To those it might concern I thought I’d share this letter to a
colleague that’s been edited and corrected of gross errors.
I’d like to take this opportunity to apologize to the faithful
who have had to put up with the piss poor editing I’ve been
producing of late. My system’s been down for a long time and I’m
I’m not quite literate yet. I’m still getting over the nightmare
of restoring both computer and net access from scratch. Gee, maybe
my phone system will be working again soon also… thanks for your
patience. I really appreciate it.
A colleague asked:
> What compounds are you using as pro-coumarins? I wasn’t aware that
> the body was able to make coumarins. Can it?
The immediate precursors are dihydroxy, and dihydroxymethoxy cinnamic
acids. However, these are fairly labile and not readily produced on a
kilogram scale. I’m using pro-scopoletin and umbelliferone moieties
from a little further upstream. These trace human metabolites of
phenylalanine are ubiquitous in food and medicinal plants and readily
produced chemically on megakilo scales. I’ve successfully compounded
tablets of elegance that are acid buffered for maximum absorption, etc.
I’m just a little short on my application fee for the health department
inspection, labels, etc. Start-up capital is always a bitch!
My formulation is proprietary until limited trial in advanced ovarian
carcinoma and an advanced case of AIDS produces confirmation of the
dosage schedule, etc. However, I could always use a skilled partner.
What are you doing for the rest of your life? If you have any patients
in critical need let me know.
Yes, umbelliferone and scopoletin are both trace metabolites in
man. Umbelliferone is increased in PKU, however, scopoletin is in
a little different pathway. These two compounds represent the last
two rungs of the oxidative ladder that modulates the GGT’s and all
the function and structure that evolves from these primary enzymes.
This paired set of coumarins are the Ying and Yang of cell physiology.
Both are antitumor and anti-viral. However, being active and at the
end of the chain they are quickly (very) conjugated and excreted.
(fluorescing a beautiful blue as they go… The immediate scopoletin
precursor fluoresces green)
I get a kick out of the scopoletin system because its found
in tobacco right next to the carcinogenic system of benzenoid cpds.
In fact, in plant viral and fungal attack, after leaching out the
chlorophylls, you can see halos of blue fluorescence around all the
sites of necrosis. (scopoletin and its precursors to the rescue) It
actually stops disease progression.
As we’ve discussed before, the problem in man has been the extremely
short sero-lifespan of exogenous coumarins despite the great in vitro
anti-cancer/antiviral effects, and the sporatic miraculous remissions
in vivo.
However, when I found precursors appearing in normal urine largely
unconjugated I became excited. When I found the precursors
demonstrating the same type of tissue transglutaminase modulation
after strong hormonal flux in putative plant membrane GGT’s, I became
overjoyed.
These guys are dirt cheap and non-toxic.
All of this information has been known to some degree in the literature.
It just has been obscure and unrelated. I guess that’s why God made
little pantherapeuticologists…
Theoretically its interesting to be able to explain spontaneous
remissions without thinking the immune system somehow just starts
functioning more efficiently, or suddenly recognizes there’s a problem.
Biochemically we can readily postulate about variations in precursor
production, rates of conjugation, etc. Statistically it would hold up.
The extremely elegant immune system suddenly fixing itself after six
months of tumor growth never has set right in my mind.
The Japanese recently have used oxidative systems to produce 3-hydroxy-
coumarins. These show even stronger enzymatic inhibition, e.g.
lipoxygenase, etc. However, I think they’ve missed the boat in terms
of what is normal physiology and how to modulate it to maintain health
and correct pathology. Everybody’s just looking for new classes of
drugs to produce.
The body produces them just fine- just not fast enough to keep up with
the firestorm of retroviral invasion, or the neoplastic nightmare of the
vicious biofeedback loop occurring in carcinogenesis. So, we give a
little supplementation.
The problem is always easy once the solution is known.
I appreciate your thoughts and criticisms.
Thanks,
Charlie
In Message-ID: <859569987.16…@dejanews.com>
heresiesofl…@hotmail.com writes:
>>Doesn’t all of this prove that a retrovirus doesn’t kill
cells directly? Also, when Dr. Harris says "the retrovirus
genetic information is hidden from the immune system, which would
otherwise destroy the virus inside the cell, or destroy
the entire cell." Doesn’t this disprove the theory that HIV
puts the immune system into a "suicidal" autoimmune attack,
since when HIV infects a cell, it is hidden?<<
Comment: perhaps I didn’t make myself clear. Retroviruses can
hide from the immune system quite well, by inserting themselves
into DNA, and staying quiet. It’s sort of like a bankrobber
hiding out in somebody’s basement or attic, until the "heat" is
off. He can stay that way pretty safely, but obviously can’t
stay that way forever. Life goes on, even for criminals.
