Thursday, May 7, 2009
Film / Politics / Silverman Hubbub Surrounding Nashville Director's AIDS Film Not Likely to Die Soon
Posted by Jack Silverman on Thu, May 7, 2009 at 7:25 AM
Comments (68)
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I guess you were not there for the opening night which I read was sold out and received two standing ovations. That does not resemble the sentiments of your opinion based article. From the youtube piece, it seems to me these people are the general public and not extremest. Maybe their lack of vested interests aloud them to enjoy the film unlike this Kuritzkes guy who's career is built on one idea. Great job on another biased article.
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The video above is from the Sunday screening, not the second Thursday screening—which is the one that my article describes, because that's the one that has been the wellspring of so much rumor and furor, and the one that indicates the intensity of the argument. (It is not true, as one rumor has it, that someone got choked at the second screening and police had to be called. A couple of security officers were there quietly on standby after reports from the Boston screening.)
As I heard it, the tone changed significantly between the Sunday and Thursday screenings at the NaFF. At the Sunday screening (the premiere), I heard people warmly applauded the movie and gave a standing ovation to Lindsay Nagel, an adopted Romanian girl who reportedly made a recovery to full health after discontinuing her HIV treatment. It is true that there was not the same rancor that greeted the Boston screening or the second NaFF screening. Ironically, though, it was the second, less attended NaFF screening that had the festival crowd buzzing.
Dan, you are correct. I wasn't there. Though my point remains the same. I didn't say "the film received a unanimously positive reception Sunday night but not Thursday night." My point was that the overall reception to the film has been anything but unanimous. And regardless, I did say it was understandable that the video would show positive responses only. Any filmmaker wants to advertise his film in the best possible light, and there's nothing fishy about that. I don't expect a DVD cover of the latest Hollywood blockbuster to include a reviewer's blurb that says " 'This movie sucks!'--Joe Fabeetz, Daily Sun."
Also, I never said the people in it were extremists. Simply that there were other less flattering reactions to the movie not included in the YouTube clip.
Otherwise, I pretty much stuck to the facts as I understand them, which are basically that one side says the movie is unbiased. The other disagrees.
The only bias I will cop to is my pet peeve against people who sign their letters, "John Doe, investigative journalist."
By the way, are we related? I have so many first cousins I can't even remember all of their names.
Lindsay's miracle was not simply her recovery, but that ALL of the other nine children who died ALL TOOK AIDS MEDICATIONS BEFORE THEY DIED.
Lindsay's recovery also corroborates Nobel laureate Dr. Luc Montagnier's closing opinion that a healthy immune system protects people from HIV. Since all AIDS medication packaging contain the skulls and crossbone warnings of drugs that compromise immune systems, its understandable why pharmaceutical whores like Bergman feel threatened by evidence that makes them complicit in AIDS Inc's very profitable mortality rates.
The difference between screenings may have also stemmed from the absence of AIDS truthers who chilled the audience in Boston and Nashville's second showing. But even though one of Cornell's multi-billion dollar truthers called in a false complaint to police in Boston and Nashville, their false complaint tended to corroborate the inexplicable behavior of AIDS' pseudo scientists than the more rational conduct of the panelists.
We can be assured of one thing - that as more people watch House of Numbers that the pharmaceutical whores will get increasingly noisier. Since their research (and the gay agenda) are built entirely on Robert Gallo's scientific misconduct, their hysteria can only be expected to grow.
http://www.cwbpi.com/AIDS/AidsDocD.pdf
I hate it when people slip in "the _______ agenda" at the very end. I want to know if I'm going to be reading nonsense right up front.
I haven't seen the film, I didn't even know this was a controversey. I am 100% ignorant of all the facts and figures regarding this issue, but throwing around phrases like "the gay agenda" does nothing to help an argument.
I work in the pharmaceutical industry, and a good friend of mine worked on this film.
I've yet to see the finished cut, but having been exposed to it over a length of time, I can say that though it raises some interesting topics for discussion, it is mostly comprised of conspiracy theorist propaganda. Yes some of the policies of "Big Pharma" and indeed our society in general regarding prescription drugs are troubling, but to insinuate that there is some kind of anti-cure thing going on... its right up there with false moon-landings and holocaust deniers.
