Question:
I brought mine down by drinking Japanese Bamboo Tea every day (about 3 cups/day). It’s good hot or mixed with fruit juices. I’m delighted since I was on medications for 15 years and am now off them, but maintaining a reading of 137/88 at 60 years old.
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: > In article
: > : > > Have you tried any of the adaptogen Essential Oils such as Geranium that : > >helps pull the body functions into line and unlike beta blockers etc has : > >no half life and is non toxic. Also have they diagnosed what is actually : > >causing your arrythmias?? : > >Jill Mystic Earth : > >Life’s what happens while your making other plans! : > : > Uh, Jill, it’s spelled "you’re." : > : Sure glad we got that out of the way. Jill misspelled a word ergo nothing : Jill says is valid. If that’s how your universe works, beam me down : Scotty. I agree with you Neil that simply pointing out a spelling error does not make for very useful discussion. Do you have any other comments about MYSTIC JILL’S post? Because I am certain that YOU don’t want people to think that YOUR universe works by just making ad hominum arguments. Was it not YOU who complained that some people just want to argue and not discuss. Taking a good look in the mirror may be helpful to you. Hopefully that will not be too painful an experience. Aloha, Rich : — : "If you want to inspire confidence, give plenty of statistics. It : does not matter that they should be accurate, or even intelligible, : so long as there is enough of them." – Lewis Carroll
Response:
> In article
> Have you tried any of the adaptogen Essential Oils such as Geranium that >helps pull the body functions into line and unlike beta blockers etc has >no half life and is non toxic. Also have they diagnosed what is actually >causing your arrythmias?? >Jill Mystic Earth >Life’s what happens while your making other plans! > Uh, Jill, it’s spelled "you’re."
Sure glad we got that out of the way. Jill misspelled a word ergo nothing Jill says is valid. If that’s how your universe works, beam me down Scotty. — "If you want to inspire confidence, give plenty of statistics. It does not matter that they should be accurate, or even intelligible, so long as there is enough of them." – Lewis Carroll
Response:
Harris to Lanka, Part IV (end) LANKA: >>Is Harris not aware of the 1994 CDC announcement that there cannot have been any HIV in Factor 8 given to hemophiliacs, since drying of blood products reduces the risk of infection to "essentially zero".<< Comment: They didn’t say that *freeze drying* reduces risk to zero. That’s a very different process. And some concentrates were not dried to powder in any case. Look, we know from stored serum samples that no person in the US with hemophilia prior to 1978 tested "HIV-positive." Over the time period from 1978 to 1986, in a smooth fashion, 50% of the hemophiliacs developed these antibodies. In 1986, when the supply of untreated factor ran out and the new treated factor arrived, the number of new seroconversions (people developing these antibodies newly) stopped. Now even Duesberg recognizes that this represents a wave of HIV infection which spread through the hemophiliac community from 1978-1986. He just thinks that the HIV was harmless, and that the AIDS plague which followed in these people was a total coincidence. If YOU think that these tests were for an antibody that was produced in cross reaction to some other protein antigen, what do you think it was? In this community nobody had it before 1978. Then 9,000 people got it in the next 8 years. Then almost nobody got it after 1986. Did you mention malaria…? LANKA: >>I am aware of Harris’s dismissal of the alternative drug intoxication theory. I assume he is relying on the Winkelstein et al. paper, and no doubt assumes that is the end of the matter.<< Comment: Why assume that? You’ve read my SKEPTIC paper, and the dozen independent drug/AIDS studies I give there for reference on this very subject. LANKA: >> I can only rejoin that if he is so naive as to rely in any way on the accuracy of self-reported drug use – just as an aside, who the hell knows what people really take in when shooting up, swallowing or sniffing adulterated illegal drugs prepared in back street labs? Has he never been in an organic chemistry lab and noted the nasty reagents that are used and the residues and side reactions, if so he would be less cocksure.<< Comment: As it happens, my bachelor of science degree is in chemistry, so I’ve been in plenty of chem labs. Of course I don’t trust the accuracy of self-reporting of drug use, but on the other hand, I don’t think it bears NO relationship to reality, either. If there is any statistical connection between self-reported drug use and actual drug use, then there should be some correlation between AIDS risk and self-reported (non-IV) drug use, in HIV-positive people. There is NONE. Let me remind you also, that all of the data used by people who believe that drugs *cause* AIDS ALSO rely on self-reporting of drug use. If this stuff isn’t ANY good, YOU have no data to go on either. So think twice before you go down that rhetorical road. LANKA: >>The other – oh, so hard to quantify, so let’s forget all about it – factor is the effect of a psychological death sentence of a positive diagnosis. As a virologist I cannot either, but as a human being I know it to be extant, and I cannot just forget about it as Harris seems to with such insouciance.