The Dissidents' Views of HIV Tests

Momentum for the alternate HIV/AIDS explanation started in 1987
when Dr. Peter Duesberg, a professor of Molecular and Cell Biology
at the University of California at Berkeley and initial
demonstrator that the influenza virus has a segmented genome,
published a paper claiming that HIV cannot be the cause of AIDS.
Four years later, a number of scientists formed “The Group for the
Scientific Reappraisal of the HIV/AIDS Hypothesis” which later
established itself as an official non-profit organization. Within
another four years, 32 scientists with advanced medical degrees
published a statement in Science asking for the reconsideration of
the current HIV/AIDS theory. Since this publishing, over 2,100
people have signed this statement. Should institutions acknowledge
any concerns from this small, not-too-silent minority or are their
claims completely unsubstantiated? I’m Colby Uptegraft from Dr.
Dave Wessner’s Biology of HIV/AIDS class at Davidson College, and
while AIDS dissidents have many claims, I will present their
arguments regarding HIV testing.



HIV critics rest a substantial amount of their theory on the
problems with HIV tests. Currently, there are three main types of
tests—antibody tests, antigen tests, and PCR tests. Dissidents
primarily scrutinize the antibody tests.

HIV antibody tests begin with an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay
(ELISA). A second test confirms a positive ELISA. These secondary
tests include Western blot assays, indirect immunoflorescence
assays, line immunoassays, or a second ELISA. When used in
combination, these tests are 99.9% accurate in detecting HIV
antibodies.

According to Rebecca Culshaw, author of Science Sold Out: Does HIV
Really Cause AIDS?, the flaws in antibody tests originate in the
proteins initially used to define reactivity on ELISA and Western
blots. Before HIV had been isolated, scientists stimulated cell
cultures from AIDS patients with mitogens to produce more proteins.
Researchers found 30 of these proteins to have densities
characteristic of retroviruses and selected the 10 that most
commonly reacted in blood from AIDS and pre-AIDS patients to be
from HIV alone. Do you see the circular logic? Researchers assumed
HIV caused AIDS and automatically attributed the 10 most common
reactive proteins to HIV. Positive test results may have a high
correlation to developing AIDS, but according to Culshaw, they do
not mean HIV is the cause. HIV supporters ascribe her claims to
outdated data.

Robert Geraldo, a medical doctor working at the Cornell University
hospital, added suspicion to these tests when he discovered that
everyone reacts positive on the ELISA test for HIV. Lab technicians
typically use a 1:400 dilution of HIV-suspected serum samples for
these tests. Many antibody tests for other viruses such as
hepatitis A and B, rubella, and syphilis use undiluted samples, and
the ones that use dilutions such as the Epstein-Barr virus, use
dilutions an order of magnitude less. When Geraldo tested 100
undiluted samples, including his own blood, they all produced
positive ELISA results. When diluted 1:400, all specimens produced
negative results. He claims his results indicate that we all have
antibodies to HIV or at least ones that will cross-react with ELISA
tests. AIDSTruth.org presents the counter argument. One cannot
compare antibody tests for other viruses to the HIV test. All
antibodies are unique and require different dilutions to eliminate
false-positives resulting from non-specific binding.



The second HIV test detects antigens, substances that trigger
generation of antibodies in organisms. The most common HIV antigen
that provokes an immune response is the protein p24. According to
Culshaw again, the dissidents assert that many AIDS patients do not
have detectable levels of p24 and that many people without HIV
infection produce positive p24 results. However, the HIV hypothesis
acknowledges the disappearance of p24 in the bloodstream as AIDS
progresses, and states lab technicians can use the p24 antigen test
in conjunction with other antigen or antibody tests to increase its
accuracy.

The third and final family of HIV tests uses PCR to amplify minute
levels of RNA or DNA to quantities sufficient for detection.
However, Kary Mullis, the inventor of PCR technology, proclaims,
“Quantitative PCR is an oxymoron” and believes PCR is not
applicable to HIV detection. PCR is too efficient in that it will
amplify any DNA in a sample, whether it represents contamination or
belongs to HIV. Therefore, scientists cannot use PCR to ascertain
HIV infection status or viral load, the number of DNA or RNA copies
per milliliter of blood. Even with these dissenting claims, the FDA
approved these tests for monitoring the health of people with HIV
and high statistical correlations exists between these tests and
the onset and severity of AIDS.

While believing in Bigfoot or that the Holocaust never happened
provides entertainment to some, the conspiracies cannot sustain
actual scientific inquiry. The theory that HIV does not cause AIDS
is not any different. AIDS dissidents cling to small individual
details and pull them out of context with the vast majority of HIV
evidence and research. In the case of HIV tests, critics ignore the
use of multiple tests to predict HIV status and the combined
accuracy of these tests in predicting the onset of AIDS and the
causative nature of HIV. They instead focus upon the individual use
of each test and make the illogical assertion that the unknowns in
each are additive and cannot be used to support each other.

If you believe the United States never landed on the moon, then
consider the arguments of the AIDS dissidents. If you like reality,
then stick with the traditional explanation.