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The Origin, Persistence and Failings of HIV/AIDS Theory

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One of the most difficult things to write is a refutation of a massive fraud, especially a health fraud, in the face of media control and knowledge monopolies by financial powerhouses. Making it still more difficult is the possible threat of libel lawsuits from the powerful parties essentially accused of scientific misconduct at best and criminal negligence at worst. Following in the footsteps of Peter Duesberg, Robert Root-Bernstein, Neville Hodgkinson, Gordon Stewart, David Crowe, Linda Marsa and many others, Henry Bauer has produced a very readable explanation of why HIV does not cause AIDS, and whatever AIDS is, it has not caused an epidemic. His civility of tone is remarkable. Dr. Bauer's conclusions are backed up by about 450 references, about 100 to primary medical journals. The book has a good index, 27 figures and 35 tables.

Part I shows that HIV does not cause AIDS. Dr. Bauer makes it clear that "HIV positive" means a response to a test that shows little more than stress and immune system potentiation. Because of this, Dr. Bauer labels the prevalence or frequency of positive HIV tests "F(HIV)". An actual virus has not been isolated. This is the main reason that no vaccine has appeared. People who test positive are usually not sick, will not develop AIDS, may spontaneously change so they are no longer HIV positive, and are not likely to infect anyone else by blood transfer or sex. The failure of F(HIV) to spread, and its steady incidence, with some decline, over 20 years contradict the scary warnings that permeate publications and TV programs. The % of people who show HIV-positive is dependent on race, sex and location, not their behavior. Some people who develop AIDS were not HIV positive. Further obfuscating the issue was a medical cabal confusing an outbreak of Kaposi's sarcoma in the 1980s with AIDS. More confusion was sown by changing the definition of AIDS to merely being HIV positive, rather than a wasting illness from infections normally controlled by a healthy body. Many perfectly healthy people who were given AZT or mixtures of anti-retroviral drugs (triple cocktail) developed symptoms said to be AIDS that were actually drug side effects. In a sneaky way this "confirmed" the false premise that a positive HIV test indicated AIDS. Even now, healthy people who have a positive test are said to be "living with AIDS", a false and destructive description, according to Dr. Bauer.

Part II discusses other mistakes and scares in medical science. One sequence is on treatment of schizophrenics, who were infected with malaria, treated by electric shock, and then by lobotomy as supposed "cures" we see today as brutal and idiotic. The very common notion that high cholesterol levels cause atherosclerosis and heart attacks is also mentioned by Dr. Bauer as false. So was the resistance of orthodox medicine to admit that bacteria were the prime cause of stomach ulcers. Much of this resistance to the latter pair of ailments was said to be Big Pharma's desire to maintain profits, which also applies to anti-retroviral drugs.

Part III is the most wrenching to read, at times as hard as reading details of the Holocaust. The claim by Robert Gallo in the National Cancer Institute to have isolated "the cause of AIDS", eventually named HIV. After his receipt of a sample of something in AIDS patients from the Pasteur Institute, he developed a test for antibodies to HIV. This was followed by a patent dispute between the NCI and the PI on who invented the test. Dr. Bauer noted that the PI probably did it based on the outcome of the patent fight. Dr. Bauer also noted that the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Prevention spread panic about the connection between F(HIV) and AIDS, exactly opposite to one of their mandated functions. Exact quotations from the CDC and others on HIV and AIDS were reproduced with explanations of internal inconsistencies or mutant statistics. Turns out that President Mbeki of South Africa was correct to refuse anti-retroviral drugs, and that there is no epidemic of AIDS or even F(HIV) in Africa. On p241 Dr. Bauer cites a WHO claim that 34,000,000 people worldwide were HIV positive in 2000, and that there were 470,000 AIDS cases. This is only 1.4%, of which many would be misdiagnoses. A gullible media, also prone to financial pressure by withdrawal of advertising revenues, gets some blame, with most reporters accused of going only to mainstream "experts", and not taking the time to understand the field. The control of medical journals and failures and biases of peer-review are aired. (See my review of The Trouble with Medical Journals.) The difficulty of dumping the dogma is made only too clear as Dr. Bauer discusses the near-impossibility of having so many organizations recant, partly because of the record number of lawsuits that would arise.