<< Comment: This is always an interesting argument, but I don’t think that being told you are HIV-positive makes your CD4 cells all disappear just from psychology. Besides, a lot of people died of AIDS before 1985, when the HIV-test became available. Since then, in the US, several people like Arthur Ashe and Kimberly Bergalis have wound up in the hospital with almost no T- cells and strange opportunistic infections, before they ever thought they might have AIDS, let alone before being tested for HIV or given anti-HIV drugs. LANKA: >>Harris: "There is no evidence that these drugs (AZT and its analogues) produce deficits in the cell-mediated immune system which are important clinically. There is no evidence that they produce AIDS (as Lanka: may be trying to suggest here) and a great deal of evidence they don’t (the Concorde trials)." Answer: If Harris had any understanding of chemistry and were altogether less intellectually dishonest, he would know that AZT was designed to kill cells indiscriminately. He would take the trouble to find out how it does so. He might also have read the book by Nussbaum "Good Intentions" which chronicles in great detail the shenanigans, whereby AZT was resurrected as an "anti-viral" when previously it was cytotoxic. He would also then realise that misguided gay rights agitators were responsible for this horrendous state of affairs, for which they and a whole lot of completely innocent people are now paying the price. He would then realise that AZT cannot by waving a magic wand (serendipitously?) help AIDS patients after all, say, the way a natural product like aspirin, jojoba and primrose oils, just might. If he, further, had any grasp of pharmacology, he would know that different people manifest different degrees of drug absorption and drug metabolism. And just a little thought on his part would tell him that if you reduce the dose of even a toxic drug to a low level, no harmful effects might be manifested. He might also realise that people don’t always tell the truth, and flush nasty things down the toilet.<< Comment: None of which is much of a rebuttal to my statement that AZT doesn’t produce AIDS. Yes, dose is an essential part of drug toxicity. No, people don’t always take their drugs. But if the biggest trials of a drug show none of a particular bad effect, you cannot simply toss it off as being due to people being non-compliant. If they are always non-compliant, so that we never see the long term immunotoxicity of this drug, then what’s your problem with it? The best that you can say is that you *guess* AZT might produce AIDS, but that no study findings have ever suggested it. LANKA: >>Dr Harris is pretending that the immune system is properly understood. I hazard a guess that at most 1% of what it really comprises is known, hardly a proper basis for dogmatism. Least understood is the significance, if any, of T-cell counting. Harris would get the most up-to-date critical review of current knowledge on this troubled subject by reading Eleni Papadopulos-Eleopulos et al. in Genetica, April 1995. Comment: Hmmm. Written by Eleni Papadopulos-Eleopulos, well known immunologist…. LANKA: >>And when he has done that he would benefit by swatting up on the whole murky topic of antibody testing and PCR in Bio/Technology, June 1993, by the same authors. He will become a wiser man.<< Comment: I’ve read the last paper. Utter nonsense. LANKA: >>I know someone who has for several years had only three T4 cells, which he named after his dead friends. He himself is well.<< Comment: Yes, and doubtless because he takes anti-Pneumocystis antibiotics to replace the T4 function (or otherwise he’d be dead). Call us back when his T8 count hits 3 and tell us if he’s healthy! I can also guess that this person will test HIV-seropositive, HIV-culture positive, and that his viral load will be easily measurable by DNA branch chain or RNA PCR tests. Whereas all of these tests, done in the same lab in parallel would be negative if done on (say) myself, who has a fine CD4 count. If we know almost nothing about immunology or AIDS, how is it that I can predict such things about someone I’ve never met? LANKA: >> Dr Felix Konotey-Ahulu of the famous Cromwell Hospital, London, has described a tribe in Ghana whose average T-cell count is only 100!<< Comment: Interesting– I’d like to read the paper. Certainly is it known that there are racial differences in some of these parameters. For example, people of African ancestry have significantly lower neutrophil counts than other races, without being immunosuppressed by it. So some adjustments may need to be made in parameters when dealing with peoples who have not been carefully studied before. Still none of this invalidates the marker values which we’ve learned to use prognostically with Caucasians. LANKA: >> Also, why can an individual have twice as many T-cells in the morning as in the evening? Is this also "just baloney". Certainly not, it is all well documented.<< Comment: Yes, although the diurnal variation is on the average much less. It is for this reason that when T-cell counts are tracked, people are asked to come in for their tests at the same time each day. LANKA: >>Harris denies that up until recently, being HIV positive did not constitute a definitive prognosis of death. Since when is it "official" that 10% of positives will be alive after 15 years?<< Comment: No, 10% will be healthy after 15 years (the reference is in my essay– it’s from 1994). In that time about 75% will be dead (speaking of a group of gay men), or about 50% for a group of infected hemophiliacs, who will be a younger group and thus live longer after HIV infection. LANKA: >> I thought you said it was 50% (earlier on, remember?), or is that to be understood as meaning 40% die in years 10 to 15? In German, there is a saying "Luegen haben kurze Beine" (lies have short legs, ie. they don’t get you very far). Stop making policy on the hoof, it won’t work.<< Comment: Don’t blame me if you don’t understand the nuances. Age of the person at infection is a well known cofactor for survival with HIV, and mostly because of differences in group age, survival for groups may differ quite a bit. On average, for most groups infected in young to middle adulthood, the 50% survival mark comes at about 10 years. For hemophiliacs, infected on average much earlier (since many are infected before puberty), the 50% mortality time is longer (15 years or so). LANKA: >> Long-term survivors have only been officially recogni- sed for the past 2 years, now you claim they are recognised to constitute 10-50% << Comment: No. By
