite large (as the baby gets a direct dose of
maternal blood, and is quite small). Because of this, the CCR5
mutation is far less protective in perinatal cases of HIV, then it is
in adults.
Lastly, there is no death information about AIDS as there wasn't enough
time during the study for many of these children to develop AIDS.
Other studies have looked at CCR5 in children, and its effect on
survival:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=12853745&query_hl=1&itool=pubmed_docsum
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?itool=abstractplus&db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=abstractplus&list_uids=9450710
These studies are pretty clear that CCR5 mutations don't protect from
maternal infection, but do increase survival over the first few years
of life.
> A mutation of the CCR5 gene, Delta ccr5 , was provides strong
> resistance against infection by HIV. This mutation happened a few
> thousand years ago in Northeastern Europe due to selection advantage.
>
> Retro-elements form up to 42 % of the human genome and Retro-viral
> elements form 8% of the genome. (That's a lot of retro stuff.)
>
> One question for you, Bryan, what are thoughts ? regarding Dr. David
> Mindell's paper (see below) in which he concludes that the
> retro-viral element known as HIV may have been present in the human
> genome for millennia, since he asserts the "new virus" hypothesis
> is not supported by the data.
>
> The AIDS Pandemic Is New, But Is HIV New?
> By David P. Mindell, Jeffrey W. Shultz, Paul W. Ewald
> Systematic Biology, Vol. 44, No. 1 (Mar., 1995), pp. 77-92
>
> http://hydrodictyon.eeb.uconn.edu/systbiol/issues/44_1/mindell/mindell.html
>
> "Evidence currently available does not support the popular view (the
> "new virus" hypothesis) that HIVs have recently colonized humans"
Firstly, Mindell seems to have changed his opinion on this almost
immediately after publishing the above paper - less then a year later
he was writing about the rapid evolution of HIV from other primate
viruses::
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=8622929&query_hl=13&itool=pubmed_docsum
Secondly, his opinion (that HIV may be older than the circa-1950's date
usually assigned to it) may have some truth to it. Keep in mind that
nearly all dating of HIV is based on a few assumptions about the
evolutonary rate of HIV. This opens the door to errors.
However, some of what he based his dating on is now known to be
incorrect. He did his dating using gene sequences of SIV, HIV, and a
few other retroviruses. He assumed direct descent, meaning that *all*
observed genetic changes were the result of mutations. We now have
some very good evidence that HIV is actually a hybrid virus - a
combination of two different SIV viruses. Because a hybridization
event was involved in the formation of HIV, dating based on the
assumption of direct descent (i.e. that all changes were the result of
mutation) would over-estimate the age of the virus. Knowing this, the
newer datings of HIV reaffirm the original 1950-ish date.
Bryan
Ye Old One
this group when s/he wrote:
>Dear Bryan,
>
>Much thanks for your brilliant analysis.
>
>A few of the points raised:
>
>A study in which a group of 239 female prostitutes repeatedly sexually
>exposed to HIV, yet fail to convert to HIV positive. (Doesn't this
>disprove the assertion that HIV is sexually transmitted)
No, it just proves some people are very lucky. But it would help if
you got the figure right - seeing you posted the article below. 424
women were involved, 239 (over 56%) became HIV positive.
Not their conclusion "We conclude that a small proportion of highly
exposed individuals, who may have natural protective immunity to
HIV-1, are resistant to HIV-1."
>
>Another study in which seronegative prostitutes in Nairobi frequently
>exposured 3 different types of HIV, for up to 12 yr without becoming
>infected. Thus, HIV- immune responses may be responsible for
>protection against persistent HIV infection in these African women.
>(why not American women as well?)
There is a possibility that some are immune to HIV. But 100% of those
with AIDS are HIV positive.
>
>A CCR5 gene study of 45 perinatally HIV-1-infected children
>prospectively followed after 5 years of age. At a median age of 8.3
>years, heterozygous children had significantly lower virus load than
>homozygous children and higher percentages of CD4 T cells However,
>there was no discernible influence of the CCR5 genotype on the
>percentages of CD8 T cells or on HIV-specific cytotoxic T lymphocyte
>activities. (No mention in the abstract of how many children died of
>AIDS...do you have this information...or should we assume it was left
>out because there was no data?)