Retroviruses are sneaky, and the lentiviruses like HIV are
sneakiest yet. Lentiviruses can insert themselves into the DNA
of cells which aren’t dividing, unlike the tumor retroviruses.
But life goes on, and even lentiviruses have to reproduce
sometime (particularly if they are stuck in a non dividing,
differentiated cell which isn’t going to divide for them). To
reproduce in such a cell they have to come out of hiding in the
DNA, and make RNA and protein. When that happens, the immune
system sees them. To continue the crime metaphor, foreign RNA
inside cells triggers interferon, which chops up viral nucleic
acids inside the cell, like a pit bull that has finally been
awakened by a burglar who has made too much noise, and begun
chomping burglar. Or viral replication inside cells activates
apoptosis mechanisms, and the cell commits suicide, like owners
razing a rat-infected building. Or foreign viral proteins inside
cells get chopped up by enzymes and transported and presented on
the outside of the cell— sort of like pieces of dead people in
Jeffrey Dahmer’s garbage cans– and that brings the "cops" (in
the body, these are other immune cells– NK cells and cytolytic
T-cells). These kill virally infected cells, which are
identified by the chopped up and presented pieces of virus stuck
to their surfaces. Like John Wayne Gacy’s house, the community
of cellular neighbors razes such infected cells.
Finally, it is, despite what you’ve heard from Duesberg and
his crowd, quite possible for retroviral infection to kill cells
directly. Instead of going through the nuclear chromatinic
clumping that characterizes programmed cell death (apoptosis)–
which is sort of like the family turning out the lights and
cleaning up before leaving a house which has been condemned–
it’s also possible for cells infected by HIV to simply blow up
without any preamble, like an arson in the middle of the night,
as the virus wrecks the membrane structure of the cell during
reproduction (see Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences, USA 85:3570, 1988). Nature is not as simple as
Duesberg wants to make it. HIV doesn’t simply destroy cells, or
not. Some HIV *strains* destroy lymphocytes, and some don’t.
Worse still for complexity, as a given strain mutates in the body
it can acquire a taste for a different cell type (lymphocytes
instead of macrophages), as well as the ability or propensity to
destroy cells in culture. Such cytolytic strains are most often
isolated from people in the later stages of HIV disease (AIDS),
perhaps not surprisingly.
Some viruses in culture even cause cells to merge with each
other (which is fatal for reproduction), but it’s not clear if
this happens much in the body at all.
Which of all of the rest of the mechanisms of killing of cells
named above is most important in AIDS, hasn’t been decided yet.
Perhaps all are involved, and they change at different stages of
the disease, and between one person and another. What is known
is that as HIV infection goes on, the lymph nodes, which have
been keeping most of the virus out of the blood stream, begin to
fail. During the low symptom time of HIV infection, viral levels
in cells in nodes are 10 to 1000 times what they are in blood
cells, but in the last stages of the disease, viral levels rise
in blood to the same high level as in the nodes. Clearly the
nodes have stopped working, and when they are removed and tested
for ability to trap virus, they don’t. Microscopy shows that
centers of dividing lymphocytes which trap HIV and deal with it,
have been replaced by fibrous tissue. Lymphocytes in the blood
(which originate in the nodes) continue to decline, until finally
they are gone also. There isn’t any "re-trafficking" by this
time– the whole cellular immune system by this time is gone.
And now we come to my problem with Peter Duesberg. To put it
bluntly, the man is dishonest in his arguments. Duesberg says
flatly that retroviruses do not kill cells. When reminded of
experiential evidence that they do (the paper cited above, for
instance) he retorts that they may kill cells in the artificial
medium of a culture, but not in animals. When reminded of
experiments in which retroviral (lentiviral) injections kill
animals (and how could they not without killing cells– a point
that Duesberg himself makes), Duesberg objects that these are
animals "too young to have immune systems," or in ill health
because of captivity or inbreeding. Okay, another qualification.
Retroviruses kill cells in weak animals, Duesberg admits. The
problem now is that by this time, Duesberg has forgotten what
groups get AIDS, groups which he has insisted that HIV is
harmless for. See if you can follow the logic below.
Crack babies have undeveloped immune systems, and Duesberg
even posits that they have additional immune problems because of
their mother’s drug use. Certainly enough to give them all the
other opportunistic infections of AIDS. Are they not, then,
exactly the type of compromised "young" which Duesberg has
admitted that retroviruses can kill in animal experiments? Of
course they are– but for Duesberg, admitting this logical and
inescapable conclusion to be drawn from his beliefs and prior
statements would weaken his overall case, and he knows it. So he
abandons intellectual integrity here, and simply denies. Read
Duesberg’s book– young monkeys have no immune system, so SIV can
kill them. But crack babies with no immune systems cannot be
harmed by HIV, because HIV is a harmless virus. We know, because
with one exception (Duesberg’s bird tumor virus) all retroviruses
are harmless. Duesberg says so.
