RA Board Members

Tom DiFerdinando
President, Rethinking AIDS/Unmasking Covid
BFA/NYU. For over twenty years, Tom was the Executive Director of HEAL NYC (Health Education AIDS Liaison), the first major AIDS dissident group in the world. Tom has organized, hosted and spoken at many international dissident conferences, always coupling medical science with a knowledge of lawful yet lesser known psychosocial dynamics, essential to any serious analysis explaining the "AIDS" and "Covid-19" phenomena. A self-described free-speech therapist, Tom's goal is to expose the widespread, modern day substitution of biological science with vaccine industry marketing and propaganda, and to ignite in people their "freedomfire" - the inner sense that one's natural freedom is being irrationally thwarted, and the best insurance against attacks on the First Amendment, uncritical compliance, and caving to pressure from freedom-feeding Public Health Officials.

Raúl Ehrichs de Palma
Vice-President, Rethinking AIDS/Unmasking Covid
Raúl was diagnosed "HIV antibody positive" in 1998 and is in good health thanks to renouncing anti-retroviral therapy. He represents the Spanish speaking world, and many AIDS dissident groups in Spain and Latin America started by former RA president Dr. Roberto Giraldo. Raúl is currently participating in a multidisciplinary research group of Spanish-speaking countries who are re-evaluating Covid-19 and its parallels to and connections with AIDS.

Christian Fiala, MD
Dr. Christian Fiala is a gynaecologist and obstetrician and currently working in Vienna, but has extensive experience in Thailand and Africa. April, 2007, he established the Museum of Contraception and Abortion. For almost 20 years he has been following critically the scientific and political discussion on the epidemiological aspects of AIDS and contributed actively. He was a member of the Presidential AIDS Advisory Panel in South Africa. Dr. Fiala has published many papers focused on the problems of AIDS in Africa and the definition of AIDS. is the author of the book "Do We Love Dangerously? - A Doctor in Search of the Facts and Background to AIDS" (Lieben wir gefaehrlich? - Ein Arzt auf der Suche nach den Fakten und Hintergruenden von AIDS) (1997); and the article in English, Aids: are we being deceived?

Charles L. Geshekter, PhD
Professor of African history at California State University, Chico, recipient of grants from the Ford Foundation, Fulbright-Hayes, National Endowment for the Humanities and Social Science Research Council. From 1991-95, he chaired the History of Science Section of the AAAS and was a member of its Executive Council. He is also a member of South Africa's Presidential AIDS Advisory Panel.

Claus Koehnlein
Specialist in internal medicine, Dept. of Oncology, Univ. of Kiel, Germany (1983 -1993). Since 1993, in private practice increasingly treating HIV- positive people who decline antiviral drugs. Member of SA Presidential AIDS Advisory Panel.

Helen Lauer, PhD
Professor and former Head of Dept. of Philosophy and Classics (2008-2012) at the University of Ghana with a PhD from City University in New York. She teaches Ethics, Logic, several types of Philosophy and Critical Thinking for both Humanities and Science, Law and Medical students. Her areas of concentration are in the philosophy of mind and language and action theory. She has edited and contributed to two books on the history and philosophy of science and also is the lead editor of “Reclaiming the Human Sciences and Humanities through African Perspectives” (2012). She has produced a course module for Masters students in Public Health titled, Ethical Issues in HIV and AIDS Science for the Institute of Continuing and Distance Education (2012). She has also published many journal articles, delivered several papers at academic conferences, contributed chapters to anthologies and other short publications in philosophy journals.

Robert Leppo
BA, Stanford University (1965); MBA, Harvard Business School (1969). Historian, philanthropist, and investor.

Frank Lusardi
Professional software developer.

David Rasnick, PhD
Senior Researcher, Rath Health Foundation, Africa. Between 1978 and 1996, he worked as a pharmaceutical protein chemist at Abbott Laboratories, Enzyme Systems Products, Prototek, Inc., and Khepri Pharmaceuticals. He was a visiting scholar at the department of molecular and cell biology, UC Berkeley (1996-2005), where he worked in the Duesberg laboratory on the aneuploidy theory of cancer. He is also a member of South Africa's Presidential AIDS Advisory Panel.

Joan Shent on, MA
Founder and administrator of the registered charity and NGO, Immunity Resource Foundation and the author of Positively False: Exposing the myths around HIV and AIDS. She is an award winning television producer whose company Meditel Productions specialized in science and medical programmes. In 1987 she produced the first documentary challenging the science behind the HIV/ AIDS hypothesis: AIDS—The Unheard Voices (Dispatches Ch4) which won the Royal Television Society Award for Journalism. Three further Dispatches documentaries followed on the subject, The AIDS Catch, AZT—Cause for Concern and AIDS and Africa. Sky News has broadcast Diary of an AIDS Dissident, AIDS Dissidents in Europe and AZT Babies. In 2000, she was granted an interview by the South African president Thabo Mbeki which was broadcast by M-Net South Africa – Search for Solutions—The Great AIDS Debate. Joan Shenton has compiled a large video archive on the AIDS debate for the Immunity Resource Foundation website. She is also co-director with Andi Reiss of the documentaries Positively False and Positive Hell. Joan has an MA in Modern Languages from Oxford University.