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Harris to Lanka, Part III LANKA: >> Harris the gets carried away rather by his own rhetoric in saying "actually, one cannot help asking how nobody has spotted the flaw in Lanka:’s argument, which suggests that "HIV DNA" must be in every normal cell, since HIV as a separate entity does not exist, and therefore no DNA PCR test can ever be "negative" on anyone. Yet these tests routinely find no HIV DNA in HIV negative people." It is my humble opinion that the sequences are endogenous, and anybody can prove it. Comment: Well, then, why don’t *you* do so and become famous! "Humble opinion" is right. LANKA: >> Not only in man, of course, but also in the special cell cultures that always have to be used to make HIV. But here’s the rub, dear Dr Harris! That is how HT23 (the first human retrovirus) was discovered in 1975, but which Gallo very soon thereafter had to withdraw from the "market", because vociferous ape virologists staked an earlier claim to it.<< Comment: Yes, because it was a monkey virus. But it is not found in human cells which haven’t been contaminated, and that is WHY Gallo had to retract in embarrassment. If what you say was right (that it’s in every human cell no matter what), the argument never would have been resolved. LANKA: >>This also explains why Gallo and Montagnier published almost identical sequences, because he had purloined them as endogenous sequences from Montagnier; only illicit collusion could have produced the concordance that was obtained.<< Comment: There is an easier explanation, and one that both men now accept. Not only Gallo’s lab, but also Montagnier’s lab was overrun by the same fast-growing HIV-1 variant, and as a matter of fact, so was a lab in England. When everyone, even Montagnier who has nothing to gain, makes the same mistake, it’s hard for me to use it to see it as criminal act on the part of Gallo. Apparently the U.S. government and the French government eventually had the same reaction. The idea that the strain concordance in HIV between Gallo and Montagnier’s labs is explained by the idea that the "virus" (its genome) is in all H9 cells, certainly does not explain what happened. The point is that many other HIV variants are known, all grown in that same cell line, but that these two early ones from Gallo and Montagnier’s lab were nearly identical, and NOT the same as all the others. That doesn’t happen if all these gene sequences are there in every culture cell already. Have you forgotten that people have isolated hundreds of strains of HIV, and that most are grown in the same cell line? The original cell line tests negative for HIV, and contains no HIV gene sequences. If you can show otherwise, you’ll be a famous man. LANKA: >>One reason why in the so-called PCR controls nothing is found, is that the human cells used to act as controls, are not stimulated (stressed) in the same way as those in which one wants to detect HIV, ie. they don’t compare like with like.<< Comment: Absolutely wrong. Control samples (blood mononuclear cells from HIV-negative people) are treated in the same way as cells from HIV-positive people in these tests. That’s why they are called "controls." LANKA: >>The RNA detected in PCR tests is not expressed under normal conditions, because they do not belong to the normal repertoire of nucleic acid. The RNA detected is formed in response to stress when cells in short term cultures begin dying, or are treated in such a way that its cellular activity is disturbed, and "retroviral sequences" are expressed which are not formed (transcribed) otherwise.<< Comment: First of all, DNA PCR begins by discarding the cell’s RNA, and isolating nuclear DNA. Whatever the cell does in response to stress is irrelevant– the nuclear DNA is the same. DNA PCR looking for HIV proviral DNA is searching for this DNA in the nucleus. Finally, once again, controls are treated exactly the same as other samples, so there is no reason they should give different PCR results, save for the fact of their failure to containing genes that aren’t there in the positive samples. LANKA: >> PCR only detects very short stretches of DNA that in this case are supposed to be components of the genetic material of viruses. If one succeeds in this, it is immediately described as "PCR positive", implying that the remainder of the genetic material ascribed to HIV, is found somewhere else. This is pure guesswork!<< Comment: You mean it’s guesswork to find one gene from a retrovirus inserted into a cell’s DNA, and guess that the others are there too? Maybe, but it’s a pretty good guess. Actually, some PCR assays today use separate assays for several different viral genes, in order to standardize results. Answers are still the same. LANKA: >>On careful reading of Harris’s references on PCR and many others, one discovers that a number of PCR tests for viral RNA use *chromosomal* DNA as controls! << Comment: They also use chromosomal DNA as the test substance! They are looking for proviral DNA inserted into the chromosomes! These are PCR tests looking for viral cDNA, not RNA. LANKA: >> As every genetics student would object immediately, this can’t be done. Transcription into RNA changes the gene sequence, ie. the RNA is "edited"; on reverse transcription back into DNA it is no longer the original DNA.<< Comment: totally irrelevant comment. Think it though again, for we are not talking of the new HIV mRNA PCR tests. These are DNA PCR tests which never see mRNA, because it is discarded at the beginning of the assay. LANKA: >>Starter molecules needed for this edited DNA are now prepared which fit this DNA, but not the original. Herein lies the wizardry! A wonderful piece of deception, and available for all to see! All recounted history! Regrettably, with terrible consequences. The argument is tricky, and if Harris can’t or is reluctant to grasp it, then so be it.<< Comment: If somebody here has failed to grasp all this, it isn’t me. LANKA: >> I have never claimed that HIV DNA is present in every human being, for the obvious reason that it doesn’t exist except as a lab construct.<< Comment: Then again, you’re going to have a really hard time explaining why the "lab" can’t find this construct in some people, or why it’s found by the same lab in some people and not others, when their cells are treated just the same. And why (except in babies, who get passive antibodies from their mothers) the answers correlate nearly perfectly with HIV antibody levels. LANKA: >>Harris asks: "then why does a positive test give you a 50% chance of dying of immunodeficiency in 10 years? That’s a harsh punishment from rheumatology and sunbathing. And why do positive antibody tests correlate so well (both positively and negatively) with viral culture tests (which measure a protein) or with direct PCR (which measures DNA)." Answer: I presume Harris means "have a 50% chance of dying of AIDS not immunodeficiency".<< Presume nothing: I meant exactly what I wrote. LANKA: >> Or does he not know that they are not synonymous, given some of his silly pat answers, I think he’s not sure? Only 39% of AIDS cases have anything to do with immunodeficiency.