February 25, 2008
JPANDS and HIV denialsim
Posted by PalMD under Cranks and Quacks, health, medicine, woo | Tags: BPSDB |
JPANDS, the mouthpiece of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, is a well-known organ or quackery, so it seemed like a good idea to see what they’ve been up to lately. It’s not good. The most recent issue publishes a screed on HIV denial that is so blindingly stupid, I developed a cluster headache on reading it. Now that I’ve recovered, let’s risk a closer look.
The Author
Henry Bauer is a chemist, or at least I think so. He doesn’t have a CV on his website. He says that he is the editor-in-chief of a journal that “provide[s] a critical forum of rationality and observational evidence for the often strange claims at the fringes of science.” It’s basically a journal of the paranormal. It’s not clear if the “Journal of Scientific Exploration” is still extant. He is a un-repentant HIV denialist, and doesn’t think that HIV is sexually transmitted. In other words, he’s an idiot who is stepping out of his field of expertise to comment on something he clearly doesn’t understand. That being said, a stopped clock is right twice a day. What does his article have to say?
The Article
The article is divided into several sections, but not in any particularly logical way. The introduction basically states that because some non-denialists are big meanies, denialists might be right.
The first section after the introduction continues the whine. It is entitles “Personal attacks on skeptics” and goes on about how nasty people are to denialists.
The next section, and probably my favorite, is called “On being certain”. If you are a fan of denialists, and who isn’t, you know where this is going. First, he keeps using a shorthand of “HIV=AIDS”. I suppose we could consider forgiving him for confounding a virus and the disease it causes. It’s probably a semantic thing, but no medical professional would ever do it. But he isn’t a medical professional (or an expert on HIV disease), so we’ll let it slide. The section is has a few major themes, most of which are familiar. One theme is the Galileo fallacy. The other is a nonsensical list of supposed contradictions that bring into doubt the fact that HIV is the cause of AIDS.
First, he raises the usual canard that not all people with AIDS have HIV. Since part of the definition of AIDS is infection with HIV, this is false.
Next he gets cranky about Kaposi’s sarcoma, an AIDS-defining illness. KS, which is caused by a human herpes virus, was known long before HIV. It is common in advanced AIDS, and is also seen outside the setting of HIV disease. His point reveals his medical ignorance. KS has never been considered either necessary or sufficient to diagnose AIDS.
Next he gets his panties in a bunch about people with HIV who don’t progress to AIDS over the course of many years (so-called long-term non-progressors). He takes this as evidence against HIV causing AIDS. Of course, real scientists look at actual, well, science. I don’t know if this guy knows CCR5 from an oak tree, but I don’t think he really cares.
Of course, he doesn’t stop there. He asks nice, stupid questions, like “Why is there an epidemic?” (answer: people fuck…a lot); “Why does antiretroviral treatment not improve patients’ health?” (it does, douche-bag); “Why no vaccine?” (because it’s really, really hard).
This guy is clearly an idiot. Any publication that would give him bloviation-space is clearly guilty of aiding and abetting an idiot. And to piss off this guy just a little bit more, there is a reason we get mad at folks like you—you are dangerous. Occasionally, deluded world leaders listen to you and fuck up health policy. Occasionally, patients listen to you and die. You are deluded, dangerous, and shameless. Is that clear enough?
“References”
Henry H. Bauer, Ph.D. Questioning HIV/AIDS: Morally Reprehensible or Scientifically Warranted? Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, Volume 12 Number 4, Winter 2007. Available online. You know where google is so find it yourself!
February 25, 2008 at 10:58 pm
Henry Bauer started as a chemist, but he got into woo-ology as a “Science and Technology” person.
He’s got a long book on HIV where he basically shows you he doesn’t understand biology, epidemiology or statistics. It makes you cringe when he writes about how HIV is just a sign of racial genetics. HE says Latinos in the west have lower HIV prevalence because they are “less black” than Latinos in the east. Wow.
I suppose he thinks since he got to HIV denial so late he has to be especially mind-numbingly offensive to get his name out there.
Please, God, when I’m in my eighties let me turn to whittling ducks in a rocking chair on my porch instead of making a fool of myself with racist comments about people who have a virus I don’t know the first thing about.
February 26, 2008 at 1:23 pm
This is astounding. i’m perfectly speechless. thanks for writing this up.
February 26, 2008 at 3:08 pm
[...] Link to the original site [...]