Buried under this exposé of brutal bureaucratic bungling and fraud, some really good news emerged from this book. In my opinion, if you test positive for HIV, relax, and refuse any treatment if you have no symptoms. If you have had "unprotected sex" at any time, relax, because transmission of whatever the test responds to is under 1/1000. Many people, babies especially, spontaneously become HIV negative. Of course, refuse to have the test if at all possible, and where you are forced to have the test, be ready to sign on to any class-action lawsuit for invasion of privacy, since transmission rates are so low, negating the excuse for invading privacy in the first place. Not in the book were promising results of treatment of AIDS patients with low levels of CD4 cells or with PCP by means of intravenous sodium ascorbate. (See pp92-102 and my review of: Levy TE (2002). Vitamin C, Infectious Diseases, and Toxins, Xlibris.com, Xlibris.)

Henry H. Bauer
The Origin, Persistence and Failings of HIV/AIDS Theory
(McFarland & Co, Jefferson, N.C.) 2007
xiv + 282 pages

Comprehensive Critique by Frederic Jueneman

What goes around comes around. Or, so it might seem to the casual observer. Henry Bauer -- despite his calling as an emeritus professor of chemistry and science studies and dean of Arts and Sciences at Virginia Tech -- has moved on from taking on relatively small-fry on the science frontiers, and has now donned the garb of the Man from La Mancha for a major jousting of lances with the credentialed giant windmills of academe, industry, and the federal administration, such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration, along with their academic and industrial associates, and the World Health Organization, not to mention such mainstream publications as Science, Nature, and Journal of the American Medical Association.

Bauer's argument revolves around a comparatively old controversy by dissident researchers in the HIV/AIDS arena, aptly highlighted by earlier work by retrovirologist Peter Duesberg of UC Berkeley, who himself has been vilified and ostracized by his own compatriots in the medical research community as a heretic for questioning -- actually denying! -- that HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus) causes AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome). But, the author under review here has taken the additional step of indicting the entire medical scientific community, even those remotely involved in disease research, not merely of massaging the numbers but egregiously holding to false, undocumented premises for the detection and causes of AIDS.

A courageous accusation, indeed!

Bauer actually uses the old saw: "Lies, damned lies, and statistics." In fact, he devotes most of Part I "Does HIV Cause AIDS?" of the three-part book on the application -- or rather misapplication -- of statistics by all agencies and individuals who should know better, with the unfortunate result that the captive media feeds the public only the official releases, which we all despairingly know as "Received Wisdom," the orthodox view. The apparent general agreement by the medical community and beguiled public then make for lurid headlines; but again, we are also made acutely aware that consensus is not science. Bauer further shows through many examples that these so-called statistics on HIV are faulty at best, and concludes that upon closer inspection, including that of the most exacting research, shows that there is absolutely no correlation between HIV and AIDS. The dissident researchers had argued this point for years, possibly even decades, but as usual no one heard them amid the media hype to arouse public concerns. Bauer hammers this point home.

Kaposi's sarcoma, a cancerous purple blotching on the skin, has been known as one of the signature diseases of AIDS, along with a specific pneumonia, PCP, as well as a variety of fungal infections. But, Kaposi's sarcoma is now known as not being associated with HIV. Moreover, no "virus" defining HIV has ever been documented, a critically missing piece of data that has troubled serious researchers for years, and which has led to a few ad hoc theories about retroviruses and associated mycoplasms as potential causes. And further, Kaposi's sarcoma has also been found in HIV-negative patients.

Curiously, too, no official explanations are forwarded as to why occasional "infected" HIV-positive newborns come from HIV-negative mothers, children who later through seroconversion become HIV-negative. Duesberg, mentioned earlier, thinks that being HIV-positive means that antibodies have already immunized the body against further infection. Moreover, according to official statistics, some one percent of the population is HIV-positive, which if injudiciously applied on a global scale would mean some 60,000,000 people!

HIV-negative patients who have TB are just given the standard treatment for tuberculosis, while HIV-positive patients with TB are unfortunately relegated to AIDS status and are encouraged to embark on appropriate treatment regimens, such as AZT, a DNA chain-terminator that is unselective between healthy and diseased cells. Many die from such iatrogenic treatments within a few years, thereby fortifying the official "statistics," as AZT recipients exhibit AIDS-like symptoms whether HIV-positive or not.

