For Paul see what you can do to answer Michael points in this paper Paul?

Gary Stein
Does HIV Exist?
By Michael Coon, who is an Immunologist currently working on mechanisms of T
effector cell differentiation with respect to their role in complications
arising from bone marrow transplant. In the HIV/AIDs arena, He worked for
many years on local AIDS community issues. and has worked professionally in
the HIV molecular epidemiology lab of Jim Mullins at Stanford U. and the
University of Washington.

It may come as a surprise to some people but there is a group of people who
maintain that HIV, the etiologic cause for AIDS, does not even exist. You
read that right; there is a group that includes Eleni Papadopulos-Eleopulos,
Valendar Turner, John Papadimitriou, David Causer and Stefan Lanka, commonly
referred to as the "Perth Group" because they are based in Perth, Australia,
who, incredible as it may seem, claim that there is no proof for the
existence of HIV. They have a web site called Virusmyth.com,
(http://www.virusmyth.com) where their arguments, such as they are, are laid
out. While their views have long ago been refuted by a mountain of evidence,
they cling to their belief that HIV doesn't exist, and so it cannot be the
cause of the AIDS pandemic that is now ravaging the African subcontinent.
They have even issued a $25,000 challenge to the research community to prove
the existence of the virus
(http://web.archive.org/web/20011027021329/http://www.virusmyth.com/aids/award.htm).

We see these kinds of devious challenges from time to time; there is for
example, Kent Hovind's $250,000 reward for "empirical evidence of evolution"
(http://www.drdino.com/). Challenges such as this are not intrinsically
daft, they can be quite effective when the arguments are sound, the
challenge is simple and the conditions are not otherwise strawmen. A good
example of this type is James Randi's well constructed challenge for
evidence of the paranormal
(http://web.archive.org/web/20011027021329/http://www.randi.org/research/challeng
e/index.html
). On the face of it, the Virusmyth.com challenge seems scientifically
rigorous yet simple; the hallmarks of a good challenge. Unfortunately for
the folks at Perth, it merely seems so.

One thing is clear from the response to the researcher who's claimed the
prize; the folks over at Virusmyth.com have no intention of allowing the
contest to be won. The researcher who has claimed the prize, by the way, is
Peter Duesberg, an iconoclastic Berkeley retrovirologist who claims that
although HIV does indeed exist, it is not the cause of AIDS. The Perth Group
has taken steps to ensure that their challenge will remain unanswered. They
do this partly by setting unreasonable rules, partly by constructing
strawmen, and partly by moving the goalposts.

Unreasonable Rules
The challenge itself, is carefully crafted to ensure that no-one is likely
to take them up. This ensures that they can continue to claim that as the
challenge has not been satisfied, their arguments must be devastating to the
research and medical establishment. The reason for this is simply that the
Perth Group insists that the proof for the existence of HIV can arise from
their method alone. No other evidence is acceptable. Basically they have
seven steps (below) that they claim are required to prove that HIV is real.
Imagine a reward for proof that the earth is round. But then requiring for
proof that claimants to the prize must travel to the moon and take a
picture. No other methods, from any other source at any other time would be
acceptable.

While flying to the moon and taking pictures of the earth would indeed prove
that we live on a round ball of mud, it is expensive, dangerous and wholly
unnecessary for that purpose. We could, for example, ask someone to walk
several hundred miles, look down a well and measure the angle of the sun at
noon and compare it to a well near us. Or we could sit by a bay on a calm
clear day and watch boats sail away. Or we could plot our path through the
heavens. Or we could observe the shadow of the earth ON the moon. Or we
could circumnavigate the earth in sailing ships and plot our latitude. Or we
could ascend in a balloon, or in an airplane, or launch a satellite. All of
these methods have been used, some since ancient times, to demonstrate that
the earth is round.

We do not need to isolate HIV by the techniques cited by the Perth Group to
prove its existence. To insist upon their method to establish the reality of
HIV is to unequivocally demonstrate one's credulity before charlatans.