March 6, 2008 at 3:47 am
So, is that all? Now we know that you say this guy is a [insert name calling here]. But you just dont say why.No critical analysis, no nothing- All you reveal is how you think how wrong this guy is, and how right other theories are. Big deal! You are on the level of ‘Galileo is a fucking retard because every fucking bastard knows the earth flat.’
Not that I think that bauer is somehow comparable to gallileo -or even ‘right’, but when you address more the person, and not his theories - in a rational way-, most people would rather think that you just cant.
March 6, 2008 at 4:20 am
The idiocy of Henry bauer is encapsulated in this graph from his book.
http://www.reviewingaids.org/awiki/index.php/Image:BauerFigure2.jpg
He claims that this graph is inconsistent with HIV being a sexually transmitted disease.
Forget the lack of a scale on the y-axis. Forget the loss of error bars.
What else would be expected for a virus that is a) passed from mother to child and b) spread sexually?
Bauer just continues in the tradition of Duesberg in making up his own rules of epidemiology. Bauer seems to even take pride in his complete lack of training in epidemiology. Apparently his years investigating the Loch Ness monster and other fringe pseudoscience makes him an expert.
March 28, 2008 at 9:16 am
What encapsulates the idiocy of someone like Chris Noble and the smear merchants who have linked this neanderthalish piece of incoherent name-calling on AIDStruth.org is the idea that you can pick one graph out of a book you haven’t
read and claim it constitutes the author’s argument.
In the book, the graph is given as part of a greater argument about unchanging distribution patterns of HIV. Nowhere is it claimed that this graph by itself shows any inconsistency in HIV-AIDS theory.
The graph is an illustration not a punchline. As Chris Noble would have discovered had he actually owned a copy of the book, it is full of tables and figures giving all the available official numbers.
What people like Orlando can take home is that people like AIDStruth.org’s Prof. John P. Moore have not even dared attempt a refutation of Prof. Bauer’s argument but chosen to link this slanderous garbage instead: This is the very best the HIV/AIDS establishment can come up with to discredit Prof. Bauer. What does that tell you?
April 8, 2008 at 9:08 pm
I have just finished reading the Bauer book, having picked it up in a book shop just because it looked interesting, if for no other reason than that it might offer the chance to rationally criticise a well thought out conspiracy/pseudoscience type theory. Quite frankly I was surprised at how well reasoned and (apparently - I have not chased down every reference) well supported the argument was. Now I am looking for the ‘orthodox’ rebuttals, part of which would have to include the ways that the data have been radically selective or misinterpreted, or perhaps entirely falsified. Otherwise his case looks very good. I am not well-read in the field, and assume that there must be a good counter-argument out there somewhere, so I am suspending judgement for a while, but if this page and the ‘aidstruth.org’ site that linked me to it are any guide, my search may be a long and painful one. So far all I have seen are abuse and quibbles, refusal to address any of the substantive arguments, and a pompous appeal to authority along the lines of ‘he is a dangerous idiot because I say so’ and ‘I do not need to explain myself because I am too clever for you to understand anyway’. When I saw above that ’since part of the definition of AIDs is infection with HIV, this is false’, I was not sure whether the author was joking; now I think that it may be the most informative statement in the article.
April 29, 2008 at 5:42 pm
i too think this review of bauer is unfair and sloppy, like most of the brainswashed community. i found bauer’s book as well as his other writings in the journal he edits and on the web to be flawlessly argued and well researched. indeed, after reading him i looked him up since he lives nearbye in virginia.
We actually met to discuss his book (which I had not read even though, as noted it is flawlessly argued and well researched) and to do the interview, he took me on a trip to consider another one of his research findings eloquently and rigorously discussed in J. Sci. Exploration that the mainstream fascist scientific community denies as well. This was Nessie, the loch ness monster, in scotland (he paid for my trip).
One of our findings was that nessie likes pocorn, so we spent much of the day feeding her and her children lochmobsters popcorn. they jump for them too just like the salmons!!! when we ran out of popcorn, we tried worms, but couldn’t find any, so i threw bauer in, and interestingly, Nessie ate him too.
That’s sad i realized, because we were going to write a another book together on the aids myth. I guess i can falsify any needed co-authors; though actually Bauer has shown communication with the dead is possible too.
June 23, 2008 at 8:20 am
[...] Bauer’s article is critiqued here. Also, note the rhetoric about demonization, persecution, and the reigning paradigm. Never does it [...]