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I still can't figure you out Dr. Sonnabend. I read your writing and I have no doubt that you are a man of great intellect, and I believe you have made tremendous contributions to AIDS research and that your multifactorial model was much closer to the truth as to what was going on with the early AIDS patients than the HIV-AIDS theory. I use the term theory because it isn't even really a hypothesis. A hypothesis has to be falsifiable. There is no way to falsify the belief that one virus causes 27 previously-existing diseases through mechanisms that defy all logic and precedent and remain unknown and strictly theoretical after 28 years and $344 billion dollars of funding. HIV was thought to directly kill T-cells leading to immune deficiency. As Duesberg said in 1987's Retroviruses as Carcinogens and Pathogens: Expectations and Reality, HIV doesn't infect enough T-cells to work through a cytocidal mechanism and T-cells regenerate too quickly for the virus to cause AIDS. This was later confirmed by Montagnier and others. It is now accepted by all this is true. At this point, any scientist should have followed the scientific method and reformulated their hypothesis. But not AIDS researchers, and that's why there remains no mechanism. Everyone is stuck on the step where HIV kills billions of cells it doesn't infect. To some, that would seem a disqualifying paradox. Here you so rightfully criticize the one 24-week study that became unblinded that was used to justify prescribing a DNA-chain terminator to people with immune deficiency (what a great idea!) based on a nonspecific antibody test that could not be used for diagnosis today, and yet you go out of your way to criticize those like Duesberg who questioned the HIV-AIDS hypothesis and who correctly predicted that AZT causes an Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. A drug that causes bone marrow suppression causes an Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. That should be as obvious as 1+1=2. But when Duesberg was warning people not to take AZT and saying AZT is AIDS by prescription he was widely criticized and said to be irresponsible even though time has clearly proven he was correct as later shown by the Concorde study which found the early AZT group had a 25% increased relative risk of death. It seems like all AIDS researchers hate Duesberg, even the cofactor people such as yourself and Haverkos, and I'm left to wonder if that is simply because he's smarter than everyone. Didn't AZT monotherapy at 1500 MG cause an Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome? Can't "Immune Reconstitution Syndrome" also be thought of as iatrogenic AIDS?
Dr. duesberg, Being a critic doesnt have to mean you value deductions over data and a disciplined reading of the literature. It is no small matter to prove that an agent, even one designed as a nucleoside analogue, actually functions as a chain terminator, causing cell death, in vivo. There's actual scientific work involved. The distinguished scientist Seymour Cohen pointed this out in a letter to the New England Journal in response to the original publication of BWO2, the initial AZT trial. Scientific criticism can be more than an avenue for pursuit of self promotion, fame and notoriety, but can actually make a difference in public health, as Dr. cohen's work (and Dr. Sonnabend's) demonstrates.
If by pulling on the same rope you mean pointing out the toxicity of the initial huge dose of 1.5G AZT a day, then everyone else was as well. That's why the dosage was reduced to 600mg a day. There is no disagreement that the amount of AZT administered in the original trial was far too high.
Dear Joe, Why do you say it was "Very unfortunately ... some [were] even claiming that AZT rather than HIV was responsible!"? That is indeed what I deduced from the the design of the drug, being a DNA chain-terminaror designed to kill replicating cells for cancer therapy, and from the outcome of the treatments, which you so convincingly demonstrated in your figure above. I think we pulled on the same rope. And still are ... Regards, Peter Duesberg
Dear Jack, Ian, David, and any others who participated in that early AZT study -- in any of the test sites: I'd like to interview you for research for a book on the history of AIDS drugs. If possible, can you reach out to me? David@DavidFrance.com, or 212 505 1758. Thanks. And thanks Joe for alerting me to this! David
Great article. I was in San Francisco at the time in 1987 and my lover who is now passed was on the trials. Fortunately I did not have to start any medications until 2008. There are so many people that passed away during the trials to give us all a better life. Thanks for the article! Ian Leffler Colorado Springs , Colorado Diagnosed in 87
Hi Jack...myself and my partner Dr.Bill Masin were also part of the Fischl trail at UoM...he passed away in 89 but I'm still going strong. Started ARV's about 6 years back and doing very well. Most everyone I know from the AZT trial are dead so nice to know someone else made it thru. Jay levy out of UCSF has been conduction long term studies on folks like us. I now live in Africa so am no longer part of any ongoing research. Also David Ho was doing work around LTNP/LTS...if you need more, drop me a note at david@empow.co.za Joseph, thank you for such a great article...a trip down memory lane....thank you for telling the story many have never heard. David Patient...28 years and counting.
Pharm Alarm
"Nineteen participants receiving placebo had died while there was only a single death among those receiving AZT." Wow. Giving a placebo to dying patients is about as cruel as it gets, even if it provides important data for a study. Sounds like something out of a Nazi training manual. The Tuskegee syphilis experiments come to mind... (Not directed at Mr. Sonnabend, as I know he had nothing to do with it. I honor and respect your work sir). This is the first I've heard about the ability to prevent/treat opportunistic infections in those days. All the books make it sound like the whole thing was one big mystery and we were 100% helpless to treat these conditions. PCP pneumonia was one of the top two opportunistic infections to claim lives back then, the other being Kaposi's sarcoma. The idea that many of those cases could've been prevented or treated effectively but WEREN'T is disgusting. And people wonder why the public is distrustful of anything that comes from Big Pharma.
May 4, 2014