Same Old Stories, Every Year
Every year on World AIDS Day, all the bad news comes pouring out of the World Health Organization: More AIDS cases; more HIV infections. News headlines scream that the world is getting pulverized by the virus from hell. More money is needed for HIV research. More attention should be given to AIDS. And so on. And naturally many “leading” AIDS researchers — whatever that means — are quoted in the papers or appearing on camera to suggest that progress is being made and hope is just around the corner.
     But I contend that World AIDS Day is nothing short of a propaganda tool for scientists to reinforce an established model for how AIDS develops — an established model that is short on scientific evidence, that often rings of peculiar speculation, if not outright fantasy.
     If the people involved in AIDS science really cared about those dying of a still mysterious set of immune-related conditions, they would set aside at least one day a year — let’s call it World AIDS Day — to discuss, in conferences around the world, the state of the prevailing science and all theories questioning that very science. (Isn’t this what science is supposed to be — a questioning enterprise?)

Issues Really Worth Debating
For example, this issue could be put on the table for worldwide discussion: Is there scientific evidence that HIV can kill cells in the human body? Imagine open and extensive scrutiny of all the claims about this so-called virus’ ability to kill cells that are key components of the immune system. We could get a better view of what passes off for science and what is truly speculative, based on theory and inference.
     Here’s another topic: Is HIV a real virus, or are the gene sequences attributed to HIV really genetic products of cell damage? And while scientists debate that issue, they might also turn to the question of what the so-called HIV antibody test is really picking up: Is it picking up antibodies to a virus, or to byproducts of cell damaged from, perhaps, drugs, other infections, and other toxic insults?
     As for Africa, which is usually singled out by the World Health Organization on World AIDS Day, debate could focus on what passes for a diagnosis of AIDS, or what basis is used to proclaim someone HIV-positive. There is a lot of shoddy data here requiring careful scrutiny and re-evaluation.
     Of course, the politics here, and elsewhere in the AIDS domain, dominate and obfuscate. A discussion of the African AIDS plight would probably have to run into at least a second or third day (or maybe a month) before a clearer picture of AIDS emerges from the muck. And a discussion of HIV in Africa would inevitably lead to the need to understand how a wide array of intolerable human conditions produces disease, a fact overwhelmed by such a powerful focus on HIV.