AIDS Heterodoxy in Harvard Magazine
The letter below was printed in the March-April 1991 issue of Harvard Magazine. However, the second paragraph and block indent were cut, thus diminishing the case against the HIV-AIDS hypothesis.
AIDS Heterodoxy
From
two articles in the November/December issue (“A Hero in the War
on AIDS” and “The Harvard AIDS Institute”) it is
clear that Harvard follows the official AIDS paradigm: that the
“Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome” is new; that
“AIDS” represents a single disease entity with a single
cause; and that the cause is a newly discovered retrovirus,
tendentiously named the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV). In fact,
not one of the two dozen diseases in the syndrome is new, and immune
deficiency can have many causes, from chemicals, to malnutrition, to
extreme stress or depression, to bad genes, to radiation, to old age.
Unknown to the general public, a growing number of important scientists
are now convinced that HIV is not the cause of “AIDS”. The
foremost skeptic is Peter Duesberg, professor of Molecular Biology at
Berkeley. Duesberg's most comprehensive critique of the HIV-AIDS
hypothesis, “Human Immunodeficiency Syndrome: Correlation But Not
Causation” (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,
February 1989), should be read by everyone who presumes to be
knowledgeable about “AIDS”. Though it cannot be summarized
briefly, it includes the following points:
HIV
has failed the standard tests for establishing a causal relationship
between a microbe and a particular disease. HIV lacks the physical
properties to cause lethal illness, being a “profoundly
conventional” member of a benign category of viruses. The
HIV-AIDS hypothesis is refuted by the epidemiology of the syndrome:
unlike infectious diseases, which spread into the general population,
“AIDS” in the U.S. and Europe has remained rigidly
compartmentalized, confined almost entirely to intravenous drug users
and homosexual men.
The HIV-AIDS hypothesis forms the pernicious theoretical basis for AZT
therapy, which is now being given to many tens of thousands of people,
including those who are objectively healthy. In my recent book, Poison By Prescription: The AZT Story,*
I come to three main conclusions: 1) AZT is a highly toxic drug, the
long-term use of which is incompatible with life; 2) There is no
scientifically credible evidence that AZT has benefits of any kind; and
3) AZT was approved for marketing on the basis of fraudulent research.
Harvard should lead the way in fostering a free and open debate on the
etiology of “AIDS”. If Harvard continues to profiteer on
the basis of a false hypothesis, which prevails through the absence of
free enquiry, then history will remember the Harvard AIDS Institute as
Harvard's Infamy.
John Lauritsen ’61
New York City
*Poison By Prescription: The AZT Story is now online. To read it click here.