A Classic Strawman Argument
A strawman argument is an argument that uses a contrived and false premise
that is used expressly to deconstruct another argument. The people at
Virusmyth.com claim that since HIV researchers have not used guidelines
established in 1973 at the Institute Pasteur to purify HIV, then the very
existence of the virus is questionable. Unfortunately for the Perth Group,
no such guidelines were established at Pasteur or anywhere else.

Despite what it says at their site, the whole challenge is based upon the
biggest hairiest strawman I've ever seen. The challenge first appeared in a
magazine called Continuum. The folks at Virusmyth publish Continuum, and the
challenge is reprinted at the Virusmyth.com web site
(http://web.archive.org/web/20011027021329/http://www.virusmyth.com/aids/award.htm).

"The rules for isolation of a retrovirus were thoroughly discussed at the
Pasteur Institute, Paris, in 1973, and are the logical minimum requirements
for establishing the independent existence of HIV. They are:

 1.. Culture of putatively infected tissue.

 2.. Purification of specimens by density gradient ultracentrifugation.

 3.. Electron micrographs of particles exhibiting the morfological (sic)
characteristics and dimensions (100-120nm) of retroviral particles at the
sucrose (or percoll) density of 1.16 gm/ml and containing nothing else, not
even particles of other morphologies or dimensions.

 4.. Proof that the particles contain reverse transcriptase.

 5.. Analysis of the particles' proteins and RNA and proof that these are
unique.

 6.. Proof that 1-5 are a property only of putatively infected tissues and
can not be induced in control cultures. These are identical cultures, that
is, tissues obtained from matched, unhealthy subjects and cultured under
identical conditions differing only in that they are not putatively infected
with a retrovirus.

 7.. Proof that the particles are infectious, that is when PURE particles
are introduced into an uninfected culture or animal, the identical particle
is obtained as shown by repeating steps 1-5."
Edward King
(http://web.archive.org/web/20011027021329/http://www.users.dircon.co.uk/~eking/i
ndex.htm)
published a rebuttal to the Virusmyth challenge in AIDS Treatment Update
(http://web.archive.org/web/20011027021329/http://www.virusmyth.com/aids/news/eki
solation.htm).
From that essay;

"Contrary to the implication by Continuum, the Pasteur Institute did not
draw up such guidelines in 1973. When we asked Continuum to provide the
reference for a published account of the Pasteur Institute's guidelines,
they could only supply two papers which did describe research into
retroviruses, but did not themselves meet the seven steps Continuum was now
requesting for HIV. Ironically, the authors of the papers cited by Continuum
were also the first to describe the isolation of HIV in 1983."

Indeed, those two papers cited by the Perth Group are;

Sinoussi F, Mendiola L, Chermann JC. (1973). Purification and partial
differentiation of the particles of murine sarcoma virus (M. MSV) according
to their sedimentation rates in sucrose density gradients. Spectra
4:237-243. Toplin I. (1973). Tumor Virus Purification using Zonal Rotors.
Spectra 4:225-235.

Spectra is an obscure French-Canadian journal and is blastedly hard to get
hold of. The journal is available in the U.S. only at large university
libraries with comprehensive journal collections. Still, the papers ARE
available.  They DO NOT use guidelines from the Pasteur Institute. Further,
take a gander at that first author's name on the first paper cited. She was
a member of the group who first isolated HIV in 1983. Her paper is cited
below.

Virusmyth responds to the Dr. King's point about the absurdity of basing a
challenge to purify the virus on non-existent "guidelines" by agreeing that
the papers they site for evidence for these guidelines do not, in fact,
follow them
(http://web.archive.org/web/20011027021329/http://www.virusmyth.com/aids/data/epr
eplyek.htm).
One is left to wonder, then, why they are surprised that few people take
them seriously.