Dissident investigators, such as virologist Duesberg, Nobel laureates Paul Lauterbur and Kary Mullis, physiologist Robert Root-Bernstein, epidemiologist Gordon Stewart, among many others, including knowledgeable science writers, as Neville Hodgkinson and John Lauritsen, all have pointed out time and again that fast-lane lifestyles and drug usage are, fundamentally, the insults to the body that cause AIDS by devastating the body's own ability to bring its immunoresponse system into play, respecting neither heterosexual nor homosexual, male nor female. And, unlike many venereal diseases, is not sexually transmitted. AIDS has become an "epidemic" that has not happened. The dissenters have used the same official statistics to fortify their own case, but have had to resort to publishing privately or via the Internet, as mainstream journals have been off-limits to their heretical views, and who are otherwise ignored, or at worst accused of being charlatans.

Such mindsets by the establishment are not unknown in the annals of science, as pointed out by Bauer in Part II, "Lessons from History." So many officially prescribed procedures and theories have, over time, been superceded or overthrown by new, enlightened paradigms, as Thomas Kuhn outlined years ago, but the process of science has often been excruciatingly slow, proceeding from "funeral to funeral," as Max Planck once observed. The dissident researchers themselves, nevertheless, have been unrelenting in their quest for truth, despite the roadblocks imposed on their heroic efforts. And yet, many other professional as well as amateur critics have come to the fore, citing the work of Karl Popper, that the counter-arguments are not subject to "falsifiabilty," not being aware that Popper had distanced himself somewhat from that concept early-on with his introduction of critical rationalism.

Notwithstanding, Bauer says, "[T]he presumption that HIV leads inexorably to AIDS [is] something that was never established and in fact is demonstrably false" -- a bit of datum that Bauer never lets us forget. This was also a point detailed at length by well-known author James Hogan, who subtitled his own book "Questioning the Unquestionable and Thinking the Impermissible," in the section devoted to "AIDS Heresy in the Viricentric Universe." (See my Review of Hogan's "Kicking the Sacred Cow.) He points out that being HIV-positive is merely an indication that the body's defense mechanism is at work. Thus, the laboratory test for HIV is just an indicator of an effect, not of a cause.

Amusingly, however, biophysicist Paul Lauterbur wrote that "you could write the entire history of science in the last 50 years in terms of the papers rejected by Science or Nature." Now, isn't that a hoot!

What are we to make of all this? Indeed, the public has been duped by so many "official" agencies over the years that it has become inured, or at best disgusted, with what goes on within various establishments, and yet the public still seems to remain amenable to what is being spoon-fed with the pap, the political patronage, that authorities dish out. Bauer goes into this in Part III, "How HIV/AIDS Theory Took and Kept Hold," where he claims, "[E]vidence does not speak for itself," while acknowledging that all models, which attempt to mimic reality, have their limitations. Such models as presented by authorities fall far outside the statistical limits usually applied to such methodologies, as most presumptuously rest on the same erroneous premise.

The systemic problems, which he outlines, and which have existed throughout scientific history, are rarely ever solved to anyone's satisfaction, especially when there are heavy investments in time, energy, and economics made by the participants. He goes on to say, somewhat ameliorating if not apologetic at this point, "Conflicts of interest are so damaging not because so many people are unethical, but because we are all human, doctors and scientists no less than others." And further, "Conflicts of interest are so built into the modern bureaucratic apparatus of science and medicine that these major mishaps are an ever-present possibility." Perhaps so, but this doesn't excuse it.

We are otherwise informed by our scientific colleagues and patrons that hot fusion containment is just 40 years away, something that we'd been told 40 years ago, but we have to believe because cold fusion enthusiasts and researchers don't know what they're doing as all of their viable theories have always been suspect. There are many myths circulating about global warming, but we have to believe because Nobel prizes and other awards are handed out like candy to anyone who speaks "green." String theory has held out the promise of mathematically giving us a theory of everything wrapped up in many multi-variate dimensions, despite frequent encounters with infinities and other mathematical abstractions, and we have to believe since we're not smart enough to understand the complexities involved. Dark matter and dark energy pervade the universe, we are told, because electromagnetism couldn't possibly have the influence that gravity holds, for we therefore have to devoutly believe these mind-boggling pundits, as no one else knows the secrets of the cosmos as well as they. So, systematically, Idiopathic CD4-T-cell lymphopenia is the new non-AIDS condition used to describe the malignancy of HIV-negative patients to avoid admitting that the presence of HIV isn't necessary to cause AIDS, and we have to believe because it's the thing to do, for the media have told us so.