I am no whore, and neither is my industry, as Clark's eloquent comments would suggest. (I work in orthopedics.) I don't agree with the overuse of antibiotics, nor am I fond of the current state of the mental health pharmacopia, but this is absurd. Topical entertainment at best.
I was there at the first screening and the after-party where the footage of the audience reaction was shot. I think the tone of the video is accurate. There were people who questioned what was being said and spoke out during the Q and A, sure. One was a medical student who later sat down and chatted with other audience members and had a long discussion on the topic at the bar. That kind of exchange is exactly what made the whole night great. Discussions and debates are a great start. I liked the film and learned a lot.
Greetings Nashville (aka Village Voice) Scene,
The AIDS Industry is deeply corrupted, no less so than any your paper (and others in the Village Voice ownership) like to attack, like the military, etc.
But unlike the Pentagon, 9-11, the Iraq War, the Bush administration, or Bill Clinton's sex life, the mainstream, and especially Left-leaning media will not permit itself to actually INVESTIGATE this sacrosanct AIDS industry.
You make a pet project out of defending it, whenever a criticism is offered, libeling those who investigate it, but ignoring AIDS Inc's murders and failures.
Joyce Ann Hafford was a murder. The bodies buried in Uganda in the Nevirapine trial were a murder, no less hideous than the Tuskegee experiments on Black US soldiers - but we didn't "know" about those until decades had passed either...or we didn't want to know, I suppose.
The AIDS industry is feverish with blight; it is deeply conflicted and corrupted. HIV tests are a mess and a joke, AIDS drugs are registered at insanely toxic levels.
AIDS estimates are piled on like paint on top of African poverty, and good white liberals nod their heads and without thinking allow themselves to be convinced that Black people somehow have sex that kills them (after 10 or 20 years), but co-eds at UC Berkeley and Brown get their rocks on and off without harming their futures.
But AIDS Inc makes itself immune to all inquiry, by playing at your heartstrings, by claiming to love and care for the Gay men and Africans it tags with a life-long death sentence - and you go along with all of it, happily throwing epithets at those who dare talk critically about this very much for-profit sex-and-death drug industry.
The attack your paper is fronting, comparing an investigative piece such as "House of Numbers," which features dialogue with the top of the mainstream speaking in detail about the limits of their work - comparing this with "Triumph of the Will," for example (see Jim Ridley's recent piece) is pure hate speech, demonstrating the hysteria-driven loathing and fear the industry piles upon any who offer fair criticism.
You apparently are in the tank for the industry, or would be focusing on the issues presented in the film, not the controversy that you're drumming up for your own lack of reporting.
Most sincerely,
Liam Scheff
"Investigative (that's NYC orphans used like kindling in NIH AIDS drug experiments, with hundreds dead, but no one giving a dime for the use of their bodies) Journalist."
Boston.
http://liamscheff.com
ps - Debate this, if debate is Allowed...Ask yourself if you have ever heard this, or anything like this before:
* “We can be exposed to HIV many times without being clinically infected. Our immune system will get rid of the virus within a few weeks, if you have a good immune system.”
Who said it? Luc Montagnier, 2008 Nobel Prize winner for ‘discovering HIV,’ (quoted in “House of Numbers,” 2009).
But he’s been saying things like this for years (he's an avowed "co-factorist; that is, he says HIV can't do anything unless you're multiply exposed to toxins, or suffering immense poverty, etc). He's also the Nobel Prize winner for 'discovering LAV,' - that's what he 'discovered' - a Lymphadenopathy Associated Virus - a Virus Associated with swollen Lymph nodes.
http://www.google.com/search?q=Lymphadenopathy+associated%2C+montagnier%2C+lav%2C+hiv
Sound like the deadly "HIV?"
No? So why did he win the Nobel Prize in 2008 for 'discovering HIV?'
Sounds like politics to me...
In the film, Dr. Montagnier goes on to agree that that Africans who are helped out of poverty (fed and given clean water, etc) can overcome the infection.