>
>A mutation of the CCR5 gene, Delta ccr5 , was provides strong
>resistance against infection by HIV. This mutation happened a few
>thousand years ago in Northeastern Europe due to selection advantage.
But that mutation has nothing to do with HIV, that has only recently
crossed the species barrier.
>
>Retro-elements form up to 42 % of the human genome and Retro-viral
>elements form 8% of the genome. (That's a lot of retro stuff.)
It is, but so what?
>
>One question for you, Bryan, what are thoughts ? regarding Dr. David
>Mindell's paper (see below) in which he concludes that the
>retro-viral element known as HIV may have been present in the human
>genome for millennia, since he asserts the "new virus" hypothesis
>is not supported by the data.
What supports the "new virus" idea is the fact that the spread is
traceable.
>
>The AIDS Pandemic Is New, But Is HIV New?
>By David P. Mindell, Jeffrey W. Shultz, Paul W. Ewald
>Systematic Biology, Vol. 44, No. 1 (Mar., 1995), pp. 77-92
>
>http://hydrodictyon.eeb.uconn.edu/systbiol/issues/44_1/mindell/mindell.html
>
>"Evidence currently available does not support the popular view (the
>"new virus" hypothesis) that HIVs have recently colonized humans"
>
>Regards from jeffrey dach md
>[advert removed]
--
Bob.
Vend
DavidT wrote:
> drdach wrote:
> > give it a rest Krish, you were just destroyed.
>
> He has a valid point, Jeffery.
>
> You have lied about the bar charts in Fig 2 from the Rodriguez paper.
>
> Firstly you say they are all normally distributed, which even a school
> boy doing maths could tell you is untrue, the distribution being
> markedly skewed for the 2 charts with highest viral loads.
>
> Secondly you have said the median is identical for all 5 charts. Each
> chart actually states what the median CD4 count is for each Viral load
> grouping. For those with the lowest viral load decline at a median of
> 37 CD4 cells per year, and those with the highest viral loads decline
> at 52 cells per year.
>
> You get out a pencil, draw a smudgy line down the charts and conclude
> this proves HIV does not cause AIDS.
> F*ing brilliant!
There is something strange about those figures:
They all have a mode about at the center-right of the figure.
If you arrange them horizontally, they show a multimodal distribution
Why does the cell count change rise in the middle of each figure, then
decreases and then rise again?
Woland
The institution you post from might just have some sort of eduacation
program, see if they offer any courses that focus on reading
comprehension.
Friar Broccoli
> Friar Broccoli wrote:
>>
>> [Extensive snipping for focus]
>>
>>> I must excuse myself here from the discussion and make the statement
>>> for all to read that I am not going to continue making replies to Chris
>>> Noble and David Thomson, who are old AIDS political activists and have
>>> been doing this type of internet newsgroup mischief for many years.
>>
>> I don't know the history here, but imagine it has been hot.
>>
>>> I will be glad to discuss this topic with any one of the T.O. people.
>>
>> Good, then again, could you explain how 1 wrong diagnosis in
>> 10,000 (or even 1 in 10) is evidence that HIV is not deadly?
>
> drdach: Did you read the articles provided below ?
Yes I have, now. (the video was not available when I tried). I
must admit that you seem like a reasonable person. However at
least one evident fact disturbs me here. These articles don't
answer (or even touch on) the very simple question that I have
been asking thru 3 previous successive posts, namely that:
Beginning in this article:
http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/f616fe249fd08493
you seemed to suggest that 4,000 ([mis]?)diagnosis of
AIDS without HIV out of 4,000,000 cases is evidence that HIV
is not the cause AIDS.
Since misdiagnosis are common, this suggestion seems absurd.
It seems to me that you MUST address this question if you are
to retain your credibility with others reading this exchange.
Since, the most credible people I know frequently admit to
error, I think a simple retraction would be as effective as
anything else, but of course there may be other arguments that
I haven't noticed.
> The JAMA Sept 27 article is recent and very important to understand
> what is happening with the HIV /AIDS issue. The JAMA article shows
> that HIV is NOT the cause of CD5 decline (sometimes called AIDS). This
> was concluded by the JAMA editorial in the same issue.
>
> The study essentially looks at T Cell (CD4) count and HIV Viral Load
> PCR.