Even if these guidelines had been promulgated as the Perth Group asserts,
they would today be considered obsolete and unduly restrictive.  HIV happens
to be somewhat sensitive to gradient centrifugation and undergoes minor
structural changes (discussed in detail below) so that electron micrographs
(photographs of the virus under an electron microscope) do not have all the
characteristics of the virus viewed without gradient ultracentrifugation.
Using current methods of molecular biology it has been possible to
synthesize the entire genetic structure of HIV, introduce it into cells
("transfection") and observed that the transfected cells produce HIV viral
particles which can, in turn, infect other cells.  This is the strongest
possible proof of the existance of HIV and the one that is pointed to by
Duesberg in his claim for the prize.

Amphiboly
The dead give away for intellectual dishonesty is the practice of amphiboly;
the use of equivocal, poorly worded or murkily-stated premises to further an
argument. Back in school when faced with an assignment from a challenging
professor that we were unable to meet, we used to refer to this strategy
this way; "if you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with
bullshit". The folks at Virusmyth use a form of amphiboly known as moving
the goalposts, wherein the premise of an argument is changed when the
argument is specifically refuted.

For example, when Ed King refuted their claim that the Pasteur Institute did
not establish the so-called guidelines for proving the existence of a
retrovirus and when Virusmyth was forced to admit that the papers they claim
supported their position did not in fact do so, they suddenly switched
tactics. They claimed that although the Spectra authors did not use the
non-existent Pasteur guidelines, they did not need to because those authors
were purifying RNA tumor viruses
(http://web.archive.org/web/20011027021329/http://www.virusmyth.com/aids/data/epr
eplyek.htm).

When challenged by Peter Duesberg to explain why 19 full length clones of
HIV does not constitute proof that the viral genome exists, they claim that
it is because the viral genomes are not all of the same size or sequence
(http://web.archive.org/web/20011027021329/http://www.virusmyth.com/aids/data/epr
eplypd2.htm).
Here they conveniently ignore the very well known fact that retroviral
reverse transcriptase (RT) is highly error prone. More convenient for
Virusmyth, is that by changing the subject they believe they have rebutted
Duesberg's argument.

The reader will also note the vague and undefined nature of some of their
demands in the challenge. For example they require that tissue from
"matched, unhealthy subjects" be used to isolate highly purified virions
which are then used to infect reputedly uninfected tissue. As they leave the
term "unhealthy" undefined, they retain the ability to claim that studies
which, in fact demonstrate just this, are not valid because the subjects
were not either properly matched or unhealthy
(http://web.archive.org/web/20011027021329/http://www.virusmyth.com/aids/data/epc
omreplypd.htm
).

(Note; The text hyperlinked in the previous sentence is touted at the
Virusmyth web site as a rebuttal to Duesberg's claim. I leave it to the
reader to decide if, in fact, Virusmyth addressed Duesberg).

Addressing The Challenge
One of the main reasons why few researchers have, or would, take the
challenge is because there simply is no percentage in it; it is clear that
any claims to the reward will be dodged, the challenge while technically
feasible is costly, and the language of the challenge is so inexact as to be
nearly meaningless. But the most important reason why few people would claim
the prize is that all the conditions as outlined in the challenge to prove
the existence of HIV have already been met.

This challenge is in some ways akin to the absurd comment by Kary Mullis who
has said that HIV cannot be the cause of AIDS because there isn't one paper
that demonstrates that it does
(http://web.archive.org/web/20011027021329/http://www.valleyadvocate.com/hiv-aids
/a960530.html#foreward).
The absurdity of this claim has been pointed out to Dr. Mullis over and over
again to no avail; the man still believes that the lack of proof for the
cause of AIDS by HIV in a single paper is sufficient for him to reject the
HIV/AIDS causality. The people at Virumyth have taken this kind of
sophomoric thinking to heart. They insist that HIV cannot be proven to even
exist unless the seven steps that they (wrongly) claim are required to prove
the existence of the virus are done in a single study. Of course all of the
steps listed by them have been done, several of them concurrently in a
single study. But they continue to insist that because no one has done the
experiments in the way they deem necessary, then the virus has not been
proven to exist.