<< Comment: Here you are about to argue that a person with no T-cells and dying of strange viral or fungal infections (the fate of most AIDS patients) is not immunodeficient. Good luck. LANKA: >>It appears to be all the same to Harris. HIV kills off T4 cells, therefore 10% of people get Kaposi’s Sarcoma, 6% develop dementia, 3% develop lymphomas and 19% waste away.<< Comment: Kaposi’s sarcoma is apparently a herpes viral illness, so this makes good sense. People with chronic infections do waste away, but this is also a symptom of lentiviral infection in animals, as is dementia (seen as behavior changes and brain damage in animals), and lymphoma. What kills most AIDS patients is still fungal and viral infections, which cannot be controlled by antibiotics or antivirals. That’s immunodeficiency. LANKA: >>Or is this the point at which the "fiendishly clever" effect of HIV comes in, whereby it causes these totally disparate diseases "indirectly", by molecular mimicry, by apoptosis, by autoimmunity, by protein toxicity? If Harris knew anything he’d know that he knew nothing: immunology is essentially still in the Dark Ages, scarcely more advanced than mechanics was without Newton.<< Comment: Look, we know all this happens in retrovirally infected animals (or at least, all of us but Duesberg). It happens to cats and monkeys we infect, it doesn’t happen to controls we don’t infect. Whether we know the mechanisms or not is irrelevant— simply knowing that all this pathology all CAN be caused by infection with one lymphotropic retrovirus (and one that looks exactly like HIV, coincidentally) is enough. Pasteur proved that anthrax kills sheep, and guessed that microbes also caused infectious disease in people. He didn’t know ANYTHING about mechanisms or immunology. But he could reason by analogy. LANKA: >>By the way, is it another slip-up by Harris saying "have a 50% chance of dying"? Is this now official policy – only half the HIV positives develop AIDS?<< Comment: I said "in ten years," which you left out of my quote. LANKA: >> Since when, and why, or is it really 90% as he states further down? << Comment: It is assumed to be 90%, since at 14 years only 10% of HIV infected are well, and the rest are either dead, or ill and getting worse. LANKA: >>Harris asks: "if there’s no virus to explain all this, how does Lanka explain it? Remember, one must explain not only why people who test positive for "HIV" antibodies almost always test positive for HIV by culture and PCR (which don’t test for antibodies), but also why people who test negative for antibodies test *negative* by culture and PCR (see last set of 4 papers quoted)". Answer: It is not
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Harris to Lanka, Part II LANKA: >>So let us look in some detail at what Harris *thinks* is an isolation of HIV (Virology, 1992, 189, 695). It bears the inauspicious title "Factors underlying spontaneous inactivation and susceptibility to neutralisation of Human Immunodeficiency Virus", which rather suggests that it is not a very stable entity, as indeed it isn’t. So unstable, in fact, that it disintegrates spontaneously.<< Comment: Sure, although it takes a couple of days. All membrane-covered viruses "disintegrate spontaneously" in water, after a few days. What do you expect? This doesn’t mean that aren’t real viruses. LANKA: >>What one then sees on page 700 is nothing other than a preparation of the above mentioned cellular particles, which are of different sizes and shapes, and, as the caption clearly states, are contaminated with "membranous residues" and "macromolecular fragments". This is *not* what an isolated virus preparation should look like. What they should look like can be seen in any virology textbook (and shown in Continuum). When real viruses are isolated, they do not need "fixing", which means embedding them in a resin to stop them from falling apart, nor slicing into ultra-thin sections to show up detail, only then being in a fit state to be photographed in an electron microscope. Isolated virus preparations should contain no impurities, and after staining in one piece to give contrast, are ready to be photographed. All particles should look alike. All viruses that are real, have been isolated and photographed in this way.<< Comment: Really? I figure you must think that FIV and SIV are not "real," either, since no EM’s of them showing their characteristic features have been taken without fixing and slicing first. Or any micrographs where all particles look just the same, for that matter, even if they have been though a sucrose step. Membrane viruses are fragile. What virus do you have illustrated in Continuum? Tobacco mosaic? Surely not hepatitis B. Surely not any of the lentiviruses. LANKA: >> The reader, open-minded AIDS researchers and especia- lly Steven B. Harris could do worse than look at the publication about a virus in whose isolating and characterisation I myself was involved in (Virology, 1995, 206, 1, and Continuum). << Comment: My promised copy has yet to arrive. Let me make a bet before I go to the library, that the virus you characterized is not a membrane bound one, and is considerably less fragile than the retroviruses. LANKA: >>Harris gets himself into deep water by trying to come to grips with "hard" science by questioning my contention that the correct characterisation of viral proteins has not been performed. What is needed are photographs of the native gels of the proteins and of the nucleic acid, so as to prevent the skulduggery, as we shall see. Harris thinks the missing proteins of HIV are found in the Cohen et al paper. But all that we see there is more fiddling and tinkering with the evidence, which in a criminal case would land him in prison for suppression of material evidence. We see the result of radiolabelled SDS (detergent) polyacrylic amid gel electrophoresis (PAGE). One needs to see the proteins on the SDS gel *before* antibodies to it were formed and radiolabelled. If you have something to show, and above all if you want to prove that the proteins of a virus have been isolated and separated according to size, then the native gel has to be shown before further experiments are conducted. This is standard procedure – except, of course, in this case where it really matters! If you attempted this with HIV isolations you would find that many proteins wouldn’t fit in with the conventional HIV model. To get round this problem, only photos of certain antibodies which bind to selected proteins are shown, and the other proteins, which remain unbound by antibodies is not revealed. Only selected proteins are made visible by binding to antibodies, because only pre-selected proteins are used to inoculate experimental animals which are used to produce, with which these proteins are detected. The same applies to humans in whom only antibodies to proteins are produced with which they had previously been in immunological contact, i.e. inoculated with (except rheumatism and autoimmune disease). It is quite a difficult argument to follow which will leave many a head spinning, but that is how AIDS science works.