So are the Foo Fighters still HIV deniers?

And does their music still suck?

I never knew so many otherwise intelligent people could collectively hold such an unsound opinion in one place.

:P

As a former greater-DC resident living a 1/2-mile from the Pentagon at the time, someone who can directly deny many of the conspiracy theories short of being called an outright liar, my mere presence would cause enough collective dissonance in the 9/11 forum to make so many heads implode at one time that the resultant black-hole would rival the awesome power of the Large Hadron Collider. :grr:

It's in everybody's interest that I stay the hell away from that forum. :scared: They wouldn't like me when I'm angry.

of thousands before AZT was approved in 1987.

You're right. That article is filled with lots of dumb.

I'm all for a parent's right to make medical decisions for not only themselves but for their children because I tend to assume that those decisions are based on an informed decision. Sadly, somewhere along the way, this woman was completely lead astray.

PCP has become a manageable OI, yet she chose to use a drug not normally used to treat this illness. So sad. Not to mention that vertical transmission has been decreased to less than 3%, so she made a decision to increase the risk of her child being born with HIV. Mostly because she believes that HIV meds cause AIDS, which if we can return back to my original point, what is her rationalization for those that died from AIDS before the introduction of HIV meds in 1987?

Your post just seemed like a good place to stick background info on Maggotiore - why anyone would think she's credible is beyond belief.

My father was the physician of record when one of the first AIDS case hit north central KS in the mid-80s. The patient was a boy from the area, who had gotten HIV from a contaminated blood transfusion. The town erupted against the child out of hate and fear, and the boy's last few months were pure hell. Citizens in the town demonized the boy, and railed against my father for treating him. My mom has told me that she received phone calls and "visits" from "concerned townsfolk" telling her to move away and keep us children (my sisters and I) away from my dad because we too might "catch the AIDS." Under pressure, the boy's parents declined any sort of end-of-life care or assistance. I still vividly remember the pain in my dad's eyes when he told me about this 10 years ago. Although there was no adequate treatment options at the time, my dad felt helpless, useless, and despicable because he could do nothing to diminish or end the boy's suffering. From the accounts of my oldest sister (I was just a toddler), our parents went through a very difficult time after that, because my dad didn't know if he could still be a physician. Physicians need to have final say in the medical care of children, because parents cannot be accounted upon to make the best decisions for the child. Once you are of legal age, then it becomes your right to decline care. This boy was 16 years old (not yet of legal age of consent), and he was begging my father for aid and a means to diminish his pain. Imagine quickly wilting away to nothing, having your tongue turn pitch black due to fungal infections, your internal organs devouring themselves, and the feeling of drowning in one's lungs. And then imagine the parents declining painkillers or antibiotics to the boy because they were convinced by the pastor that the boy was possessed by demons and the only cure was exorcism, and later baptism. The boy died, and my family moved from that community a month later. I don't think my father has been the same since.
(I'd like to note that this is my anecdotal recreation of the events, and may not be wholly accurate, due to human emotions, the passage of time, and my own desire to preserve confidentiality. Although individual events may not be accurate, the story of the boy and his death is.)

and what your mom had to go through with the people in town.

unfuckingreal.

what a sad story.

That poor boy. :cry: I remember the early days of AIDS, how scared and ill-informed everyone was.

And its just as sad that these attitudes still prevail in this country.

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/310676/hiv_positive_boy_denied_access_into.html">HIV Positive Boy Denied Access into Local Swimming Pool
July 2007

I had NO idea.

:crazy:

I've always liked Dave Grohl.

:shrug:

even if that's true, they're still supporting the organization on their webpage and playing benefits even if he's the only one who actually supports the cause. They're not calling him on his bullshit. Thus, they're quislings/collaborators/apathetic at best.

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." - Edmund Burke

can people seriously be that muddled?

http://www.aliveandwell.org/

i read through some of the info and it looks a bit sketchy.

Is HIV the Cause of AIDS?

There is no proof that HIV causes AIDS. In fact, all the epidemiological and microbiological evidence taken together conclusively demonstrates that HIV cannot cause AIDS or any other illness. The concept that AIDS is caused by a virus is not a fact, but a belief that was introduced at a 1984 press conference by Dr. Robert Gallo, a researcher employed by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). (14)

HIV is a retrovirus, a type of virus studied meticulously during two decades of federal health programs that centered around the search for a cancer virus. The idea of contagious cancer was a popular notion in the 1960s and 70s. Since retroviruses have no cell-killing mechanisms, and cancer is a condition marked by rapid cell growth, this type of virus was considered a viable candidate for the cause of cancer. However, healthy people live in harmony with an uncountable number of harmless retroviruses; some are infectious while others are endogenous, produced by our own DNA. (15) Few, if any, retroviruses have been shown to cause disease in humans.

Our own DNA produces retroviruses? Uh no! RNA and retroviruses aren't the same thing, doofus!

belongs to a former NIH scientist by the name of Peter Duesburg who did cancer research and studied aneuploidy in the 1970s. (He's since moved on to academia.) He discovered oncogenes so he's somewhat of a big deal.

This background makes him credible to some and he's just as batshit as the rest of the HIV denialist community. His cancer research set the study of cancer forward by by decades...his subsequent delusions, especially on AIDS (which he claims doesn't exist at all and is really symptoms of drug abuse, AZT toxicity, and malnutrition), would set the rest of the medical field back by decades...if he had any credibility left on the issue. He even trashes his own work...positing that mutations and oncogenes do not cause cancer.

Science background for this post from Wikipedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Duesberg

___________________________________________________________________

I knew basically who he was, but I had no idea he was this far gone in his delusion. Also, please forgive errors of scientific non-comprehension on my part; I'm a crack internet researcher, not so great at science. I ran across his work in research for a human rights and international relations paper in college (He headlined an anti-HIV conference in South Africa where he claimed that treatment was as simple as ceasing drug treatment.) and it stuck for its' disturbing content. I just thought you, as a scientist, might be interested to know where that piece of pseudo-science had come from and might be able to explain and comprehend his work better than I.

But this guy takes the cake! I think its all about ego with him..He's so sure he's correct he ignores all the scientific evidence to the contrary!
Umm what about all the other HIV like viri, SIV, FIV ect...That have similar effects on their host animal. And as for this retroviri are harmless..such bullshit. I worked in a lab where we did health testing on animals including monkeys and SRV (simian retrovirus) was a huge problem! Jeezus. You are right this guy is not right in the head...How can he ignore all the AIDS deaths in THIS country before AZT?

The quality of their music has certainly decreased over the past decde or so.

And as far as the music, I was probably still recuperating from a Nirvana hangover and impending middle age when I saw them play with Mike Watt and some Eddie Vedder space-rock band in Phoenix back in 1990 something.

If you say they were once good, I trust you.

Mind you thy also have nostalgic qualities for me so my opinion might be tainted by that. I can understand the Nirvana hangover.

The pseudocience HIV-denial thing is weird.

since they didn't exist yet. Must have been 1995, because Pat Smear was still with them.

Oh well. I still think I wrote a letter to Gordon Smith opposing the second Iraq war in 1982.

Trust me

The local radio station plays them constantly. It drives me crazy! OK guys Kurt's dead, they were good for awhile but now they suck. There's lots of good new music out there, so play that.AAAAAAARRRRRRGGGGHHH!

Khash.