AIDS post-HIV : beat of a different drummer - AltHeal

insist not only for us. It's going to be very good
for the cause of the people. Because what we
are fighting here is the people's cause."
It was Peter Duesberg's turn next. He was
drinking a cup of coffee and munching on a
biscuit. He thought it was a victory that the
conference happened at all, "But I don't think we
can count on much more at this point. But that's
progress."
What did he think was the most significant step
forward
"That a head of state independent of the US
G o v e rnment and thus independent of the AIDS
establishment is calling the virus-AIDS hypothesis
into question. That makes us a little more
respectable and a little less un-correct [author's
emphasis] than we used to be. We could be
He gave an example, "Some of them are very
easy. We are going to take some diagnosed AIDS
patients - diagnosed by the Bangui definition
which does not call for an HIV test and test
whether they are positive. If some of them are
negative, that is not very good for the virus
hypothesis. And the Bangui definition doesn't
even test them. It's very straightforward - very
simple and very doable. And if they're negative I
wouldn't treat them with AZT and I wouldn't test
them for antibodies in the future and many other
things can be deduced from that."
A staunch critic of the current AIDS orthodoxy,
P rofessor Gordon Stewart, has long maintained
that the estimates for the spread of AIDS, based
on an erroneous infectious hypothesis, have been
g rossly inflated. His lifestyle/risk associated
p redictions for AIDS in the UK based on intravenous
drug use, recreational drug use, fast track
drug assisted sex, multiple sexually transmitted
diseases and certain clinical risk groups like
haemophiliacs, turned out to be spot on, but no
one would publish his articles at the time.
H e re in Pretoria Stewart felt there had been a
"coming together for the first time" and that
common ground had been found. "This could be
terribly important for the humanitarian aspects of
the problem. It doesn't necessarily solve some of
the scientific and intellectual differences."
Prof. Peter Duesberg is interviewed by a South
African news crew.
trashed easily because we are completely dependent
on the US Government and its long arm but
now at least we have some independent support
so we could not be totally ignored any longer - for
the time being. They will find ways of getting us
back where we were."
What did Duesberg think of the way Pre s i d e n t
Mbeki had been strongly criticised about his
decision to hold the panel of inquiry "Well he
sounds as though he is a scientist. He is confident
in his convictions. He is asking question.
That's the hallmark of a good scientist - that he is
asking questions and he is standing by his
convictions. These two criteria make up a scientist.
One alone is not enough. We have a lot of
them standing by their convictions and quite a
few asking questions but they don't do one nor
the other."
D u e s b e rg said he was going to map out some
experiments together with William Magkoba
(MRC); and Helene Gayle (CDC) and Harvey Bialy.
How did he feel about being invited here by
P resident Mbeki and what did he think of the
P resident's initiative "First of all I'm honoure d .
He's been criticised by the hardliners here - criticised
and disparaged I'm sorry to say by the
mainline medical press in Britain, by some of the
responsible newspapers or shall we say irresponsible
newspapers now, because although they've
got a big name they don't live up to it. And
i g n o red by the various television channels."
Stewart felt that television coverage had been
"quite inadequate in relation to the scale of the
enterprise and to the imaginative aspects of the
initiative."
Christian Fiala is an Austrian doctor and writer
("Dirty Tricks: How the WHO gets its AIDS
figures" New African, April 1998). What were his
thoughts at the end of the panel meetings
"Usually in the past it was supposed that developing
countries were to learn from industrialised
countries and I would say this is a very good
example that in fact nowadays on many
occasions it's the other way round. Europe and
the United States can learn a lot from South
Africa, from African people, in the way of
discussing openly open questions in the field of
science. So a discussion that couldn't have
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CONTINUUM vol 6, no 1/2