<< Comment: Okay, there may well be many other proteins that don’t show up on that gel. But again, so what? The HIV proteins are there, even if perhaps not pure. The whole idea of radio- immune processing of gels is to be able to identify proteins which are less than pure. Are you trying to suggest that the technique is worthless? LANKA: >>Variations of an original error (Ratner et al.) may enchant Harris, but remain an error just the same. They show once again that something has been obtained from the cell soup, not from a virus.<< Comment: It was actually obtained from a sucrose gradient. All viruses are obtained originally from "cell soups," of course. LANKA: >>Harris goes on to explain that the evidence that the knobs attach HIV to cells is "massive", as if he had the requisite training to evaluate the evidence.<< Comment: Well, experts who’ve worked for 10 years on this problem say the same. The original papers are in Science, and you can look them up as well as I. Need references? LANKA: >>The evidence of 100,000 papers on HIV and AIDS should indeed be massive; unfortunately (or rather, mercifully) not one of them contains any direct evidence for the existence of HIV nor of its components. What is required is a standard isolation experiment, not something fanciful like sprinkling cloned DNA on to cell cultures and seeing what happens.<< Comment: I would hardly call it fanciful that the cultures "sprinkled" with cloned DNA from HIV then bud particles with all of the specific physical characteristics of lymphotropic lentiviruses. Again, let’s see you get such particles, with all such characteristics, in any other way! You can take those same (cell free) particles and use them to infect other cells, and get particles which look just like them too. Gosh, a self-replicating "microsome" with a consistent physical structure. What should we call this new entity? LANKA:>We now join Alice in Wonderland in which Harris explains in greater detail how this "science" works, to wit, the concept of "co-purification", hitherto unknown to science. He says "these are the same proteins which are coded for by the viral genome, and which *co-purify* with the infectious virus on sucrose gradients, as noted above. Why does it take a stretch of the imagination to image that they are viral proteins?" Answer: Something that co-purifies with something else is of no interest to anyone. Individual proteins should have a density that is entirely different to complete viruses, and should for that reason *not* band at the same density as viruses!<< Comment: Yes, if they are unattached, sure. But that’s the point. When you have many different proteins banding at the same place, that’s a big clue that they’re all stuck into isodense aggregates. Such as virus particles. LANKA: >>It seems that these researchers have never even learned the ground rules of cell biology and virology. The quality of evidence that convinces Harris is frightening.<< Comment: No, you just misunderstood what I was trying to say. Todd Miller, for instance, wonders why gp-160 bands on sucrose with HIV. Answer: because that gp-160 is still attached. Free gp-160 goes to another density band altogether, just as you’d expect. LANKA: >>To try once more: second and third generation tests use *synthetic* proteins, clearly therefore they are not viral. How can something that is synthesised be viral.<< Comment: Well, you tell me. You think that synthesized proteins of the same amino acid composition are somehow different from natural ones? How so? The first generation tests DID use proteins isolated directly from viral cultures (from sucrose gradients, as a matter of fact, where they all banded together at the density of a retrovirus). They’ve all long been sequenced. What does it matter how we make them now? LANKA: >> A virus is a creation of nature. Their use is an attempt to maximise reproducibility. Is that really so difficult to understand? << No, but I really don’t see what your beef is. Once you know the structure of a molecule, including a protein, you can make it from scratch, or by bacterial cloning (genetic engineering) and it’s just the same as if the cell made it. Atoms are all interchangeable. All these HIV proteins for ELISAs are made by bacteria or yeast, the same as insulin or the new generation of hepatitis B surface antigen for vaccines. So what? LANKA: >>We now come to various observations where Harris finds it expedient to act dumb. In my original paper I quoted from the instruction leaflet accompanying one test kit, namely, "The test for the existence of antibodies against AIDS-associated virus is not diagnostic for AIDS and AIDS-like diseases. Negative test results do not exclude the possibility of contact or infection with the AIDS-associated virus. Positive test results do not prove that someone has an AIDS or pre-AIDS disease status nor that he will acquire it" Harris feigns incomprehension.<< No, I understand it well enough. A test result is like a weather forecast. If they say it will rain, it *might* shine. If they say it will shine, it *might* rain. But either truth about the imperfection of weather forecasts can be rightfully used to argue that weather reports are bogus, provides no knowledge, and are no better than chance (flipping a coin). Instead, the correct interpretation is that the knowledge provided by a forecast is probabilistic. The knowledge
