Press Release
April 22, 2008
April 22, 2008
April 23 Is 'Rethinking AIDS Day';
International Scientists' Group Calls for New Thinking
On Anniversary of HIV 'Discovery'
International Scientists' Group Calls for New Thinking
On Anniversary of HIV 'Discovery'
SAN FRANCISCO (Rethinking AIDS) April 22, 2008 — Rethinking AIDS, an international group of more than 2,500 scientists, doctors, journalists, health advocates and others, has established April 23, 2008, as the first Rethinking AIDS Day.
On April 23, 1984, Dr. Robert Gallo of the U.S. National Institutes of Health announced that he had discovered "the probable cause of AIDS," a new virus later named HIV. The world media and health authorities accepted HIV as the sole cause of AIDS as fact even though no proof was presented, on that day or afterward, that this type of virus can cause or is actually present in AIDS patients.
This mistake has caused unimaginable devastation to real people, says Rethinking AIDS president David Crowe. “What have 24 years and hundreds of billions of research dollars given us?” he asks. “Tests that don't detect the virus, and toxic treatment drugs. Incorrect claims about HIV and AIDS have even included statistical predictions that have proved repeatedly to be wrong.”
Through its events site linked at www.rethinkingaids.com, Rethinking AIDS advertises activities that could help people learn the truth about HIV tests and medications, and empower them to ask for honesty and integrity in the medical and health advocacy communities. Questioning is vital to revealing the correct causes and treatments for the diseases collectively called “AIDS.”
Listings on the site include demonstrations and other events, petitions, videos, and requests for the public's own ideas for bringing accountability to AIDS science and reporting. Events posted already include presenting mock awards, handing out HIV testing information, donating educational books and videos, and attending Rethinkers' parties around the world.
Rethinking AIDS Day asks people around the world to consider that:
“Parents are being forced to poison their children or lose them, and the sexuality of people testing 'HIV positive' is being criminalized," says Crowe, noting that several people have recently been sentenced to long jail sentences for having consensual sex.
A reappraisal of Gallo's HIV AIDS hypothesis is long overdue. April 23, 2008—the first Rethinking AIDS Day—is a public opening of this reappraisal. Rethinking AIDS invites concerned citizens around the world to join it in questioning beliefs about HIV and AIDS that have no basis in science.
FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT:
David Crowe
Calgary, Alberta, Canada (Mountain time zone)
1-403-289-6609 (office)
1-403-861-2225 (mobile
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Elizabeth Ely
Brooklyn, N.Y., U.S. (Eastern time zone)
1-718-704-9672 (mobile)
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Web site: www.rethinkingaids.com
Rethinking AIDS: The Group for the Scientific Reappraisal of the HIV/AIDS Hypothesis (“RA” or “the Group”) was formed in 1991 to express the concerns of a growing number of renowned scientists and medical doctors about HIV research and the resulting human rights abuses. In 1995, by a letter published in Science, the Group called for a thorough reappraisal of the existing evidence for and against the HIV/AIDS hypothesis and recommended that critical epidemiological studies be undertaken.
Among RA's founders and key members are Harvard microbiologist Dr. Charles Thomas; 1993 Nobel laureate for chemistry Dr. Kary Mullis; Nature Biotechnology co-founder Dr. Harvey Bialy; University of California at Berkeley molecular biologist Dr. Peter Duesberg and the late Yale mathematician Dr. Serge Lang, both members of the National Academy of Sciences; in Western Australia Dr. Eleni Papadopulos; and Glasgow University professor emeritus of public health and World Health Organization consultant Dr. Gordon Stewart.
On April 23, 1984, Dr. Robert Gallo of the U.S. National Institutes of Health announced that he had discovered "the probable cause of AIDS," a new virus later named HIV. The world media and health authorities accepted HIV as the sole cause of AIDS as fact even though no proof was presented, on that day or afterward, that this type of virus can cause or is actually present in AIDS patients.
This mistake has caused unimaginable devastation to real people, says Rethinking AIDS president David Crowe. “What have 24 years and hundreds of billions of research dollars given us?” he asks. “Tests that don't detect the virus, and toxic treatment drugs. Incorrect claims about HIV and AIDS have even included statistical predictions that have proved repeatedly to be wrong.”
Through its events site linked at www.rethinkingaids.com, Rethinking AIDS advertises activities that could help people learn the truth about HIV tests and medications, and empower them to ask for honesty and integrity in the medical and health advocacy communities. Questioning is vital to revealing the correct causes and treatments for the diseases collectively called “AIDS.”
Listings on the site include demonstrations and other events, petitions, videos, and requests for the public's own ideas for bringing accountability to AIDS science and reporting. Events posted already include presenting mock awards, handing out HIV testing information, donating educational books and videos, and attending Rethinkers' parties around the world.
Rethinking AIDS Day asks people around the world to consider that:
- Twenty-four years after Dr. Gallo's announcement, no scientific evidence has yet appeared in the medical literature that HIV has been isolated and purified from any AIDS patient.
- The testing protocols used to declare a person HIV positive do not directly measure HIV but instead detect biological markers thought to be associated with a virus.
- A positive result for these markers is assumed, but not proved, to indicate actual infection. No universal standard exists for positive and negative results, and interpretations vary among labs, health agencies and countries.
- Medications prescribed to HIV positives are toxic chemicals, well documented to destroy normal immune functions.
“Parents are being forced to poison their children or lose them, and the sexuality of people testing 'HIV positive' is being criminalized," says Crowe, noting that several people have recently been sentenced to long jail sentences for having consensual sex.
A reappraisal of Gallo's HIV AIDS hypothesis is long overdue. April 23, 2008—the first Rethinking AIDS Day—is a public opening of this reappraisal. Rethinking AIDS invites concerned citizens around the world to join it in questioning beliefs about HIV and AIDS that have no basis in science.
FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT:
David Crowe
Calgary, Alberta, Canada (Mountain time zone)
1-403-289-6609 (office)
1-403-861-2225 (mobile
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Elizabeth Ely
Brooklyn, N.Y., U.S. (Eastern time zone)
1-718-704-9672 (mobile)
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Web site: www.rethinkingaids.com
Rethinking AIDS: The Group for the Scientific Reappraisal of the HIV/AIDS Hypothesis (“RA” or “the Group”) was formed in 1991 to express the concerns of a growing number of renowned scientists and medical doctors about HIV research and the resulting human rights abuses. In 1995, by a letter published in Science, the Group called for a thorough reappraisal of the existing evidence for and against the HIV/AIDS hypothesis and recommended that critical epidemiological studies be undertaken.
Among RA's founders and key members are Harvard microbiologist Dr. Charles Thomas; 1993 Nobel laureate for chemistry Dr. Kary Mullis; Nature Biotechnology co-founder Dr. Harvey Bialy; University of California at Berkeley molecular biologist Dr. Peter Duesberg and the late Yale mathematician Dr. Serge Lang, both members of the National Academy of Sciences; in Western Australia Dr. Eleni Papadopulos; and Glasgow University professor emeritus of public health and World Health Organization consultant Dr. Gordon Stewart.