How about this?
* “We followed up 175 HIV-discordant couples [one partner tests positive, one negative] over time, for a total of approximately 282 couple-years of follow up…
* We observed no seroconversions after entry into the study [nobody became HIV positive]…This evidence argues for low infectivity in the absence of either needle sharing and/or other cofactors.”
That is, 175 mixed (HIV positive/negative) couples had sex - anal and vaginal - for 6 years, with and without condoms, and nobody who was negative became positive.
Dr. Nancy Padian, the researcher who ran that study out of U.C. Berkeley, was also in “House of Numbers.” She said that HIV was one of the hardest viruses to transmit, and added that ‘everybody knows that.’
Ask yourself why you’ve never read the Padian study. Why it’s excised from the Wikipedia page on AIDS - why this, the longest study of its kind, is censored in the media?
Ask yourself what Luc Montagnier is talking about, when he talks about improving the immune system of AIDS patients, in order to help them ‘get rid of the virus,’ and recover…
That is, if debate is ALLOWED regarding the AIDS industry. Is the AIDS Industry honest? Is it even remotely honest?
Have you ever read or heard of the Padian study?
175 couples, 6 years of screwing, no drugs, no negatives became positive. Go fucking figure.
Nothing like a foaming rant from conspiracy theorist Liam Scheff is there? This is apparently what he means by "scientific debate".
Liam, Montagnier’s observation that exposures to HIV do not necessarily result in established infection isn’t news to anyone who has bothered to familiarise themselves with the basics of the subject.
And no, he isn't talking about "improving the immune system of AIDS patients, in order to help them ‘get rid of the virus,’ and recover…" He is talking about improving overall immune health to make people more resistant to getting an established infection in the first place. Getting exposed to HIV is not the same thing as getting an established HIV infection is not the same thing as having AIDS.
Perhaps you should spend more time asking genuine rather than rhetorical questions and listening to the answers and less effort constructing your self-righteous tirades, and you wouldn’t make a fool of yourself so often.
But thanks for demonstrating why it's pointless trying to "debate" with an ineducable loon with a giant chip on his shoulder.
Roll out the red carpet everyone, Snout has finally arrived to critique a movie he hasn't ever seen. He has been trolling the internet 24/7 to "combat" any positive discussion of a film he has never seen. It is so strange, I am almost beginning to wonder who he is working for. Anyway, I attended my third screening of this movie tonight and yet again, a lively discussion kicked-off afterwards and strangers introduced themselves to each other and discussed their differing viewpoints and impressions, and it was amazing. That's exactly what is so cool about and powerful about movies like this. But, for some reason, Snout does not want this to happen. Perhaps he still wants to believe the Earth is flat and Santa Clause will reward him for being a good little boy. I, for one, would rather live in a world where it is OK (and even encouraged) to question authority and dogma and the mainstream media and yes, even my doctor. God Bless America.
Err, Billie, I was responding to Liam's invitation to "Debate this, if debate is Allowed...Ask yourself if you have ever heard this, or anything like this before:"
What Liam seems to find so stunning and surprising is common knowledge that's ordinary and uncontroversial. The fact that Liam was previously unaware of this is a demonstration of his profound ignorance of the subject matter around which he constructs his toxic polemics.
He's a failed self-described "investigative journalist" who specialises in manufacturing controversy where none exists. He's an attention-seeking nutcase, in other words. No one with even the remotest familiarity with HIV and AIDS is ever going to take him seriously. This drives him bananas.
Somewhere in the world there's a tin-pot dictator who's down one Propagandist/Speechwriter.
“We can be exposed to HIV many times without being clinically infected. Our immune system will get rid of the virus within a few weeks, if you have a good immune system.”
Who said it? Luc Montagnier, 2008 Nobel Prize winner for ‘discovering HIV,’ (quoted in “House of Numbers,” 2009).
Interesting quote. It's kind of hard to spin it into something else, unless Montagnier also said immediately after that "Ha! Just kidding, it only takes one time and you're infected, and you'll die anywhere from a few weeks to 20 years after infection. Had ya'goin' there for a moment, didn't I?"