Before getting into a technically dense discussion of the evidence one might
ask a simple question; is there anything a layman might accept as proof for
the existence of the virus? Usually photographs are considered good proof,
with the obvious fakery caveats. There are literally hundreds of papers in
the primary literature with excellent images of the virus in various stages
including within an infected cell, budding from a cell or free from any
cells. There are even numerous such photos published on the web that you can
look at right now. Here are a few.

http://web.archive.org/web/20011027021329/http://www.deja.com/[ST_artlink=medsta
t.med.utah.edu]/jump/http://medstat.med.utah.edu/WebPath/TUTORIAL/AIDS/AIDS.html
#1
http://www.mcl.tulane.edu/departments/pathology/fermin/HIVFIGSTable.html
http://www.arte-tv.com/special/AIDS/dtext/sida2.htm
http://web.archive.org/web/20011027021329/http://www.deja.com/[ST_artlink=wwwpp.
uwrf.edu]/jump/http://wwwpp.uwrf.edu/~kk00/hivvector/hivvector.html
http://web.archive.org/web/20011027021329/http://www.deja.com/[ST_artlink=www.ia
pac.org]/jump/http://www.iapac.org/clinmgt/avtherapies/saq6.html
http://web.archive.org/web/20011027021329/http://www.deja.com/[ST_artlink=www.un
sw.edu.au]/jump/http://www.unsw.edu.au/clients/microbiology/maureen/fig5.htm
http://web.archive.org/web/20011027021329/http://www.deja.com/[ST_artlink=wwwpp.
uwrf.edu]/jump/http://wwwpp.uwrf.edu/~kk00/poster/HIV/HIV.htm
http://web.archive.org/web/20011027021329/http://www.deja.com/[ST_artlink=bioinf
ormatik.biochemtech.uni-halle.de]/jump/http://bioinformatik.biochemtech.uni-hall
e.de/uli/genetherapy/hiv.htm
http://web.archive.org/web/20011027021329/http://www.deja.com/[ST_artlink=www.cm
sp.com]/jump/http://www.cmsp.com/data2/im101.htm
http://web.archive.org/web/20011027021329/http://www.deja.com/[ST_artlink=www.sc
i-imagemakers.com]/jump/http://www.sci-imagemakers.com/markus.html
http://web.archive.org/web/20011027021329/http://www.deja.com/[ST_artlink=life.a
nu.edu.au]/jump/http://life.anu.edu.au/viruses/ICTVdB/61065001.htm
http://web.archive.org/web/20011027021329/http://telpath2.med.utah.edu/WebPath/H
ISTHTML/EM/EM017.html
http://www.avert.org/virus.htm
http://www.thebody.com/niaid/hiv_lifecycle/virbud.html
http://www.cmsp.com/data2/tng100.htm
http://www.cmsp.com/data2/fx100003.htm
http://www.micro.unsw.edu.au/maureen/gen-info.htm
http://www.tulane.edu/~dmsander/Big_Virology/BVretro.html

Below I present some of the relevant literature that meets the demands of
the challenge. Note that I give a restricted, limited citation list. In most
cases there are many more papers (and probably some that make the point
better than the ones I cite here) that could be cited but are not. I have
cited only those papers that use density ultracentrifugation for virus
purification, as that is one of the requirements set forth by the challenge.
There are other much more powerful methods, but this is the one that
Virusmyth requires so for sake of brevity, I have stuck with it. For the
reader unfamiliar with scientific papers, it should be noted that in none of
the citations in this FAQ do the authors address the challenge directly.
That is, while the authors use the methods that the Perth Group insists upon
they do not specifically address the challenge. I indicate the conditions
for the challenge laid forth by the Perth Group with a (PP) before the
number.