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From Steven B. Harris, M.D. Harris to Lanka, Part I In my 4-part reply to Dr. Lanka’s answer to my critique of his original paper (posted just previous to this), I am going to save everyone a great deal of space by ignoring and deleting his insults and non-sequiturs entirely. If some of them survive in what follows, it is only because they are too difficult to separate from his science arguments. This debate continues on the question of the reality of HIV and AIDS. LANKA: >>Harris’s simple mistake is to have ignored well-known intracellular structural particles common to all metabolically active cells, of which there are many – specifically, what are called "coated vesicles". Their function is to transport metabolic decay products out of living cells. This is hardly a pardonable error, since basic prudence on his part should have led him to study fairly closely the differences between electron micrographs of microsomes in general, and coated vesicles in particular, with or without the help of a specialist in this field – it did after all form one of the two main planks of my article. Neither virus particles nor cellular particles are rarities in the literature. Contrary to Harris’s little joke, I have spent an enormous amount of time in libraries, far too much of it wasted trying to make sense of the mile upon mile of bookshelf devoted to the riddle of "cancer-causing" viruses (of which more below). Harris clearly would have benefitted hugely looking down an electron microscope more often, and allowing himself to be enchanted by the multiplicity of such "Harris" viruses, more widely known as coated vesicles. This would have made him realise that their very ubiquity in healthy tissues meant they could not be responsible for any pathogenicity.<< Comment: Okay, fine. Show me a picture in the literature of a definite cell fragment (microsome, coated vesicle, whatever), which has all the classic features of a lentivirus, including correct size, knobs, conical core with a dense base and inner membrane attachment at the opposite narrow end, and lateral bodies. Cellular particles may not be rarities in the literature, but cellular particles which look exactly like what I’m describing are nonexistent. Find me one photo to the contrary. LANKA: >>Harris’s strategy appears to be to launch a shut-out bid by declaring HIV to be a lentivirus, as if that explained anything. Lentiviruses are an even worse case of virological muddle than HIV, in that they, too, have never been isolated nor proven to do what is alleged of them. Fiddling around with them has been going on for 20 years at least – to no effect – whereas with HIV it has only been 10! One very important difference, though, between the two situations is that lentiviruses have at worst affected only a handful of animals with so little consequence, that most scientists would be hard pressed to say anything about them,<< Comment: Most would if they haven’t read the experimental literature. Plenty of lentiviruses have been isolated. For the classic paper on FIV, see Science 235:790-793, 1987. And there is no question that a number of lentiviruses cause slow diseases in sheep, cattle, cats, and monkeys, after experimental lentivi- rus infections. Some of the many studies are in my SKEPTIC article, which you have. "To no effect," you say? To no effect if you don’t read them. But lentiviruses are in all virology texts. If you are a virologist who does not believe that the lentiviridae exist or cause long latency disease, I suggest you write a paper for a journal detailing the reasons you don’t. Don’t just hint about it here. Maybe you can be famous. Or infamous, like Duesberg. LANKA: >>Whether lentivirus or not, it is a nullity ab initio to seek to prove anything in science by arguing by analogy.<< Comment: That’s a new one on me, since that’s the way science has worked ever since the apple fell off the tree by Newton and he started thinking about why the moon doesn’t fall. If you can name some experiments we’ve done on the whole moon to see why it stays up there, I’d like to know about them. But we have a pretty good idea why it stays up there today, just the same. We argue by analogy, you see. LANKA: >>That is the negation of the scientific method.<< Comment: Obviously, you don’t understand the scientific method as well as you should. I recommend more history reading. LANKA: >> Whatever may be true of FLeV, FIV, SIV etc. has no bearing on the existence or function of HIV.<< Comment: Not if you’re mentally impaired, perhaps. For the rest of us, though, such regularities of form and function are indeed broad inductive clues of the kind that have always pointed scientists toward understanding of Nature. LANKA: >>Points of visual similarity do not constitute proof of identity nor function.<< Comment: Did Darwin’s long argument about visual and structural similarities and differences in the _The Origin of Species_ PROVE the reality of evolution? Strictly speaking, no. Did it shed insight, expand human understanding, and accomplish something? Yes. Very little of the real knowledge content of science is "proved" to perfection by direct experiment. But that doesn’t mean this knowledge content is not real. LANKA: >>To assert otherwise means either that he has never looked properly at electron micrographs, or he is deluding himself.<< Comment: You think so? I assert that nothing else looks in the EM like a lymphotropic lentivirus BUT a lymphotropic lentivirus, if the photo is of high enough quality to show the structure details I have enumerated. I have challenged to you to come up with a single image of any other virus or vesicle which has all the visual properties I named above. Montagnier knew he had a lentivirus with LAV the first time he saw a photo of EIAV. The sera cross reacted also. Coincidence? You say so. I do not. The placement of HIV-1 in the lentivirus class, was not just done for appearance sake, of course (though it is visually identical to FIV and SIV). It also has antigenic similarity, and the same genomic organization as these viruses. And also their peculiar magnesium dependent reverse transcriptase. LANKA: >>The fatuity of his reasoning is highlighted (quite fortuitously) by the recent "discovery" that HIV is most definitely not a lentivirus. Lenti- means slow. Because since January 1995, don’t we have it on the highest authority that HIV replicates very rapidly, at a rate of 1000 million particles a day, every day, for an average of 10 years?