But he’s been saying things like this for years (he's an avowed "co-factorist; that is, he says HIV can't do anything unless you're multiply exposed to toxins, or suffering immense poverty, etc)
HIV needing co-factors woudld certainly help explain why it can take as much as twenty years for somebody who's HIV-infected to finally have AIDS.
Now that I think of it, HIV needing co-factors would also help explain long-term non-progressors and elite controllers. If these people are simply lacking other immune system-weakening co-factors it seems like they could maintain health into old age.
Snout is referring to his propaganda playbook by trying to ridicule and discredit Liam Scheff instead of responding to the issues being raised: "He's a failed self-described "investigative journalist" who specialises in manufacturing controversy where none exists." Scheff's investigation into the Incarnation Children Center's abuse and murder of innocent orphans should be applauded on the front page of papers everywhere. The fact that it isn't speaks to the lack of true investigative journalism in the corporate/big pharma-controlled media. So for you to say that no controversy exits, you are confusing lack of news coverage with non-existence of controversy. If you personally don't think that story is controversial, then maybe you should see a psychologist.
I agree with what you are saying Bryan, about cofactors. Fauci and Gallo look like fools in the movie saying that cofactors are not necessary, when shown side-by-side with Sonnabend and others who say there are cofactors for everything. I applaud House Of Numbers for showing interviews with EVERYONE and letting them make their own case...some more successfully than others.
Billie,
the necessity of co-factors really takes away a lot of the "mystery" surrounding HIV.
I saw the film the second time in Nashville.
It was well-produced and provocative. I'd definitely recommend it. Leung did a good job, raising important questions. There are so many gaps and flaws with the viral theory of AIDS that anyone who is taking these toxic drugs or is sick from an HIV diagnosis should watch this film.
After the movie was shown, the director (Leung) started a panel discussion and Q&A in the theater. It got heated quickly.
The first question out of the box was this bald-headed AIDS professor from Vanderbilt, who read a "statement" on behalf of soem un-named scientists in the film who were peeved, then he attacked (feebly in my view) the director's objectivity and honesty, but refused to cite any specifics, sat down, refused to discuss anything of substance and marched out in a huff.
Then, this short-haired woman -- Dr. Jeanne Bergmann -- from AIDS.Truth started to haranguing people on the podium, lost her cool and yelled "You're a fucking liar!" -- at which point the audience booed Dr. Bergmann, and she finally shut up.
Then, the audience members asked great, probing questions about the film, and the panelists, particularly the Nagels, gave informative responses -- a good time was had by all.
As far as I can tell, the central thesis of the movie is that the HIV tests are unreliable, because they register many false positives, but based on this test, people are scared into taking toxic AZT.
The secondary thesis is that most of AIDS is fueled by fear and exaggeration by scientists who profit from the disease, but most ordinary people are ignorant of this, because it doesn't really affect them anymore.
Definitely, a good film.
Bryan,
..and as Duesberg says in the movie, if people were given millions of dollars to study cofacters, after a year or two they would drop the "co" and drop the "HIV" and eventually just be talking about the "factors" that cause immunosuppression. Which I think is what will happen.
Snout, Luc Montagnier says you can be chronically infected, not clinically. That means you have an established infection based on HIV testing. That means seroconversion. This is usually established by an ELISA and a Western Blot or Viral load here in the US. Though from the trailer doesn't seem like they mean anything. I think you need to take some Science 101 or in listening to people and stop hearing what you want. I read a fantastic comment about the montagnier comment which I will put below my next paragraph.
Montagnier also was asked about improving the nature of health with people specifically infected to get rid of the virus. Stick to FACTS. It is very SIMPLE to do. FACTS, FACTS, and FACTS.