(PP)1.Culture of putatively infected tissue.

This one is easy. In fact culture of "putatively" infected tissue was first
done way back in 1983 by Robert Gallo's group at the NIH in the US and Luc
Montaigner's crew at the Institute Pasteur in Paris (this is in fact, how
the virus was first identified) see; Gallo, RC et al. Science. 1983 May
20;220 (4599):865-7 and Barre-Sinoussi F, et al. Science 1983 May
20;220(4599):868-871.

Later, following the acrimony about just who isolated the first virus, the
issue was revisited. "Two of the first human immunodeficiency virus type-1
(HIV- 1) strains isolated were authenticated by reanalyzing original
cultured samples stored at the Collection Nationale de Culture des
Microorganismes as well as uncultured primary material". From; Wain- Hobson
S, et al. Science 1991 May 17;252(5008):961-5.

HIV can grow in chimpanzees (though it rarely causes disease) and in primary
cell cultures. See; Castro BA, et al. J Med Primatol 198918(3- 4):337-42

HIV-1 culture isolates were obtained from the lymph nodes and peripheral
blood mononuclear cells from 11 HIV-infected patients. See; AIDS 1994
Aug;8(8):1083-8 Tamalet C et al.

Typically, patient tissue culture isolates are derived from initial primary
cultures and clones of the virus are isolated by subsequent passage through
other cell types. See, for example; Saag MS, et al. Nature 1988 Aug 4;334
(6181):440-4, and Cheng-Mayer C, et al. Virology 1991 Mar;181(1):288-94.

Intrinsic biological properties, such as syncytia formation, cell tropism
and cytopathogenicity of different strains of HIV have been assessed by
growing primary and secondary cultures. See; von Briesen H, et al. J Med
Virol 1987 Sep;23(1):51-66.

In fact, even defective HIV, that is HIV that grows very poorly and had an
atypical Western blot and ELISA profile, has been cultured from tissue
derived from patients. See; Huet T, et al. AIDS 1989 Nov;3 (11):707-15.

There are a great many more reports of primary tissue culture isolates of
HIV. Most workers, however, use the far easier, more sensitive and cheaper
method of PCR. Even so, some researchers used tissue culture of primary HIV
isolates from patients infected with HIV to evaluate the cytopathogenicity,
cell tropism, replication capacities of different viral strains and the
correlation to clinical status. See; Lu W, Andrieu JM J Virol 1992
Jan;66(1):334-40.

(PP) 2. Purification of specimens by density gradient ultracentrifugation.

The Perth Group seems to have a fixation on this method, so let's take a
quick look at it, shall we? Density gradient ultracentrifugation is a method
of separating thingies based on their relative densities. The technique
requires that suspensions containing the virus are made up in a buffered
sucrose solution. The samples are then spun at high speed in order to
greatly enhance the effects of gravity resulting in the suspension of all
things of similar density in a single band. Most (but not all) retroviruses
have a density of 1.16 g/ml (~35% w/v sucrose), thus retroviruses should
form a band on top of a solution containing 1.16 gms of sucrose per ml of
buffer. Here's the thing; that density is NOT a unique characteristic of HIV
or even retroviruses. That is; it is an extrinsic quality. Here's an
analogy; I know that anyone who has seen the Monty Python movie the Holy
Grail will remember that scene where Sir Bedevere is trying to get those
English peasants to figure out what floats on water. They came up with (I
think) wood, ducks and very small rocks. Same thing here; lots of stuff
could sediment at 1.16 g/ml. In fact, everything that has a density of..1.16
g/ml.

Nevertheless, real scientists use the technique to isolate and purify HIV.
In one paper, by Yamamoto S, et al.( J. Virol. Methods 1996 Sep; 61
(1-2):135-43) the authors used density banding to isolate viral particles
and compared the qualitative and quantitative detection of reverse
transcriptase (see below for the significance of this).

