TEN LIES ABOUT AIDS
Etienne de Harven M.D. & Jean-Claude Roussez
2008, ISBN 978-1-4251-5426-4

Review by Joan Shenton — Administrator, Immunity Resource Foundation, UK Registered Charity No. 1105986

It takes a Professor of Pathology, specialist in electron microscopy, successfully to de-bone and authoritatively to debunk claims for the isolation and existence of “HIV”.

De Harven, together with his co-author, science writer Jean Claude Roussez, have written a book of remarkable clarity for the lay reader. Ten Lies about AIDS provides a lucid A to Z of the arguments De Harven and many other leading scientists have been propounding over the last 20 years to a deaf scientific orthodoxy and a rigidly politically correct gay establishment.

With a sense of palpable horror De Harven describes how his own peers have hoodwinked the scientific establishment over the identification of HIV.

Acquired immunodeficiency is nothing new and has long been associated with two main causes: malnutrition and the use of certain substances harmful to the immune system like drugs, certain medicines and blood transfusions.

However, according to the authors, the hypothesis of the isolation of a retrovirus as the “probable” cause of AIDS was precipitously formulated in 1983-1984. As Peter Duesberg put it, the AIDS virus had been “invented”.

De Harven describes it as “scientifically absurd”,

“Scientific integrity took a back seat in this adventure. Pressure groups, the media and the pharmaceutical giants quickly saw the huge potential profit to be made from this pseudo-scientific development, in what will probably remain the blackest page in the history of medicine.”

De Harven’s long career in the field of electron microscopy and virology provides him with all the necessary credentials to linger on his second lie, “There is an AIDS virus: HIV”. He states that the so-called retrovirus “HIV” has never been isolated because HIV has never been purified according to accepted standards for the isolation of a retrovirus. He rejects the announcement in Science, May 1983 claiming the isolation of HIV through the observation of the enzymatic activity  of reverse transcriptase (a molecular marker said to demonstrate the presence of a retrovirus) in a fraction sedimenting at 1.16 g/ml (the density band at which retroviruses sediment). De Harven refutes this on the grounds that reverse transcriptase is not a specific marker for retroviruses and that at 1.16 g/ml the density gradient is full of cell debris such as “microvesicles”.

Therefore,

“Collecting material at this density is not sufficient to proclaim the isolation of a retrovirus."

 In lie three, “HIV is the cause of AIDS,” the authors state,
 

“The dogmatic acceptance of the viral hypothesis has totally eclipsed the real causes of AIDS.”

They describe the nonsense of the thirty illnesses officially listed as being AIDS-defining and all allegedly caused by HIV, several of which have nothing to do with immunodeficiency, and chronicle the toxicity of the medicinal drugs given to treat the so-called viral condition instead of the symptoms of the disease.

They are particularly aware of the way in which AIDS has appeared in the homosexual community and describe the very high use by homosexuals of recreational drugs including inhaled nitrites, PCP, ethyl chloride and cocaine.

The long term effects of many of these drugs are cumulative and it can take several years for drug addicts to exhibit illnesses that are erroneously attributed to a “slow” virus. The information regarding immunodeficiency and drug abuse has been in the public domain for many years,

“…which makes the attitude of the organisations and professionals in charge of public health unforgivable, when they had the likely evidence for the chemical origin of AIDS before their eyes, at least in the case of drug addicts.”

The fifth lie requires special attention: “HIV positivity is a sign of HIV infection.”

Here the authors challenge the reliability of an antibody test, a surrogate marker test, which has no gold standard and where the criteria for testing HIV antibody positive varies from one country to another, making it possible for you to be negative in one country on day and positive in another the next.

Furthermore de Harven points to the fact that some of the viral proteins said to be specific to HIV are endogenous and antibodies to these could be found in all of us.

The measuring of “viral load” through PCR (Polymerase Chain Reaction) to ascertain the level of “HIV” infection is rejected and the inventor of PCR, Nobel Prize winner Dr Kari Mullis is quoted as describing the use of PCR for an alleged measurement of “HIV viral load” as fraudulent.

In lie six the authors categorically refute the idea that AIDS is contagious and in lie eight, “HIV causes numerous illnesses,” we are reminded that in general human pathology,

“…not one single disease has ever been shown to he caused by a retrovirus”

In lie nine, “It’s better to know that you are HIV-positive,” the harm caused by a positive diagnosis and the subsequent antiviral therapies is of grave concern to the authors.

Even the ELISA test manufacturers' brochures say that a positive reaction to their test kits cannot be used, in itself, a as diagnosis for AIDS.

However, say the authors,

“All over the world there are hundreds of thousands of healthy “seropositive” individuals whose health is kept stable by good personal hygiene and a balanced diet, and who do not expose themselves to any antiviral therapy.”

De Harven was invited to be a member of the then President Thabo Mbeki’s Presidential AIDS Advisory Panel in Pretoria, South Africa. In the last two chapters of the book the authors describe the gross misrepresentation of AIDS statistics in Africa and the valiant efforts of Thabo Mbeki in supporting a debate in which the key role of HIV was brought into question, also for encouraging a series of ten controlled experiments for the verification of the HIV-AIDS hypothesis.

Many obstacles from the orthodox camp were put in the way of these experiments and to this day they have not been conducted.

I thoroughly recommend this book for anyone who has had the remotest doubt about the cause of AIDS.  It is written by two scientists who perfectly understand the needs of the lay reader but with no trace of condescension.

Joan Shenton is a Rethinking AIDS Correspondent.