FROM Valendar @ the Tennessean Blog:
Luc Montagnier says “we can be exposed to HIV many times without getting chronically infected. Our immune system can get rid of the virus in a few weeks, if you have a good immune system”. So Montagnier is telling us people are getting infected all the time but shrugging it off as long as they have a healthy immune system. But any HIV expert will tell you by the time the person is HIV positive, (antibody positive, the only proof experts accept), HIV has insinuated itself permanently into the host DNA. From where nothing can get it out. Once infected, always infected. However, according to Montagnier, if your immune system is unhealthy, you can fall prey to HIV. Which is putting the cause (HIV) after the effect (immune deficiency). If you put all this together, a person who looks after his/her immune system could have sex with every HIV positive person on the planet and never get infected. Is this the message Professor Montagnier wishes to convey?
Doesn’t this all seem to be a tiny shadow of doubt? Or am I going too far?
Snout, why don't you go to the screening in jacksonville, florida, then comment on the film? If I had the money I would go.
Dan, you are such an optimist! Snout can't afford to take time out of his busy forum-spamming schedule to go and watch the movie he has been criticizing. His big pharma bosses won't allow it for one thing. If his mind was opened to new possibilities, he would be filled with absolute dread from all the pseudo-scientific rants he has posted for so long. Poor guy, he would be so lost...
It would be nice if critics of the film would:(a) actually see the movie, before criticizing it and (b) actually address the substantive questions raised without resorting to ad hominem attacks.
A telling point in the movie is when Brent Leung goes in for an HIV test in South Africa, where a smiling, but clueless woman peppers him about his sex life.
Talk about a cavalier attitude for a fatal diagnosis!
Can you imagine if a cancer diagnosis was given in a public train station, by a person, completely untrained and medically incompetent to discuss the medicine, the validation of the tests, the implications for treatment, the prognosis?
I was stunned to see how AIDS science has degenerated to such low standards over the past 25 years. It just really shocked me to see this sorry state up close -- without this film, I don't think I would have learned any of it.
...and as Duesberg says in the movie, if people were given millions of dollars to study cofacters, after a year or two they would drop the "co" and drop the "HIV" and eventually just be talking about the "factors" that cause immunosuppression. Which I think is what will happen
Billie,
I think the cofactors are important. So often a study will have the words "mysterious, enigmatic, paradoxical" in it. Or HIV will be described as "wily, cunning, malevolent". Perhaps including the cofactors will clear up a lot of the confusion. Maybe after that, the scientists won't need to be so poetic and can go back to being prosaic.
Dan asked:
"Snout, why don't you go to the screening in Jacksonville, Florida, then comment on the film? If I had the money I would go."
Perhaps because it's 15,700 km away, Dan. I doubt my bosses at Pharma Shills Inc would stump up the cash. They're not as generous as Brent Leung's financial backers who were happy to send him all over the world.
Dan, you are still getting confused between exposure to HIV without established infection, and established HIV infection. Your use of the term "clinically" makes no sense at all, and suggests you are unfamiliar with the term.
And Dan, Valendar Turner has never been allowed within a bull's roar of an HIV/AIDS patient in Australia, because he is, quite frankly, a nutcase. The fact he likes spending his time confusing the scientific ignoramuses of the world on the net is a source of deep shame to the rest of us here in Australia, and has earned him the almost universal contempt and disgust of his professional colleagues in this country.
"They [Turner and Eleopulos] are a considerable embarrassment to Australian science" - Sir Gustav Nossal.
The other reason Valendeleni are so despised in this country is because they have tarnished the proud scientific and medical traditions of one of our finest cities, and brought the name of Perth into disrepute.
[That's the Perth in Western Australia - not the one in North Dakota - in case you're wondering, Dan.]
(WARNING: It's morning in Snoutville, Australia, so expect constant ramblings for the next 18 hours straight.)
Dearest Snout, If you read Valendar's papers, he sounds logical and not at all like a nutcase. Please stick to the facts.
Dearest Homer, If Turner *sounds* logical to you, then you are not reading what he says carefully enough. Case in point:
"Luc Montagnier says 'we can be exposed to HIV many times without getting chronically infected. Our immune system *can* get rid of the virus in a few weeks, if you have a good immune system'..."
Note the word *can*, not *will*. Montagnier is talking about the well-known fact that many HIV exposures do not result in established or chronic infection, and his views about the importance of host immunity as one of the factors in determining the outcome of such exposures.