Of course, the list goes on. And on. And on. It's enough to make one an unbeliever, or, in effect, a secular atheist.

Any new dissident book demands a justification - either some new approach in style, or some new viewpoint, or some new personal perspective, or some new light shed on old facts. With dozens of books already available, addressing almost every conceivable aspect of the HIV fiasco, one is tempted to question, "What more can be said?"

Quite a lot, if Henry Bauer's new book The Origin, Persistence, and Failings of HIV/AIDS Theory is taken into account. For in this book, Bauer not only presents novel scientific arguments against the HIV/AIDS hypothesis, he also uses his experience in science studies to provide a compelling response to the frequent semi-rhetorical question, "How could so many scientists be so wrong?", which is often used as the first line of defense against any serious critique. The combination of scientific evidence followed by sober sociological observation is powerful, especially given Bauer's understated and calm tone.

To read the full review, google "AIDS Wiki Brown reviews Bauer".

Bauer is an outstanding writer and took a lot of time to read the literature and then articulate the reasons with data behind the failings of HIV/AIDS theory. Interestingly, as a biomedical scientist, I shared some of the thoughts, data, and philosophies presented in this book for this book is just as much about how science "works" than just about HIV/AIDS theory. In large part, most people argued with me outright that the notion that HIV does not cause AIDS is insane and the data speaks for itself. I will tell you that these researchers were not "HIV/AIDS" experts but they were so willing to chime in aggressively that this author was way off base. I "laughed" inside because this is exactly why this book had to be written - scientists, even non-experts, think they can explain anything and defend anything with a dominate voice. All is not bad though, several people I talked with during the reading of the book very intrigued by the notion and wanted to learn more. So, there are open-minded people willing to be educated and then refute a body of work or accept it rather than just hammering in what the majority of people believe. In reading more about HAART therapy (which I still need to read more), it is a shame that the people who test positive for "HIV" are giving such aggressive treatment at a time of fear of death and social abandonment without the resources to really learn if this is a good choice which in the end appears to do more harm than good. When scientific theories reach the general poplulation and affect them in major ways there surely must be more scrunity and open-mindedness to other explanations but it is just the opposite because the laypeople educates those around them (e.g., their children) to be careful because "HIV" is lethal and is sexually transmitted. Thus, the theory is deeply engrained in the fabric and the world based on early reports of a lethal epidemic for which scientists and drug companies and countries have huge economic incentives. Interestingly, if we accept other theories regarding "HIV/AIDS" such as drug abuse and undiagnosed syphillis maybe we could re-direct some resources for truly uncovering the cause of these immune disorders.

Whether you agree with Bauer or not once you read the book it not important per se - it is important that you keep an open mind about any line of research you are doing and make sure that you are not merely enriching a widely accepted theory but rather testing and/or adding value to existing ones or, on occasion, completely debunk a theory . . . but be prepared for an overwhelming and poorly funded career as it will be a lifetime before your discoveries and new theories will be accepted because although science is self-correcting, its half-life is more than yours! This is what we need to change about scientific research and funding in this country. Great, enjoyable, and important reading for any scientist of any age and if you are living with "HIV", read the book carefully and be honest about your habits (e.g., taking poppers frequently) and be honest with your doctor - if the current "HIV"AIDS" theory is going to be debunked, it has to come from the honesty of the people of test positive for "HIV" being honest with their doctor/family/etc.

An absolute must read. The book tears to shreads the conventional wisdom of AIDS. This book shows that "HIV +" is totally non-specific and does not correlate with AIDS. It is well referenced and well written. Part 2 is helpful in explaining how everyone has been misled for 24 years and how the lie persists.

Every time I've read a book that critiques the AIDS/HIV hypothesis, it seems to put another nail in the coffin of a badly supported idea. This book gives it a fresh twist by doing an exhaustive statistical analysis of HIV incidence patterns. The results are damning. Highly recommended.