It IS true, as noted by the Perth people, that standard HIV-1 particle
preparations created with sucrose density-equilibrium gradients are
contaminated with cell-derived microvesicles, see; Bess JW Jr Virology. 1997
Mar 31;230(1):134-44 and Gluschankof P, et al. Virology 1997 Mar
31;230(1):125- 33. This does not, of course, mean that HIV banding at 1.16
g/ml is non- existent, nor does it mean that the virions cannot be separated
from the microvesicles, see; Ott DE, et al. J Virol 1996 Nov;70(11):7734-43
and, for a more recent report; Dettenhofer M, Yu XF J Virol 1999
Feb;73(2):1460-7

(PP) 3. Electron micrographs of particles exhibiting the morfological (sic)
characteristics and dimensions (100-120nm) of retroviral particles at the
sucrose (or percoll) density of 1.16 gm/ml and containing nothing else, not
even particles of other morphologies or dimensions.

Note here the devious nature of their challenge and one of the reasons why
they will never accept a claim to the reward. As noted by Edward King;
"Scientists have highlighted the irrelevance of this insistence on purity if
the HIV particles themselves are clearly present; for example, it's like
saying that it is impossible to identify a German Shepherd dog by its unique
appearance, if it happens to be surrounded by a pack of poodles."

But what evidence do real scientists have? Well here's a bit;

Viral particle size is usually measured either directly by electron
microscopy (EM), see; Gentile M, et al. J Virol Methods 1994
Jun;48(1):43-52, and Garnier, L, et al. J. Virol. 1999 Mar;73(3):2309-20 or
it is determined by rate zonal sedimentation, see; Garnier, L, et al J Virol
1998 Jun;72(6):4667- 77. By the way HIV, like many other retroviruses is
about 80-120 nm in diameter.

Researchers use EM and gradient ultracentrifugation to demonstrate the
presence of the virus even while acknowledging the presence of microvesicles
that are clearly not viruses. "Electron microscopy of gradient-enriched
preparations from supernatants of virus-infected cells revealed an excess of
vesicles with a size range of about 50-500 nm, as opposed to a minor
population of virus particles of about 100 nm. Electron micrographs of
infected cells showed polarized vesiculation of the cell membrane, and virus
budding was frequently colocalized with nonviral membrane vesiculation."
From; Gluschankof P, et al. Virology 1997 Mar 31;230 (1):125-33. See also;
Meerloo T, et al. J Gen Virol. 1993 Jan;74:129-35.

Fortunately for the rest of the world, very few people take the Perth Group
seriously. There is a great deal of effort underway to generate a vaccine.
One of the things that is likely to be required for an effective modified
virus vaccine is a highly pure, homogenous batch of HIV that is inactive (so
that people do not get infected from the vaccine). This has been
accomplished, see; Richieri SP, et al. Vaccine 1998 Jan-Feb;16 (2-3):119-29.
These folks even have very nice thin section electron microscopy evidence
showing a homogenous field of intact viral particles. They purified the HIV
particles by both anion-exchange chromatography and by sucrose density
gradient ultracentrifugation.

Some workers have even isolated viral cores. After first purifying and
concentrating the virions themselves, the viral capsules are then removed by
detergent and the cores containing the viral genome and associated proteins
is visualized by EM (Welker R. et al. J Virol 2000 Feb;74(3):1168-77).

(PP)4. Proof that the particles contain reverse transcriptase.

Done. In intact virions the process is called natural endogenous reverse
transcription (NERT) and has been demonstrated, see; Zhang H, et al. J Virol
1996 May;70(5):2809-24, Zhang H, et al. AIDS Res Hum Retroviruses 1998
Apr;14 Suppl 1:S93-5, and Busso M, Resnick L  J Virol Methods 1994
Apr;47(1-2):129-39  (also shown in SIV; see Dornadula G, et al. Virology
1997 Jan 6;227(1):260-7). Yamamoto S, et al.( J. Virol. Methods 1996 Sep;
61(1-2):135- 43) used density banding to isolate viral particles and
compared the qualitative and quantitative detection of reverse transcriptase
assays. In fact, one can even measure intraviral RT activity in the blood of
patients who are positive for HIV; Zhang H, et al. J Virol 1996 Jan;70
(1):628-34.