<< Comment: The "lenti" has nothing to do with rate of replication– it has to do with duration of time between infection and death. Furthermore, the original definition of the term in 1954 has been expanded to include genomic and antigenic characteristics, not simply behavioral characteristics, as we have learned more about the class. Try not to be a slave of initial names. It’s like saying that a new kind of reddish bacterium cannot be a "cyanobacterium" because it’s the wrong color. Science and its naming processes are more flexible than that. Would you exclude yourself from being a member of "Homo sapiens" because you weren’t very wise? LANKA: >>Anybody with an ounce of common sense must have realised that a virus cannot have been barely detectable for the first 10 years of its existence, then suddenly turn out to be "hyperactive" after all.<< Comment: If you’re trying to detect it in the wrong way, why not? HIV has previously been detected by looking at inactive provirus in blood cells, or by looking for infectious particles in the serum by culture. Blood has low levels of inactive provirus, and low levels of infectious HIV particles in the sera. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t have a lot of HIV particles– just that most particles are inactive, very much like the case for hepatitis B, and are not "seen" in culture assays. They may well damage the body by the very process of being MADE, not by what happens to them afterwards. LANKA: >> The answer to this conundrum is quite simple: AIDS science is not science at all, just empty posturing as such. Proper science is never made at press conferences, it does not operate by decree, it is not a matter of developing a consensus, and it should not totter from "revelation" to "revelation", with theory made "on the hoof", a hodge-podge of mysterious mechanisms requiring further billions to finance an army of scientific bureaucrats.<< Comment: Oh, come now! Most of medical science has some of the circus you describe above. The polio vaccine got just as much press as the HIV stuff 30 years later. Remember the press conferences when smallpox was finally eliminated? But medicine does advance, despite the show. LANKA: >>Inexplicable failures in the predictions of a scientific theory should spell its death. That is the essence of the scientific method. Consistent failure in respect of HIV should long ago have sufficed to dismiss it as a cause of AIDS. That it continues nonetheless, makes it just an article of faith, and reduces belief in it to the status of a religion.<< Comment: What failures of prediction are those? The idea that HIV is responsible for the AIDS epidemic engenders few automatic predictions. LANKA: >>Dr Harris is clearly quite an intelligent man, so his very first point "Strangely enough, Lanka does not explain what we’re seeing in all those electron micrographs" has me tearing my hair out, because a few paragraphs further down he provides his own answer that "less well-known is the existence of other particles which look like viruses but aren’t, and are nonchalantly referred to as "virus-like" particles. Such particles are far from rare, found, for example, always in placentas, and very frequently in the artificial environment of laboratory cell cultures. They have served to muddy the waters considerably as far as AIDS … read more »
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: > Jill Mystic Earth: : > >Have you tried any of the adaptogen Essential Oils such as Geranium that : > >helps pull the body functions into line and unlike beta blockers etc has : > >no half life and is non toxic. : > : > Cool…a medicine that exists outside of ‘time.’ Of course, this begs the : > question, ‘When do I use the medicine’ and ‘How often?’ But perhaps I : > misunderstand you, Ms Mystic Earth. What do YOU mean by "no half-life?" : > : > >Also have they diagnosed what is actually causing your arrythmias?? : > ^^^^ : > I like the way you casually ask this as an after-thought…as if it was : > incidental to the treatment you recommended. : > : > >Life’s what happens while your making other plans! : > : > Yes…especially if by ‘plans’ we mean the inappropriate substitution of : > ‘fetish’ and ‘ritual delusion’ for the experience of unresolved feelings and : > conflict. That’s why you like this quote…right Jill? Have you tried : > homeopathy? If so, how do you compare its numbing effect to that of : > crystals and essential oils? : > : > JB. : > : >John, 1 of a number of things – enquiring as to if there had been a : diagnosis was NOT an after thought & it certainly was not CASUALLY thrown : in as an after thought!! A diagnosis is vitally important & if one : hasn’t obtained one, then they have’nt done their homework & shouldn’t be : looking for alternative treatments unless they know what is actually : causing the arrhythmias!!! Yes Jill you are quite right. Could you share with us which specific arrythmias you can treat effectively with crystals and/or essential oils. Does it work for Wolf Parkinson White Syndrome? How about second degree heart block? Perhaps it is useful to atrial fibrillation? Please do educate us about which oils are good for which diagnoses. : Oh?? Do you find homepathy numbing? I prefer using Crystals & Essential : Oils as I know exactly what is in them & thus I control my own healing. : Have you tried either? You know *exactly* what is in them? How did you manage to achieve this degree of insight? What *exactly* IS in them? : As to "Half life" is a term related to certain medications or drugs that : when ingested only part of the ‘drug’ is utilised,some excreted and some : remains in the system and can build up over extended periods to dangerous : levels. Happy!! Actually *I* am not very happy with that definition. Did you get that definition from your exotic oil book? "Half-life" specifically refers to the *time* in which it takes for exactly one half of the drug to be metabolized by the body. Whether or not the drug will build up over time to dangerous levels is a function of half life and frequency of administration. : "fetish" I do admit to – love them) The essentil oil acts on the limbic : system of the brain thus helping to regulate autonomic systems within the : system. Perhaps you could share with the group specifically how it acts on the limbic system and which neurochemicals are affected. Aloha, Rich : Jill : Life’s what happens while your making other plans!