A must reed. Very thoroughly researched and annotated. The best book on this sensitive subject.

For those who don't already know 'AID$' is a sick puritan myth based on pseudo science and fueled by puritan and greed related motivation, this book is a must read.

Well constructed absolute proof that 'AID$' is a syndrome by definition only and is based on a foundation of quick sand.

This book raises two important questions.

The first is, what sort of person writes a book about the epidemiology of an infectious disease without first familiarising himself with the basics of (a) the discipline of epidemiology and (b) the disease he is pretending to examine?

The second question is, what kind of publishing editor can fail to recognise an obvious crank who is entirely out of his depth with the subject matter he's writing about?

In "Don't Get Fooled Again" author Richard Wilson writes that "Pseudo-scholarship gives the appearance of being based on logic and evidence, but relies instead on distortion, omission, fabrication, obfuscation, fallacy, emotive rhetoric and conspiracy theory. Quacks, cranks and fake historians seek to deceive by misrepresenting bad evidence as good, and using sham arguments to dismiss good evidence which conflicts with their own theories - often characterizing themselves as 'skeptics' in the process".

Bauer's HIV/AIDS argument is essentially based on epidemiology, a field which he has no grasp of at all, and in which he appears to have made no effort to educate himself. He has simply made his methods up, and appears to have no insight into why this might be problematic. The end result is cringe-worthy.

For example, he tries to derive population-wide prevalence or incidence statistics from the ratios of positive and negative tests within quite specific subgroups and settings, without considering the criteria used to select the population under study, including the reasons for testing in the first place. He doesn't distinguish between prevalence and incidence, ineptly bundling the two concepts into his own neologism "F(HIV)". He compares the results of different cross sectional studies selecting completely different populations as if they were simply parts of the one longitudinal study.

He makes claims about the population-wide prevalence of HIV compared to AIDS that are completely at odds with official statistics: for example he claims that HIV and AIDS have completely different male to female ratios when the ratio for Americans diagnosed with HIV is 2.75 to 1 and incident AIDS is almost identical at 2.70 to 1.

He claims HIV cannot be sexually transmitted because of the age distribution of incident diagnoses, despite the fact it is almost identical to that of syphilis.

He falsely claims that HIV infection is diagnosed on the basis of an antibody response that is often transient. He claims that untreated HIV infection rarely leads to people getting sick. He misrepresents treatment studies. He doesn't have a clue about why opportunistic diseases such as Kaposi's sarcoma or tuberculosis might concentrate among people with a serious immune system disease.

He can't comprehend why an infectious disease whose incidence is highest among sexual networks of gay men and among injecting drug users might concentrate in larger cities. Or why HIV didn't spread much into the female population of San Francisco given the large number of "eligible bachelors" there with the infection.

He assumes that if the incidence of a sexually transmitted infection is relatively high in a particular population they must be proportionately more promiscuous, which is like claiming that the waterborne infection cholera is caused by people drinking proportionately too much water.

Not satisfied with completely botching his epidemiological "analysis", Bauer draws on his non existent knowledge of immunology to construct a vague and implausible fantasy about what the detection of HIV antibodies "really" means. It's, you know, like a non specific thingy response to umm, well, stress - like getting born, going through menarche, or living in a city. Seriously.

The second and third parts of the book are a rant about how scientists can sometimes get things badly wrong, and can be read ironically in the light of the woeful ignorance of his subject matter Bauer displays in the first.

I can recommend this book as a cautionary tale for epidemiology students, as it describes exactly what not to do. Those interested in the psychology of pseudoscientific crankery might also find it interesting. However, anyone hoping to better understand the complexities of HIV/AIDS can safely ignore it.

After a long career of searching for the Loch Ness Monster, Henry Bauer has, unfortunately, turned his attention to AIDS. This book is a case study in misusing science for self promotion. Pseudoscience at its worst, the book violates every assumption of public health and statistics and warps the facts to draw faulty conclusions. If one listens to Bauer they will not get tested for HIV and if they test HIV positive they will not protect others from the virus and will not take treatments. The shame of Virginia Tech, Bauer is a solid case against tenure in our higher education institutions.