"...However, according to Montagnier, if your immune system is unhealthy, you can fall prey to HIV..."
Note again the word *can*, and Turner's weasel words "fall prey to" rather than Montagnier's clear "getting chronically infected" with a virus.
"...Which is putting the cause (HIV) after the effect (immune deficiency)..."
Here Turner is deliberately conflating the immune factors that influence a person's susceptibilty to viral infections (including HIV) with the specific immune deficiency of AIDS. That is dishonest, because he knows that is not what Montagnier is talking about.
"...If you put all this together, a person who looks after his/her immune system could have sex with every HIV positive person on the planet and never get infected..."
No, that is most clearly NOT what Montagnier is saying. What he is saying is that maintaining good general immune health REDUCES susceptibility to viral infections, including the risk of getting chronically infected with HIV on exposure to the virus.
Turner is a troll whose modus operandi for 25 years has been twisting, misrepresenting and lying about what genuine scientists are saying, in order to promote his own brand of lethal disinformation. He is utterly dishonest, and the fact that you are unable to see this makes his actions that much more reprehensible.
As usual snout you don't address the inaccuracies pointed out in your Montagnier rebuttal. You are on track for continuing to debate nothing. You get 5 stars in that. FYI, It is "chronically."
Why don't you dissect my comment to you below right NOW. Word by word please with out infecting us with your opinions.
According to the press release, "Montagnier adds that he thinks an impoverished person living in Africa or Asia can clear the virus simply by building up their weakened immune system." People who have seen the film confirm this, that he is referring to someone not EXPOSED, but INFECTED. That means the person is INFECTED and good NUTRITION etc... CAN CLEAR IT.
Snout you have taught me nothing with your lecture, though I do appreciate your clarity this time around. You have to admit, the notion that you can be exposed to HIV many times without becoming infected is certainly not anything most people are told in sex-ed classes in school. The movie, which you have not seen, makes a very good point of this by asking ordinary people on the streets how many times they think they could be exposed to HIV before getting infected and every person says "one." It's this fear that has ruined so many lives over the last 25 years, much more so than your killer retrovirus. This whole thing is an epidemic of misinformation.
It is much more dangerous to be exposed to a misinformed doctor than it is to be exposed to HIV. Even just one time can kill you!
Dan, I've just watched the trailer and I think I've worked out what you were getting at when you said: "Snout, Luc Montagnier says you can be chronically infected, not clinically."
But it was Liam that misquoted Montagnier, not me. And Bryan then just copy-pasted Liam's misquote, in typical HIV/AIDS denialist style.
So I fully agree with you when you say: "I think you need to take some Science 101 or in listening to people and stop hearing what you want."
It's excellent advice. Now all you need to do is direct it at the right person.
Dan requested:
"Why don't you dissect my comment to you below right NOW. Word by word please with out infecting us with your opinions.
According to the press release..."
Well, there's your problem right there. You're getting your scientific information from the press release of a propaganda film.
and your getting your information second had as well my friend. At least I am getting it from the film's official site. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black. Maybe you and I should both just SHUT OUR MOUTHS. DEAL?????
LET ME KNOW. YOU SHUT UP AND I WILL TOO.
But it was Liam that misquoted Montagnier, not me. And Bryan then just copy-pasted Liam's misquote, in typical HIV/AIDS denialist style
Hey, Snout,
whether the quote was "chronically" or "clinically"...infected is the operative word. It's pretty simple.
i don't mean to intrude on all this male bonding, but as for the film, i've seen the trailer, luv it, and plan on attending in jacksonville at the next showing.
gallo clearly is a basket case, a microbe hunting version of captain ahab chasing a small whale thru a microscope.
where is the hiv vaccine, though, if you boys are so smart?
--mary
Dan, I'm not fussed about whether you shut up or not.
You and the other... err... dissidents on this thread are making an extraordinary claim. You are claiming that Luc Montagnier contends that a person with established HIV infection (as opposed to exposure to HIV not resulting in chronic infection) can clear that infection by attending to good nutritition.
