Rethinking Aids [Board book]

Robert Root-Bernstein (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 22, 1993

When basketball hero Magic Johnson recently announced that he had tested positive for HIV, the public naturally assumed it was only a matter of time before he developed full-blown AIDS. But is the link between HIV and AIDS really established? Most physicians now believe that HIV is tantamount to a death sentence. They also believe that AIDS is a fundamentally new disease whose cause remained unknown until the discovery of HIV. That discovery was hailed as a great advance in the fight against this devastating plague, and it has been cited to justify the continuing huge expenditure of billions of dollars a year in public funds on AIDS research. But do we know that AIDS is new? Do we really know its cause? Robert Root-Bernstein, a researcher in biochemistry and autoimmune diseases, argues that AIDS is not new, and strongly criticizes the AIDS research extablishment for ignoring historical data to the contrary in their haste to declare the AIDS puzzle solved. In fact, he argues, AIDS has been around a lot longer than anyone realizes; its fundamental cause is depression of the immune system; that this can occur for many different reasons; and that the relation between HIV and AIDS may be more correlational than causal. In short, we still don't know what causes AIDS. Lifestyle theories of causation are just as plausible, given the current state of knowledge, as the HIV hypothesis. Root-Bernstein provides a thorough and authoritative, yet accessible view of the existing AIDS research, drawing on medical records to show that hundreds of cases of AIDS may have occurred in the course of the past hundred years, and presenting several plausible alternatives to the HIV hypothesis.

Product Details

• Board book: 450 pages
• Publisher: Free Press (February 22, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0029269059
• ISBN-13: 978-0029269053
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.2 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,636,591 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars It's not the answers but the questions that count, April 3, 2000

By 

George Daszkowski (Toronto) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Rethinking Aids (Board book)

I found Root Bernstein's book after seeing an intriguing interview on a PBS TV show about low immunne system strength in AIDS patients. The hypothesis was that by maintaining a super strict regieme of personal hygene and taking massives doses of vitamins, the immune system could be restored.

Rethinking AIDS did not cover that subject but opened a new set of questions.

Did you know semen is immuno-suppressive? Blood Transfusions? Poppers? Most Drugs? The answers are impressively intuitive once presented but are known in isolation and not connected to the diagnosis of AIDS.

Root Bernstein builds an impressive argument that we should know much more about how our body works and what we ask it to put up with in the course of a normal day.

The key argument in the book is that there is no direct evidence that HIV is the single causitive factor in developing AIDS. The author acknowledges that HIV should be studied but asks the AIDS community to question and study other approaches.

The author details how many of the elements of risky life styles can contribute unknowingly to depressing one's immune system and what questions we need to ask before declaring a conclusion. A good diet, exercise and avoiding risky behaviour might be the best defense against AIDS if you really know what constitutes "risky behaviour"

Not many answers but lots of good questions. An interesting companion read might be Nicholas Regush's "the Virus Within"

3 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars AIDS is contagious, but..., November 18, 2005

By 

Christopher J. Phoenix (Menlo Park, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Rethinking Aids (Board book)

This is not a work of debunkery, but a serious and fascinating investigation by a serious researcher. It contains theory and questions, not practical advice. It does not conclude that AIDS is unrelated to HIV, a position that is looking less likely all the time. In fact, HIV plays a prominent role in one of the most likely-looking hypotheses considered.

Most of the hypotheses and causes discussed in the book are looking less and less likely. AIDS behaves too contagiously, and HIV is too closely associated with it (including AIDS response to anti-HIV treatments), to believe that AIDS is just general immune suppression.

However, there is one hypothesis that appears consistent with mainstream knowledge and may be worth close attention by researchers. Root-Bernstein builds a case, through actual lab research, that HIV creates antibodies with binding patterns that are complementary to those created by a few other diseases--CMV and TB, if I remember correctly. Someone infected simultaneously by HIV and CMV will be making antibodies that bind to _each other_ and cause the immune system to fight itself. (Perhaps this is analogous to graft-vs-host disease?)

By this theory, AIDS is definitely a contagious sexually transmitted disease. HIV is necessary, but not sufficient, to cause AIDS. But almost all people with AIDS have CMV, and HIV+CMV is sufficient to cause AIDS, and anyone who acquires HIV from someone with AIDS will probably get a dose of CMV as well.

I would recommend this book most of all to two groups: AIDS researchers, and anyone who's interested in how diseases are investigated and understood (or not).

1 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars B r i l l i a n t !, April 8, 2004

By 

Todd Phillips, MCP (San Francisco, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Rethinking Aids (Board book)

Root-Bernstein has compiled an impressive body of information about hiv and "AIDS" in this well-referenced, big book.

He almost immediately proceeds to launch into the many, many anomolies behind the monocausal "AIDS" hypothesis, and does exactly what any decent scientist would do when faced with a literal mountain of contradiction: he challenges the hypothesis.

This is not light reading, but it is written by a teacher, a very fine one, I might ad.

Be prepared for the "facts" about HIV and "AIDS" that the media has inundated you with to be challenged and proven blatently false !

Thank you Dr. Root-Bernstein !!!