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– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -> Jill Mystic Earth: > >Have you tried any of the adaptogen Essential Oils such as Geranium that > >helps pull the body functions into line and unlike beta blockers etc has > >no half life and is non toxic. > Cool…a medicine that exists outside of ‘time.’ Of course, this begs the > question, ‘When do I use the medicine’ and ‘How often?’ But perhaps I > misunderstand you, Ms Mystic Earth. What do YOU mean by "no half-life?" > >Also have they diagnosed what is actually causing your arrythmias?? > ^^^^ > I like the way you casually ask this as an after-thought…as if it was > incidental to the treatment you recommended. > >Life’s what happens while your making other plans! > Yes…especially if by ‘plans’ we mean the inappropriate substitution of > ‘fetish’ and ‘ritual delusion’ for the experience of unresolved feelings and > conflict. That’s why you like this quote…right Jill? Have you tried > homeopathy? If so, how do you compare its numbing effect to that of > crystals and essential oils? > JB. >John, 1 of a number of things – enquiring as to if there had been a
diagnosis was NOT an after thought & it certainly was not CASUALLY thrown in as an after thought!! A diagnosis is vitally important & if one hasn’t obtained one, then they have’nt done their homework & shouldn’t be looking for alternative treatments unless they know what is actually causing the arrhythmias!!! Oh?? Do you find homepathy numbing? I prefer using Crystals & Essential Oils as I know exactly what is in them & thus I control my own healing. Have you tried either? As to "Half life" is a term related to certain medications or drugs that when ingested only part of the ‘drug’ is utilised,some excreted and some remains in the system and can build up over extended periods to dangerous levels. Happy!! Finally… the statement the Life’s what happens while you’re making other plans certainly does not reflect any of that crap you spilled out, think about it…either that or simply watch Kuffs ( where it was borrowed from) maybe that will "enlighten" or lighten you up! Oh yes, if you are interested Geranium Essential Oil can be used in many ways…in an oil burner or vaporiser,in a bath or via a massage (a "fetish" I do admit to – love them) The essentil oil acts on the limbic system of the brain thus helping to regulate autonomic systems within the system. Jill Life’s what happens while your making other plans!
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Jill Mystic Earth: >Have you tried any of the adaptogen Essential Oils such as Geranium that >helps pull the body functions into line and unlike beta blockers etc has >no half life and is non toxic. Cool…a medicine that exists outside of ‘time.’ Of course, this begs the question, ‘When do I use the medicine’ and ‘How often?’ But perhaps I misunderstand you, Ms Mystic Earth. What do YOU mean by "no half-life?" >Also have they diagnosed what is actually causing your arrythmias?? ^^^^ I like the way you casually ask this as an after-thought…as if it was incidental to the treatment you recommended. >Life’s what happens while your making other plans! Yes…especially if by ‘plans’ we mean the inappropriate substitution of ‘fetish’ and ‘ritual delusion’ for the experience of unresolved feelings and conflict. That’s why you like this quote…right Jill? Have you tried homeopathy? If so, how do you compare its numbing effect to that of crystals and essential oils? JB.
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> Have you tried any of the adaptogen Essential Oils such as Geranium that >helps pull the body functions into line and unlike beta blockers etc has >no half life and is non toxic. Also have they diagnosed what is actually >causing your arrythmias?? >Jill Mystic Earth >Life’s what happens while your making other plans!
Uh, Jill, it’s spelled "you’re."
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Magnesium has been suggested…Drugs, such as beta blockers and calcium channel blockers *may* work for some people for some time but side effects can be as bad as the problem…It needs to be monitored very closely with your cardiologist. The cardiologist is in the dark also and can only experiment to determine what is most effective in your situation. If you have some electrical "short circuiting" situation, the drug, Sotacor (Sotacol) may be effective. Stress can be a culprit, releasing adrenalin….so deep breathing, exercise, meditation, etc. may be helpful…Good luck.
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Have you tried any of the adaptogen Essential Oils such as Geranium that helps pull the body functions into line and unlike beta blockers etc has no half life and is non toxic. Also have they diagnosed what is actually causing your arrythmias?? Jill Mystic Earth Life’s what happens while your making other plans!
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Hello everyone. Well, I have been to the family doctor last week and this week and find that my blood pressure is slightly elevated. It is approximately 140/100. The doctor did a ECG (is that the name) and all was well. I am 48 years old and just under 6 feet tall weighing 14 stone. The doctor suggested that he start me on medication but I said not yet. My family history is that my father died when he was 57 from a degenerative heart disease that he had for perhaps 7 years or so. He had about 6 minor heart attacks before having the major one. I do not want to go on any medication as 25 years ago I had nephritis and was on mega doses of drugs. What I would like to do first is tackle the weight situation and lose at least 8 kilos. I have an exercise bike and ride it each day for about 10 minutes building up a good perspiration. We don’t add salt to food and I don’t smoke. Okay folks, it’s over to you. What should I do to bring my blood pressure down. Please reply directly to my email address as I do not visit here often. Thank you for your help. Bye for now. Paul Copeland (Melbourne, Australia)
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