Your sole evidence for this extraordinary claim, which goes against everything Montagnier has ever said on the subject, appears to be a... wait for it... a press release from a propaganda film financed by... well, we don't know.
Now I'm quite open to the possibility that people seeing Brent's film might be left with that impression, particularly if Valendar Turner and his dishonest buddies had anything to do with it. Turner is a master at lying about and twisting the words of others to make them appear to be saying something they are not. He's been doing it for years in print and on the net, which is why he is regarded with contempt by real scientists, particularly those he has lied about. Montagnier is one of his favorite victims.
My advice? Don't get your scientific knowledge from the PR blurbs of dubious films. I'd have thought that was just common sense.
Snout buddy, I fell off my high horse laughing when I read your comment about how problematic it is to get your information from a press release!
Wait a second here folks, wasn't it a press release, a PR event of global proportions, held on April 23rd 1985 by the CDC and Robert Gallo, that started this whole problem?
Now tell me Snoutloud if we should be trusting or press releases or should we demand more proof?
Hope you didn't hurt yourself, Billie.
Short answer is no, you shouldn't rely solely on press releases for your scientific information. I thought that was common sense (something that seems to be lacking from many participants on this thread).
Some press sources are more reliable than others, but I'm always inclined to check the background information - say the the scientific publications that press releases occasionally report. You'd be surprised how often journalists get it wrong, although perhaps not if Liam Scheff is your model. I certainly don't accept PR media releases from independent film makers spruiking their wares - they're generally somewhat less reliable than TV ads.
And no, the idea that AIDS (or HIV) "started" with a press conference is a denialist cliche. Perhaps you don't remember the early 1980s. Very few denialists do, which is part of the problem.
"Now tell me Snoutloud if we should be trusting or press releases or should we demand more proof?"
It's not 1985, it's 2009. There are 24 years of scientific literature on the subject, not just a press release. Who do you mean by "we" anyway? No proof satisfies denialists, because they simply deny it. For anyone who wants to know what Luc Montagnier was actually talking about, this review would probably be an OK place to start:
J Intern Med. 2009 Jan;265(1):110-24.
Genetic correlates of protection against HIV infection: the ally within.
Piacentini L, Biasin M, Fenizia C, Clerici M.
Department of Preclinical Sciences, University of Milan, Segrate, Milan, Italy.
Repeated exposure to HIV does not necessarily result in infection and HIV infection does not inevitably lead to the development of the AIDS. Multiple immunological and genetic features can confer resistance to HIV acquisition and progression at different steps in viral infection; a full understanding of these mechanisms could result in the development of novel therapeutic and vaccine approaches for HIV infection. In this review, we focus on the genetic mechanisms associated with resistance to HIV infection and to the progression to AIDS.
And here's something from 1996 just to give a sense how long this has been studied and discussed:
J Med Primatol. 1996 Jun;25(3):158-62.
Do cytotoxic T lymphocytes clear some HIV/SIV infections?
Ada G.
Division of Immunology and Cell Biology, John Curtin School of Medical Research, Australian National University, Canberra.
Early work on the roles of cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTLs) in acute viral infections in animal models showed that i) the clearance of virus coincided with the increase in CTL activity rather than specific antibody levels, ii) transfer of CTLs after infection could protect from a lethal dose of virus, and iii) in primed, compared to naive, animals, CTL activity appeared 1-3 days earlier after a challenge infection. There is now a series of findings with individuals who have been exposed to HIV but are HIV-seronegative that suggest a protective role for CTLs. Usually after in vitro culture, HIV-specific CTLs have been isolated from i) infants born of infected mothers, ii) long-time partners of HIV-infected people, iii) some prostitutes in Africa, and iv). Most recently, 7/20 seronegative health care workers exposed once to HIV have been shown to possess HIV env-specific CTLs. The findings suggest that CTLs (a type I T cell response) may rapidly clear a low dose of HIV. Experiments with SIV are proposed that may provide more direct supporting data for this possibility.
Snout said, "And no, the idea that AIDS (or HIV) "started" with a press conference is a denialist cliche. Perhaps you don't remember the early 1980s. Very few denialists do, which is part of the problem."
