"GMCarter" <fiar@verizon.net> wrote in message

and again, the hypocrite.

The second leg of the selection process for poisoning Africans with ARVs is
CD4 cell counting, on the premise that such a count indicates a person's
immune status, i.e. his health. But as early as April 1994, having employed
CD4 cell counts as a surrogate marker for drug efficacy in the Concorde
trial, the researchers reported the irrelevance of this laboratory measure
and its lack of a correlation to clinical health in Lancet 343(8902):871-81,
noting that the results of the study call into question the uncritical use
of CD4 cell counts as a surrogate endpoint for assessment of benefit from
long-term antiretroviral therapy. Anthony Brink's criminal complaint of
genocide  laid against Zackie Achmat

It has been known since at least 1993 (when the results of the Concorde AZT
study were published), and has been publicly admitted by public health
officials, that the CD4 test is worthless; nevertheless, this worthless test
is still being used to evaluate the alleged efficacy of toxic and worthless
AIDS drugs. 'AIDS: A Death Cult' by John Lauritsen

In order to explain failure to find a retrovirus that directly caused
cancer, they claimed to be able to measure the immune system. But this is
ridiculous. In the Journal of the American Medical Association, August 28,
1981, it was published that it makes no sense to measure lymphocytes in the
blood because only a few of them are in the blood. The immune system is
carried out, not in the blood, but in the tissues. Only rarely and
accidentally do we see some of them in the blood. We've already carried out
thousands of studies which have proven no correlation between disease or
health, in old or young, in T-cells; and even less, of course, in T-cell
subsets.
   But, even though they knew that these T-cell tests had not meaning, they
were selling them to the market. Beginning in 1977, starting in the United
States, it was possible to patent biological entities or biological
techniques, so people started to make money out of biological ideas. [1995]
INTERVIEW STEFAN LANKA

T-Cells and CD4 are not strictly speaking the same thing.  About.com
puts it in to simple language that even someone as stupid as me can
understand.

<http://aids.about.com/od/newlydiagnosed/qt/cd4.htm>:

"T-cells (or T-lymphocytes) are white blood cells that play an
important role in the immune system. There are two main types of
T-cells. One type has molecules called CD4 on its surface; these
`helper' cells orchestrate the body's response to certain
micro-organisms such as viruses. The other T-cells, which have a
molecule called CD8, destroy cells that are infected and produce
antiviral substances."

I must admit that I'm not sure about CD4 being discovered in 1985.
Finding out anything about T-cells and CD4 is virtually impossible
because virtually all of the published information on the Internet is
related to HIV and AIDS.

In a belated attempt to address the actual issue, CD4 was not
"discovered in 1985" - I have a feeling that statement was added to
Wikipedia by someone who shares Celia Farber's view that the field of
cellular immunology only exists because of HIV (in reality, of course,
CD4 and CD8 T cells play critically important roles in the immune
response to just about everything, which is why immunologists spend a
lot of time studying them). CD4 was called leu-3/T4 for a while before
being allocated the CD4 moniker in 1983 (in a publication called
"Leukocyte Typing": Bernard, A,, L. Bounsell,J. Dausset, C. Miistein,
and S. F. Schlossman, editors. 1984.
Leucocyte Typing. Springer-Verlag, Heidelberg. 45-48).

I think these are some of the key papers:

http://www.jem.org/cgi/reprint/145/1/221

J Exp Med. 1977 Jan 1;145(1):221-33.

Detection, isolation, and functional characterization of two human T-
cell subclasses bearing unique differentiation antigens.

Evans RL, Breard JM,  Lazarus H, Schlossman SF, Chess L.

   A heterologous antihuman T-cell serum (anti-TH1), raised against
purified peripheral T cells, and absorbed with an autologous Ig+ line,
was shown to bind specifically to T- but not to B-lymphoid cells by
both a complement-dependent cytotoxic assay and indirect
immunofluorescence. Whereas 90% fetal thymocytes and thymocytes were
killed by anti-TH1 and complement, a consistently restricted
population (50-60%) of peripheral T cells from several normal donors
were lysed, indicating that anti-TH1 is directed against one or more
thymus-specific antigens which are lost or reduced on a subpopulation
of human T cells in the periphery. Functional analysis of the
unreactive (TH1-) and reactive (TH1+) T-cell subclasses demonstrated
that TH1- cells mounted a good proliferative response to a battery of
specific soluble antigens (mumps, PPD, tetanus toxoid) but neither
responded in MLC, nor elaborated LMF in response to tetanus toxoid. In
contrast TH1+ cells proliferated in MLC and elaborated LMF but did not
respond by 3H-incorporation to soluble antigens. The relevance of
these findings to human T-cell functions in vivo and to previously
described functional subclasses of murine T cells is discussed.

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pubmed&pubmedid=315070

Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1979 August; 76(8): 4061-4065.

Separation of functional subsets of human T cells by a monoclonal
antibody.
E L Reinherz, P C Kung, G Goldstein, and S F Schlossman

A monoclonal antibody was produced to human peripheral blood T cells.
This hybridoma antibody, termed OKT4, was reactive by indirect
immunofluorescence with only 55-60% of the peripheral blood T cell
population (OKT4+) and unreactive with normal B cells, null cells, and
macrophages. The OKT4- T cell population contained the previously
described TH2+ subset that has been shown to contain cytotoxic/
suppressor cells. With cell-sorter separation of OKT4+ and OKT4-
cells, it was shown that these T cell subsets were functionally
discrete. Both gave proliferative responses with concanavalin A,
alloantigens, and phytohemagglutinin although OKT4+ cells were much
more responsive to the latter. OKT4+ cells alone responded to soluble
antigens whereas OKT4- cells alone were cytotoxic after alloantigenic
sensitization of unfractionated T cells. However, both OKT4+ and OKT4-
cells were required during sensitization for optimal development of
cytotoxicity. These data suggest that the OKT4+ subset represents a
helper population and that the OKT4- subset contains the cytotoxic
effector population. OKT4 could be a valuable reagent for determining
alterations of these functional subsets in human diseases.

Science. 1979 Oct 19;206(4416):347-9.

Monoclonal antibodies defining distinctive human T cell surface
antigens.

Kung P, Goldstein G, Reinherz EL, Schlossman SF.

   Three novel nonoclonal antibodies (designed OKT1, OKT3, and OKT4)
were generated against surface determinants of human peripheral T
cells. Both OKT1 and OKT3 reacted with all human peripheral T cells
and 5 to 10 percent of thymocytes but differed in their reactivities
with T cel- lines. By contrast, OKT4 reacted with 55 percent of human
peripheral T cells and 80 percent of thymocytes in that they did not
react with normal B cells, null cells, monocytes, or granulocytes.