In the course of looking for a vpr gene protein in HIV, HIV particles were
banded on a sucrose density gradient and reverse transcriptase activity was
detected in just the fractions expected for a retrovirus (Cohen et al J.
Virology 64:3097-3099, 1990). RT activity can be detected in the (cell free)
sera of infected people but not in the sera of uninfected people (Heneine W
et al J Infect Dis 1995 May;171(5):1210-6, Pyra H., et al. Proc Natl Acad
Sci U S A 1994 Feb 15;91(4):1544-8, Boni J., et al. J Med Virol 1996
May;49(1):23-8

One report demonstrates that antiretroviral drugs work even on highly
purified virions. The RT activity of HIV occurs primarily in the cytoplasm
of the infected cell, but there is evidence that sometimes the virions can
initiate reverse transcription prior to infection (Lori et al. J Virol 1992
Aug;66(8):5067-74) RT inhibitors inhibited transcription of RT activity
associated with highly purified virions (see; Ventura, M., et al,  Arch
Virol 1999;144(3):513-23

As noted above, HIV virions have even been shown to contain HIV DNA (Lori F,
et al. J Virol 1992 Aug; 66(8):5067-74). As HIV is a retrovirus, I will
leave it to the reader to consider the problem for Virusmyth in explaining
where, exactly, retroviral DNA found in the virions comes from.

(PP)5. Analysis of the particles' proteins and RNA and proof that these are
unique.

Well, apart from the RT examples above, I'll just give some of the evidence
for the viral protein, gag. There is, of course, a lot of the same evidence
available for other viral proteins. The acronym gag is derived from
group-specific antigen because it was found that a single antiserum from an
infected person was capable of cross-reacting with related retroviruses. The
gag gene encodes four proteins in the mature virus, the capsid (p24), matrix
(p17), nucleocapsid (p7) and p6 proteins. These processed gag proteins play
different roles in the HIV lifecycle including (but not limited to) budding
(p6), core structure (capsid), genome RNA architecture (nucleocapsid) and
viral capsule structure (matrix). The gag precursor protein plays an
important role in the structure of the immature viral capsule.

There is, of course, a huge amount of evidence based on the more powerful,
specific and sensitive PCR techniques, but I'll stick to the Perth Group's
need for this particular methodology. The following papers used
ultracentrifugation to purify HIV virions.  Evidence for sequence
determinants of HIV genome encoded gag genes that control the size, shape,
morphogenesis and budding of viral particles purified by
ultracentrifugation; Garnier, L, et al J Virol 1998 Jun;72(6):4667-77, Wang
CT, et al. J Virol. 1998 Oct;72(10):7950-9, Dawson L & Yu, XF Virology 1998
Nov 10;251(1):141-57 and Reicin AS, et al. J Virol 1996 Dec;70(12):8645-52.

(PP)6. Proof that 1-5 are a property only of putatively infected tissues and
can not be induced in control cultures. These are identical cultures, that
is, tissues obtained from matched, unhealthy subjects and cultured under
identical conditions differing only in that they are not putatively infected
with a retrovirus.

Ah, well. We now come across another canard of the Perth Group; "unhealthy
subjects". Weasel room, if I've ever seen it. You see; no matter how many
times the experiment is done, they can dodge claims to the prize by saying
something to the effect of; "ah, but since your controls did not have
(insert lacking illness here), they are not proper controls. Therefore HIV
doesn't exist."

