"To Tashmoo711 who links us to a site that claims that HIV doesn't cause AIDS! Okay terrific! And your counter claim is what? That aliens are creating AIDS?! Talk about living with blinders on. It seems like there has to be a conspiracy about everything these days. This is almost as bad as the people who claim that no plane hit the Pentagon."

. . . OK, just calm down, huh?

I didn't claim in my letter anything about the Pentagon or aliens. And I didn't claim a conspiracy, whatever that is. I stated that the public is dumb enough to believe statistics that are taken out of context, and that Salon is unethical enough to put them out there.

I have many counterclaims about AIDS, the most important of which is our propensity to believe certain things about sex and contagion--rather than to ask the obvious questions about why we still believe HIV is sexually transmitted if people unlikely to have the requisite (per the CDC) 1,000 sexual contacts are testing positive for it.

The responsibility for what we believe is OURS, regardless of who or what is trying to fool us. So stop talking about "conspiracies" and start thinking for yourself.

I told you that the HIV test is inaccurate and inconclusive, by admission in its own product insert (so much for conspiracies to keep you uninformed), and you take no notice of that in your response.

And the "virusmyth" site does not "claim that HIV doesn't cause AIDS." To "claim" or "believe" that is meaningless. It is subject to logic and facts. If you would look into wwww.virusmyth.com as I suggested, you would find the signatures of many reputable scientists, some of them Nobel laureates and nominees. They all ask very important questions--important to public health.

As for whether HIV does in fact cause AIDS, that depends on what AIDS is, which depends on what country and what year and what definition. What the hell is AIDS except, by definition, a condition caused by an HIV-positive test result? By definition. Because immune deficiency and all the diseases in the AIDS definition also exist outside of it, that is, in people who are not HIV positive.

AIDS as currently defined is like saying the Republican flu rather than the Democrat flu. The Republican flu is caused by being a Republican. Of course it is. Otherwise, it would be the Democrat flu.

I might as well say it like it is before I get yanked off the site. I dare ya. I double dare ya.

I invite anyone who agrees that legitimate questions exist about AIDS to flood this site with letters during "AIDS Awareness Month." Ask for accountability, from Salon and others.

--Defiant in New York, 14 years' study into HIV and AIDS

Just so you'll know, AZT has been shown to cause spontaneous abortion in pregnant women, among other grisly results, so the placebo group may actually do better than the drug-taking group. That Glaxo would actually conduct such a study is puzzling, however; since the mid-'90s non-placebo studies have been allowed on pregnant women in Third World countries. This, by the way, apparently violates the Nuremberg Code's prohibition of studies conducted without "informed consent," because none of these subjects would have been informed of the risks of AZT or the uncertainties of current knowledge on HIV, including whether its presence actually leads to illness in newborns.

If the company is indeed carrying out these trials with placebo controls, and finishes them, they would be the first. The original studies leading to the 1987 approval of AZT for use in the U.S. became unblinded and quickly abandoned the placebo controls. The warning label on AZT, which I assume none of the pregnant women in Africa are presumably going to see, has a skull and crossbones on it -- meaning, this stuff is highly toxic. It's still being tested on patients out here in the real world because it was not adequately tested before approval. Nonetheless, it is illegal for mothers in the U.S. to refuse treatment by this drug and other HIV "antivirals" (a misnomer, because there is no proof that they actually kill any live virus; they kill cells). Many women have left the country to avoid this mandatory care.

So now you know.

Undoubtedly, the women in the control group in this African study you mention will do better than the women in the drug-taking group. When this happens, the study will be suppressed, never published, and phone calls seeking information about it -- assuming anyone knows about it -- will not be returned. This is standard practice in AIDS research, and suppression of unfavorable studies is allowed under FDA rules.

See Harper's, March 2006, "Out of Control," for further information on Nevirapine trials in Uganda. Pretty close to nobody got out of these alive or untouched by serious "side effects," but the drug went on to more studies, and more deaths, in the U.S.

Newer drugs -- after AZT -- cause liver failure, which is now the major cause of death among AIDS patients.

And now you know about that, too.

Look into "ACTG 076" for information about AZT studies on children. Two versions of these trials exist: the story about the studies being terminated because the drug's effects were so miraculous, and the other one about the studies ending when people pulled their kids out because they didn't want them to die. Harlem, South Bronx, the usual people.

Happy "AIDS Awareness Month."