It's so difficult pointing out every time you say something backwards, but I'll try to keep up. It is, in actual fact, (what do you call non-denialists then?) "you guys" who don't remember the early 80's, in terms of AIDS. You cloud statistics by lumping all people labeled as HIV Positive today (with or without a test result to "prove" it) in with the original group of clinically ill patients with KS and PCP. The HIV "hypothesis" very much was thrust upon the world at a press conference, 4 years later, whether you believe it or not. The whole discussion surrounding this film should be centered on the idea that other things (or "factors") played a very obvious role in the immunosuppression of those original patients and to say, "nah, it was ALL caused by a retrovirus, stupid" is rather ridiculous.
What's even more ridiculous is that we are also supposed to buy a completely fabricated fairy tale that this retrovirus somehow came from monkeys and only infects poverty stricken people in Africa and mostly gays in the Western world! The fantasy doesn't stop there either. Let's not forget that this contagious retrovirus has had more than 25 years to wipe out humanity and not only has it done no such thing, you still cannot prove that a single human being actually HAS said infection. If this is all "news" to you, maybe you need to read that press release again. And by the way, you can stop with the Swine Flu fairy tales too. The world is sick of the virus/germ theory of health and nobody is buying it anymore.
Well, the AIDS apartheidists (those that promote the HIV/AIDS ideology) do their best to try and make it look like all the sceptics are of one mind.
Truth is, the sceptics are a very diverse bunch of people who look at the HIV/AIDS mess from as many different angles as there are people.
But, back to the Gallo press conference. For all practical purposes HIV-AIDS began there. Now, there was GRID back in '80 through a portion of '82. GRID got renamed to AIDS in '82, but there was no HIV at that point in the theory. AIDS became HIV-AIDS shortly after Gallo's press conference. So, what "Snout" is attempting to do is oversimplify and mislead by saying the "denialists" claim AIDS began in '84. It's a hollow attempt to make people look stupid, that's all.
Most people don't even know about GRID, much less when AIDS became HIV-AIDS. So many years have passed and much has been lost down the memory hole.
Hopefully, House of Numbers will reacquaint the public with AIDS history as the story from the orthodoxy keeps changing.
I look forward to seeing the movie when it's in my neck of the woods.
Well said Bryan. All of that history is put into context very well by the film. If people like Snout would stop confusing the issues, we could get back to the core problem of searching for the causes and cures of immune dysfunction.
It was called HTLV-III by some, and called LAV by others.
The thing I keep forgetting is what it is still called today, other than fabricated delusions due to the madness of crowds.
Oh, yea, I remember: A chivy. I think they sprinkle it on backed potatoes and put it into soups these days.
NM, I spelled it wrong.
It is A-CHIVEY,
and yes, I called a local restaurant to verify this. The gay chef there assures me that it is sometimes sprinkled onto baked pototoes along with sour cream and butter, and is used in some soup recipes as well. It's considered a quite tasty herbal type of retrovirus among most gays, it seems.
wow. each time i get on the computer to see the storm brewing, it gets meaner and uglier. aids promotion is ugly business.
check how much money the us guvmint is spending on disease (a good thing), but look at how a purely politicized disease, aids, is taking the lion share of the money (not good).
http://www.fairfoundation.org/update.htm
if all the people suffering from diabetes, COPD, heart disease, stroke, and Parkinson's disease could appreciate that they ain't getting treated properly because aids is eating up all most of the research money, boy, i bet they'd get real steamed.
One final point.
Brent Leung's film is clearly intended to push a particular viewpoint, and is thus highly political.
When Brent was asked a direct question about who funded what was obviously a work with a significant budget, he was evasive.
"One audience member asked Leung who funded the film, noting that Leung seemed to have a large budget for travel. Leung declined to name the sources but described them as a group of 'funders from all over the world.'"
http://www.baywindows.com/index.php?ch=news&sc=glbt&sc2=news&sc3=&id=90259
For any self-respecting investigative journalist, this should be red rag to a bull.
