HIV positive - but how?

By Frank Young
Posted by Frank Young on Thursday, 7 January 1999, in response to ‘HIV positive - but how?’

How does one get HIV positive?

I mean, do the dissidents believe that it is though sex or what? If it is though sex then are heterosexual and homosexual sex equally "risky"?
How can you explain the correlation (however tenuous) between the amount of people who have AIDS and who are HIV positive? ie - How come people with AIDS live roughly the same lifestyle as HIV positive people?

Lets define HIV positive to mean a positive Western Blot test. A Western Blot measures antibody reactions to proteins. There are certain proteins which are assumed to belong specifically to HIV. Control group, or presumed HIV negative blood, lightly reacts with the HIV proteins. A WB test is scored as positive only when the bands are very dark, indicating a high reaction to the proteins. This fact alone shows the subjective nature of the WB test; everyone, apparently, has some antibody reaction to the "HIV" proteins. I suggest you read the Perth Group's paper "Is a Positive Western Blot Proof of HIV Infection," as well as "A Critical Analysis of the HIV-T4-CELL-AIDS Hypothesis," both on this web site.

If these antibodies are *not* formed in response to a virus, HIV, then where do they come from? Are they formed in response to *anything* that is sexually transmissable? The Perth Group, as well as Stefan Lanka and other dissidents believe that the so called "HIV" antibodies are the result of oxidative stress, and are in fact auto- immune antibodies.

Oxidative stress can be acquired through excessive alcohol consumption, illicit drug consumption, legal drug consumption, smoking, benzene derived sexual lubricants, and semen. In addition to oxidative stress as cause for the "HIV" antibodies, there is documented evidence that other immune stressors such as vaccinations, malaria, TB, hepatitis, etc., can all result in "false" positive WB. (The Perth Group, of course, argues that *all* positive WB are "false").

Lets call the "cause" of the "HIV" antibodies "X". (Obviously, the HIV paradigm states that X=HIV). Peter Duesberg believes that X=HIV but that HIV is harmless. Duesberg believes that you *do* become HIV positive through sex if you weren't born HIV positive. Duesberg believes that the primary means of HIV's survival is through perinatal transmission from mother to child. Duesberg treats the correlation between HIV positive blood and AIDS as a coincidence of the lifestyles of those at risk for AIDS. Since Duesberg believes that AIDS is caused by the stress of drugs alone, and that a large proportion of promiscuous male homosexuals abuse drugs, then those at risk for AIDS will often be found to also be infected by HIV. In other words, he sees HIV infection as more of an effect, or marker, of the lifestyle leading to AIDS, while certainly not its cause.

The Perth Group and Lanka, on the other hand, believe that X=Oxidative Stress. They doubt that HIV even exists, as it has never been isolated by the rules set out for viral isolation and there exists no electron micrographs (EM) proving HIV's existance. The antibodies are auto-immune antibodies arrising from oxidative stress from any and all sources. The only sources of oxidative stress that could be "transmitted" sexually would be semen and lube. The Perth Group mentions the oxidative nature of rectally deposited semen, but ignores the toxic nature of always-wet sexual lubricants (which are all labeled "for topical use only").

The Perth Group would say that for any specific individual, his or her "X" might be more or less heavily weighted to one type of oxidizer or another. For a heterosexual male drug user who seroconverts to HIV+, his "X" may be primarily the drugs, and therefore *not* sexually acquired. For an analy receptive male homosexual drug user, his "X" may be a combination of drugs, and possibly lube and semen, and therefore *possibly* sexually acquired.

My personal gut feeling: I like the oxidative stress theory. I expect that most people who seroconvert to HIV+ status did so without sex being primarily involved. However, since the receptive partner is often the greatest abuser of Poppers (nitrite inhalants) and is having toxic lubricants rectally deposited, they may owe their seroconversion more to the act of sex than others. (Clearly, inhaling poppers is not a sex act, and hence any contribution the toxic popper fumes may have on seroconversion cannot be said to be sexually acquired, but it is sufficient to explain the correlation). While I am not qualified to argue that semen is not an oxidizer, I personally doubt that its role is a principal one on evolutionary grounds. I'm quite sure that human beings have been practicing anal sex for ??? years (hundreds of thousands??). We know that some species of chimpanzees practice male-male anal sex. This isn't to say that semen may not be a significant factor in "X", but that for those HIV+s whose "X" is 100% semen (hypothetically) I would argue that they are not likely at risk of AIDS on evolutionary grounds.

A Critical Analysis of the HIV-T4-CELL-AIDS Hypothesis

An addendum to my last post.

Your question primarily concerned the sexual transmissability of "X", or the cause of the HIV antibodies. What of the sexual transmissability of AIDS?

[I could embark on a discussion of what is meant by the term AIDS... Does AIDS exist? Meaning, should there be a clinical definition of a disease syndrom implying a definable cause?
Is there in fact some "glue" that holds all of the 30 or so widely different diseases together under the label AIDS?... but I won't digress here.]

As to the sexual transmissability of AIDS, the positions of the two principal dissidents were not explicitly stated in my previous post but can be implied. Duesberg states that AIDS is 100% non-contagious and non-infectious and *not* an STD. This directly follows from his drug-AIDS hypothesis.

The Perth Group also states that AIDS is non-contagious and non-infectious and hence is not a disease that you can "catch." The condition of an organism whose body cells are highly oxidized and starved of energy is "acquired" through environmental exposure to oxidizers. To the extent that they recognize some sexually transmitted oxidizing agents, I would say that their position is that the conditions necessary to achieve the dis-eased state currently called "AIDS" may include some which were acquired sexually.

Finally, I would like to thank you for your post on this web board. The nature of web boards is such that posts *should* be relatively brief. That forced me to try to organize what I know on the subject into a concise, and hopefully, helpful summary.