>
> The original assumption since 1984 was that HIV replication kills T
> cells (also called CD4 cells), and this in turn causes immune
> suppression leading to one of the many underlying illnesses making up
> the syndrome. The data in JAMA Sept 27 Figure 3 shows NO correlation
> between CD5 cell count and HIV viral load. The data in Figure 2 shows
> negligible shift of Gaussian distribution charts of CD4 cell count data
> for 5 different viral load sub groups. Yes there is a decrease in CD4
> cell count for these patients, but it is unrelated to magnitude of HIV
> viral load. That is the message. Go look at the data at the links
> and then we will talk.
Just to situate you, a number of sophisticated readers have
posted to this thread. I am definitely NOT one of them. Among
other things, I could make absolutely no sense of those graphs
at all.
However, even completely accepting your interpretation of the
data, doesn't cause me to doubt the correlation between being
infected with HIV and experiencing an early death.
I think you have lost sight of the big 800 pound fact. Namely
that lots of people are being infected by HIV and most of
those same people are experiencing debilitating impairment
followed by early death, at least if they don't receive treatment
as is commonly the case in Africa. (My wife, who is a nurse,
also knew another (male) nurse personally who died 3 years after
infection, in the early days before there was treatment.)
So the next question is does HIV lead to IMMUNE DEFICIENCY (as
suggested by the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome [AIDS] name)
and is immune deficiency the cause of death, as opposed, for
example, to general stress caused by a continuous viral
infection? I don't know, but even if immune deficiency is not
a factor, this just suggests to me is that AIDS might be badly
named.
On the other hand, given that HIV does infect a variety of
immune cells and that defects in the CCR5 receptor (which [I
understand] is primarily used by immune system cells) provides
immunity to AIDS, it looks to me like AIDS is probably well
named.
If I (and more importantly most of the leading researchers in
the field) got that right, then the question becomes: why is
there no correlation between the HIV load and CD4 depletion?
Well, again I don't know but it doesn't seem impossible, or
even hard to explain. As I understand it, CD4 cells are an
essential part of the immune system. The body MUST produce
them. So the body regulates their production, producing more;
the more that are taken over by and killed by HIV. If the body
looses the production battle, all is lost.
And it is at this point that EVOLUTION steps in. An HIV strain
that kills its hosts 3 weeks after an infection is not going to
leave many descendants, because it needs living hosts to spread.
Consequently, one would expect that successful HIV strains will
have found some way of limiting their destructive potential
(virulency). Thus they can continue spreading to new hosts
over a longer period of time. (See, natural selection favors
cooperative viruses :-))
In short, HIV has almost as much interest in keeping its hosts
immune system intact as the host does, so it will somehow
regulate itself to allow the host to maintain an adequate
supply of CD4 (and other immune cells with HIV specific
receptors).
In summary, my take home message here is; biology in all its
forms is always a confused and confusing mess. The fact that
you have found a few test results, the details of which don't
look quite right in a simplified mechanistic model, means
little or nothing. Like grandpa said, u gotta look at the
forest.
I really wonder if an idiot like me should even be commenting
on a topic like this. Anyway ...
Cordially;
Friar Broccoli
Robert Keith Elias, Quebec, Canada Email: EliasRK (of) gmail * com
Best programmer's & all purpose text editor: http://www.semware.com
--------- I consider ALL arguments in support of my views ---------
Marc
Actually, I would like to co-nominate this and the other posts in
this thread so far that have attracted PoTM mention together as
a joint effort. Each is a bit brief, but together they might be worthy.
(signed) marc
Chris Noble
Bryan Heit wrote:
> drdach wrote:
> > Bryan Heit wrote:
> <snip>
> > Dear Bryan,
> >
> > Much thanks for your brilliant analysis.
> >
> > A few of the points raised:
> >
> > A study in which a group of 239 female prostitutes repeatedly sexually
> > exposed to HIV, yet fail to convert to HIV positive. (Doesn't this
> > disprove the assertion that HIV is sexually transmitted)
>
> No, it does not. For 2 reasons:
>
> 1) HIV has been conclusively demonstrated to be passed through sexual
> contact, using both human studies as well as animal models.
>
> 2) These prostitutes were deliberately selected for their HIV(-) status
> after exposure. This was done as the researchers were looking for
> people with natural immunity to the virus. However, in order to find
> these individuals, the researchers screened several hundred (or
> potentially thousands) of HIV-exposed people to find these individuals.
> Those who had encountered HIV sexually, and contracted the virus, were
> simply excluded form this study.
