http://www.aegis.org/topics/hiv_exist.html
HIV, AIDS, and the Distortion of Science

Misc Health AIDS - August 2000
Michael Coon*

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://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://www.randi.org/research/challenge/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://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://www.users.dircon.co.uk/~eking/index.htm) published
a rebuttal to the Virusmyth challenge in AIDS Treatment Update
(http://www.virusmyth.com/aids/news/ekisolation.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://www.virusmyth.com/aids/data/epreplyek.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://www.virusmyth.com/aids/data/epreplyek.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://www.virusmyth.com/aids/data/epreplypd2.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://www.virusmyth.com/aids/data/epcomreplypd.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://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://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://wwwpp.uwrf.edu/~kk00/hivvector/hivvector.html
http://www.iapac.org/clinmgt/avtherapies/saq6.html
http://www.unsw.edu.au/clients/microbiology/maureen/fig5.htm
http://wwwpp.uwrf.edu/~kk00/poster/HIV/HIV.htm
http://bioinformatik.biochemtech.uni-halle.de/uli/genetherapy/hiv.htm
http://www.cmsp.com/data2/im101.htm
http://www.sci-imagemakers.com/markus.html
http://life.anu.edu.au/viruses/ICTVdB/61065001.htm
http://telpath2.med.utah.edu/WebPath/HISTHTML/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 1989 Dec 14;321(24):1621-5, Rouzioux C, et al.
AIDS 1992 Apr;6(4):373-7, Alimenti A, et al. AIDS 1994
Jul;8(7):895-900).

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 1985 Jul 18-24;316(6025):262-5, Levy, JA et al. Science
1986 May 23;232(4753):998-1001 and Barnett, SW et al. J Virol 1993
Feb;67(2):1006-14). 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 1993
Feb;67(2):1006-14)."

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.

*Michael Coon, 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.

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HIV_EXIST

Copyright © 2000 - Michael Coon

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