**Sigh** What can anyone say to this? Well not much. However, controls like
this have been done since the very earliest days of the epidemic. For
example, in a very early report patients with AIDS had serum that contained
anti-HTLV antibodies while serum from 25 patients who did not have AIDS did
not react to HTLV (early on in the epidemic when it was clear that it was
caused by an infectious agent, most likely a virus and prior to the
identification of HIV, it was thought that the virus was actually HTLV).
Karpas A, et al. Mol Biol Med 1983 Nov;1(4):457-459.

See Gallo, RC et al. Science. 1983 May 20;220(4599):865-7 and Barre-
Sinoussi F, et al. Science 1983 May 20;220(4599):868-871 for the original
papers on the identification of HIV (called HTLV-III by Gallo and LAV by
Montagnier). They used non-infected tissue controls. Also; Gelmann EP, et
al. Science 1983 May 20;220(4599):862-865

(PP)7. Proof that the particles are infectious, that is when PURE particles
are introduced into an uninfected culture or animal, the identical particle
is obtained as shown by repeating steps 1-5.

Leaving aside the Perth Group's required degree of purity, infecting cells
with virus derived from infected people has been done since very early on in
the epidemic.  It is a routine way to derive patient isolates or to obtain
viral clones (see, for example; Saag MS, et al. Nature 1988 Aug
4;334(6181):440- 4, and Cheng-Mayer C, et al. Virology 1991
Mar;181(1):288-94. As noted above).

Conclusion
Perhaps the best evidence for the existence of the virus was outlined by
Peter Duesberg when he claimed Virusmyth's prize. He pointed out that by use
of modern molecular biology techniques scientists have been able to
reconstruct intact viruses that are infectious (see for example, Page et al,
J. Virol. 64:5270-5276, 1990). Of course there is no ethical way that the
virus, reconstructed or not, can be used to demonstrate the pathology of the
virus, but we can prove that the virus exists. Fore example, it has been
shown by PCR that cells from infected persons contain HIV DNA but cells from
uninfected people do not (see; Bagasra O, et al. N Engl J Med 326:1385-1391,
1992, Ho DD, et al. N Engl J Med 321:1621-5, 1989, Rouzioux C, et al. AIDS
6:373- 377, 1992, Alimenti A, et al. AIDS 8:895-900, 1994).

Duesberg in claiming the prize, noted that "The existence of the retrovirus
HIV predicts that HIV DNA can be isolated from the chromosomal DNA of
infected cells. This prediction has been confirmed as follows: Full-length
HIV-1 and HIV-2 DNAs have been prepared from virus-infected cells and cloned
in bacterial plasmids (Fisher AG et al, Nature (London) 316:262-265 1985,
Levy, JA et al. Science 232:998-1001 1986 and Barnett, SW et al. J Virol.
67:1006-1014 1993). Such clones are totally free of all viral and cellular
proteins, and cellular contaminants that co-purify with virus. These clones
produce infectious virus that is neutralized by specific antisera from AIDS
patients. For example, virus produced by infectious HIV-2 DNA is neutralized
by antiserum from HIV-2 but not from HIV-1-infected people (Barnett, SW et
al. J Virol. 67:1006-1014 1993)."

The evidence for the existence of HIV presented in the papers cited in this
FAQ is not comprehensive. It is not meant to be. Instead the point here has
been to show that despite the fact that there has been no one who has taken
up Virusmyth's challenge, there is indisputable evidence that HIV exists
even when using the Perth Group's favored methods. They have constructed a
strawman challenge that has led them to a claim that would be laughable if
it weren't for the fact that there are some groups out there who use
arguments like Virusmyth's to make the claim that AIDS is not caused by HIV.
If the virus doesn't even exist, so the argument goes, there is no way that
it can cause AIDS. Frightened, desperate and uninformed people are then led
to believe that they need not seek treatment for their infection. In this
way, Virusmyth is indirectly responsible for the suffering and deaths of
people fooled by their pseudoscience. Some of the members of the Perth Group
are scientists and they commit the worst sin any scientist can; they ignore
data that falsifies their hypothesis. They have much to answer for.