The second point you make is the killer. Dr Dach and other "rethinkers'
make conclusions that cannot be logically derived from the data.
> > Another study in which seronegative prostitutes in Nairobi frequently
> > exposured 3 different types of HIV, for up to 12 yr without becoming
> > infected. Thus, HIV- immune responses may be responsible for
> > protection against persistent HIV infection in these African women.
> > (why not American women as well?)
>
>
> Interesting question, and one I cannot give a conclusive answer to as
> the relevant study has not yet been done. Some potential answers are:
>
> 1) HIV-immune women (and men) may exist in the US, but have not been
> identified yet.
>
> 2) The specific MHC alleles which have allowed these Kenyan prostitutes
> to develop HIV-resistance do not exist in the US, and therefore this
> form of immunity is not seen in the US.
There are numerous papers decribing the role of cellular immunity in
protecting frequently exposed people from HIV infection. Prostitutes
that are frequently exposed to HIV but remain uninfected typically have
high frequencies of HIV specific T-cells. If these prostitutes stop the
exposure to HIV then they lose this cellular immunity.
A similar approach is actually being investiagted for malaria
"Data suggest that this may be hastened by exposure to malaria antigens
in low dose, leading to augmented cellular immunity and rapid parasite
clearance."
For some unkown reason HIV "rethinkers" aren't claiming that this paper
demonstrates that malaria is not infectious.
Dr Dach is misrepresenting Mindell's views. Mindell was arguing that
HIV might have been present in some localised human populations before
the tiume where most researchers believe that HIV jumped species. He is
not arguing a la Duesberg that HIV has been present at current
prevalence in the US for centuries or even millennia.
HIV "rethinkers" go to incredible lengths to try to justify Duesberg's
entirely unsupportable contention that HIV is an old infection in the
US and other countries. Analaysis of stored blood has demostarted that
HIV was extremely rare before the 1980s in the US. Records show a large
increase after this time. The same thing is seen in every other country
where HIV has become pandemic. Initially there is no HIV and then
observed rates climb. AIDS cases rise after this time.
Chris Noble
Perplexed in Peoria
"Chris Noble" <Chris...@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:1163302036.7...@i42g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
[snip]
> There are numerous papers decribing the role of cellular immunity in
> protecting frequently exposed people from HIV infection. Prostitutes
> that are frequently exposed to HIV but remain uninfected typically have
> high frequencies of HIV specific T-cells. If these prostitutes stop the
> exposure to HIV then they lose this cellular immunity.
>
> A similar approach is actually being investiagted for malaria
>
> http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=15771566&dopt=Citation
>
> "Data suggest that this may be hastened by exposure to malaria antigens
> in low dose, leading to augmented cellular immunity and rapid parasite
> clearance."
>
> For some unkown reason HIV "rethinkers" aren't claiming that this paper
> demonstrates that malaria is not infectious.
Er. Are they claiming that HIV is not infectuous? I thought that they
were saying that it is simply not the (sole) cause of AIDS. They might
say that it is symmetric to your claiming that the hepatitus virus is
not the cause of AIDS.
Chris Noble
It's difficult to say what *they* claim because different HIV
"rethinkers" make mutually exclusive claims.
One group claims that HIV does not exist or in their weasel word
formulation that there is no evidence for its existence.
Duesberg by contrast agues that HIV does exist and others the existence
of infectious molecular clones of HIV as evidence.
Duesberg argues that HIV is not transmitted by heterosexual sex at
least to any significant degree. He does appear to believe that it is
transmitted by homosexual sex, sharing needles and by blood products
such as Factor VIII. HIV is therefore a harmless passenger virus (with
a tropism for CD4+ cells) that just coincidentally happens to infect
the exact same risk groups that suffer a progressive loss of CD4+ cells
eventually suffering from profound immune suppression and opportunistic
infections.
Almost all HIV "rethinkers" however seem to spend a great deal of
effort vainly trying to demonstrate that HIV is not transmitted by
heterosexual sex.
One example of a bad "rethinker" argument against the sexual
transmission of HIV is analysed here.
http://scienceblogs.com/goodmath/2006/09/pathetic_statistics_from_hivai.php
The creation of a really big number via sloppy mathematics to
demonstrate the improbability of something happening based on a
strawman version of the "orthodox" theory should seem familiar.
Chris Noble