Former Board Members

And, in alphabetical order (by last name):

Dr. Henry Bauer
Henry Bauer is Professor Emeritus of Chemistry & Science Studies and Dean Emeritus of Arts & Sciences, Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University (Virginia Tech). Earlier he had been at the Universities of Sydney, Michigan, Southampton, and Kentucky. He is Austrian by birth (1931), Australian by education (1939-56), and American (since 1969) by choice. His publications include more than a hundred articles and ten books, chiefly in chemistry and science studies – full details and curriculum vitae at henryhbauer.homestead.com. The Origin, Persistence and Failings of HIV/AIDS Theory was published in 2007. Dogmatism in Science and Medicine: How Dominant Theories Monopolize Research and Stifle the Search for Truth will be published in 2011. Currently blogging at hivskeptic.wordpress.com.

David Crowe
Rethinking AIDS Past President
HBSc Hons. Biology/Mathematics, 1978 (Lakehead University, Ontario). BA Italian Studies, 2016 (University of Calgary). President and Founder, Alberta Reappraising AIDS Society, Member of Advisory Council for AnotherLook, Founder and Co-Host for "How Positive Are You? podcast". Radio host, "The Infectious Myth". David passed away in July 2020.

Etienne de Harven, MD
Rethinking AIDS Past President
Member and Professor in cell biology, Sloan Kettering Institute, New York, 1956-1981. Isolated and obtained the first electron microscopic studies of the murine Friend leukemia virus, and retroviral budding. Director of the Electron Microscopy Laboratory at the Banting Institute, Department of Pathology, University of Toronto. He was also a member of South Africa's Presidential AIDS Advisory Panel. Etienne passed away in 2019.

Peter H. Duesberg, PhD
Professor of molecular and cell biology at the University of California, Berkeley. In 1968-1970 he demonstrated that influenza virus has a segmented genome. This would explain its unique ability to form recombinants by reassortment of subgenomic segments. He isolated the first cancer gene through his work on retroviruses in 1970, and mapped the genetic structure of these viruses. This, and his subsequent work in the same field, resulted in his election to the National Academy of Sciences in 1986. He was also the recipient of a seven-year Outstanding Investigator Grant from the National Institutes of Health from 1985-1992. He is also a member of South Africa's Presidential AIDS Advisory Panel.

Roberto Giraldo, MD
Rethinking AIDS Past President
MD (University of Antioquia, Colombia, specialty internal medicine); Master of Science in infectious and tropical diseases (U. of London, The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine). Member of South Africa's Presidential AIDS Advisory Panel. Roberto passed away in January 2019.

Marco Ruggiero, PhD
Ruggiero is board-certified medical doctor and clinical radiologist and holds a PhD in molecular biology. He served as Medical Officer (Lieutenant) in the Italian Army. He is full professor of molecular biology and genetics at the University of Firenze, Italy where he teaches in the Faculties of Medicine, Sciences (chemistry, biology and biotechnology) and Engineering. He spent two years as post-doctoral fellow at Burroughs Wellcome Co. (Research Triangle Park, NC, USA) in 1984-86, where he had the opportunity to collaborate and publish with Nobel Laureate Sir John Vane. He subsequently spent three years as post-doctoral fellow at the Laboratory of Cellular and Molecular Biology of the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, MD, USA, sharing the office with Professor Duesberg as he was visiting the Laboratory. Afterwards, he spent two years as Lab Chief at the Sigma-Tau pharmaceutical company in Milan, Italy. He became associate professor of molecular biology at the University of Firenze in 1992, and full professor in 2002. The research of Professor Ruggiero deals with the study of the molecular mechanisms responsible for cell transformation, signalling and death in different human pathologies from cancer to aids. The results of his research have been published in peer-reviewed, PubMed-indexed, scientific journals and in book chapters.

Gordon Stewart, MD
Emeritus Professor of Public Health, Univ Glasgow, UK; Formerly professor of epidemiology, Univ. NC at Chapel Hill, NC; Watkins Chair of Epidemiology and Professor of Medicine, Tulane Univ., New Orleans, LA; Consultant, New York City Health Dept; WHO; Senior Visiting Fellow, US National Science Foundation; Emeritus Fellow, Infectious Diseases Society of America. Member of South Africa's Presidential AIDS Advisory Panel. Professor Stewart passed away in October 2016.