HIV not the cause of AIDS?

 

By Christian Gehrke, Forty-Niner Online
March 28, 1995

Does HIV cause AIDS? According to Bryan J. Ellison, molecular biologist at UC Berkeley and co-author of "Why We Will NEVER Win the War on AIDS," the AIDS epidemic is caused not by HIV, but by long term abuse of hard drugs such as crack cocaine and the use of AZT.

Ellison spoke on the topic of "A Fabricated Epidemic? Virus Hunters & the War on AIDS.'' The scientist spoke about his controversial views last Thursday in the Presidents Room of the Cal State Long Beach University Student Union. "Drug abuse itself is the cause of 90 percent to 94 percent of AIDS in the United States and Europe," Ellison said. "Cocaine is known to be immune suppressive, methamphetamines are known to do the same. 'Poppers' [Amyl Nitrite] are particularly toxic and very reactive."

"Is AIDS infectious? We say clearly not," Ellison said. AIDS Is still mainly found in the classical risk groups and is not spreading out, unlike other sexual transmitted diseases such as Hepatitis B. All of these diseases have broken out of their original risk groups, Ellison said. First the diseases increased in male homosexuals, then spread through prostitutes, and into the sexually active part of the general population, he said.

Ellison's attack against the medical establishment continued when he blamed AZT, a drug prescribed by many doctors to patients who test positive for HIV, for actually shortening the life of patients.

"The studies that are coming out now. Long term studies, are showing that people on AZT get sick earlier and die sooner than people who don't take AZT,'' Ellison said. "Arthur Ashe would be perfectly alive and well today if not for a four-year AZT treatment.'' Ellison and well known virologist Peter H. Duesberg teamed up to write the book and are in the center of an ever growing discussion regarding the cause of AIDS.

In his speech Ellison explained how a virus, such as HIV, ended up being blamed for AIDS. He backtracked the current developments in the National Institute of Health to 1955, when biomedical research went through massive restructuring due to a scandal caused by inadequately prepared polio vaccine. Some children developed polio due to the faulty vaccine instead of being protected by it.

To fight in the war against polio a number of virologist were recruited by the National Institute of Health.

These scientists who called themselves "Virus Hunters'' remained on board after the polio epidemic ended in 1960.

In the '80s "Virus Hunters'' were looking for a new war, a new epidemic to battle. This was the beginning of the war against AIDS and the "Virus Hunters'' immediately decided that AIDS was caused by a virus, Ellison said.

"The AIDS definition has been expanded by the Centers for Disease Control at least three times now,'' Ellison said. "In 1985, 1987 and 1993, and each time adding new diseases thereby escalating the number of people who are classified as having AIDS and thus expanding the AIDS epidemic."

"Once AIDS was defined as being infectious, the race was on to blame a virus for causing AIDS," Ellison said. "Each virologist now wanted to offer his own virus as the 'Great AIDS Virus' because this was the great hope for a Nobel prize, it was a great hope for grants, and for all kinds of awards.''

One of the major AIDS research projects, involving chimpanzees has not yielded anything significant, Ellison said. Primates are closely related to humans and will develop just about any disease humans can get. Starting in 1983 about 150 chimps in various primate centers in the nation have been inoculated with the HIV virus, but nothing has happened.

"It's because there are no results yet, as they put it," Ellison said. "In other words, the monkeys are still running around, happily eating bananas. Twelve years later not one of them has developed anything that could be called AIDS, not one of them." Ellison added, that 95 percent of the estimated HIV-positive worldwide in the last 10 years, have yet to develop AIDS. The event was sponsored by The Organization of PreProfessional Students.