What is different about experimental animals supposedly dying
of retrovirus infection only because (in Duesberg’s arguments)
they were kept confined in cages— and prison inmates with AIDS?
Well, according to Duesberg, the difference is that the prisoners
have HIV, which we know is harmless because all retroviruses are
harmless. So they must be dying of something else. Or what is
the difference between the supposedly poor previous health of
retrovirus infected experimental lab animals (which Duesberg
never documents), and the poor health of chronically malnourished
drug users who suffer from ill effects of every other disease in
their environment? Yet Duesberg insists that HIV is the ONLY
microbe which can play no role in these problems of drug users,
because HIV is harmless. Because all retroviruses are harmless.
Except when they aren’t.
Shorn of his argument the retroviruses never kill cells and
never kill animals, Duesberg is basically left only with the idea
that HIV activity, even if it did kill cells, is not enough to
cause the loss of cells seen with AIDS, and that the immune
response seen in AIDS should be enough to keep the virus from
causing any problems, anyway.
Yet here again, Duesberg has a little problem with the bite
of reality. Duesberg would have us believe that the
establishment decrees that AIDS has a latency period of 10 years,
during which almost no virus is detectable, and during which
antibody response is good. How, then, he asks, can the virus
during this time destroy the immune system and cause AIDS?
The problem here is that the establishment never said any
such thing about AIDS. AIDS happens on many time scales, and
some of them are quite soon after HIV infection. Cohort studies
have demonstrated AIDS as little as 3 months after initial HIV
infection, with steady immune decline from normal to severe
immune failure documented throughout that time. Such rare cases
are simply the tail of the group of "rapid progressors" in cohort
studies– the 10 to 20% of men who develop AIDS within 2 or 3
years after initial HIV infection, and who (again) show steady
immune decline from normal to AIDS, during the period from
initial HIV infection to clinical AIDS. Such men have high viral
levels, and high fractions of mononuclear blood cells infected
(just the way Duesberg said it would have to be if HIV caused
AIDS), and they also (as a rule) often show poor antibody res-
ponses to the HIV virus, and poor neutralization antibody titers-
-also just the way Duesberg said it would have to be if HIV was
causing the illness. But does Duesberg acknowledge at least THIS
group as a possible group of people in whom AIDS is being caused
by HIV infection?
He does not! He doesn’t, because this would weaken his case
badly. The problem for Duesberg, you see, is that there isn’t
any good bright dividing line between rapid progressors, and the
average progressors who get immune decline and finally AIDS, at a
more leisurely pace after HIV infection. For every man who gets
AIDS two years after HIV infection and has a high peripheral
cell-infection percent all that time, and weak antibody response;
there is somebody *else* who progresses in 2.5 years, and has a
slightly lower virus level, and slightly better antibody re-
sponse. And another who does the same in three. Or Four.
Decline of immune function in people with
…
read more »
Steven B. Harris wrote:
[edit]
> Finally, it is, despite what you’ve heard from Duesberg and
> his crowd, quite possible for retroviral infection to kill cells
> directly. Instead of going through the nuclear chromatinic
> clumping that characterizes programmed cell death (apoptosis)–
> which is sort of like the family turning out the lights and
> cleaning up before leaving a house which has been condemned–
> it’s also possible for cells infected by HIV to simply blow up
> without any preamble, like an arson in the middle of the night,
> as the virus wrecks the membrane structure of the cell during
> reproduction (see Proceedings of the National Academy of
> Sciences, USA 85:3570, 1988).
And, check out Natl Conf Hum Retroviruses Relat infect(1st).
1993 Dec 12-16:150, to start your study of this aspect of pathological
cellular physiology in HIV infection. The aberrant ganglioside/ceremide
lipid metabolism pathways are being madly driven by viral command
during the firestorm. Look for profoundly excessive levels of
phosphorylated p34cdc2 kinase, which reflects hyperactivity of the
wee 1+ kinase which is responsible for cdc2 phosphorylation which
is directly and dramatically linked to increase in cell size.
This non-physiological apoptosis is most properly referred to
as mitotic chaos. The structural evidence includes bundles of
DNA. However, they are not the neat discreet packages of apoptosis.
Its more like someone took a weed-wacker and a jug-o-white lightning,
and had a party for 2-3 days.
Charles P. McCarthy, P.M.D.
Clinical Specialist
Carmichael, CA USA
sbhar…@ix.netcom.com(Steven "Steven B. Harris" writes:
> Retroviruses are sneaky, and the lentiviruses like HIV are
> sneakiest yet.
Well, you would know about sneaky…
[ Lengthy waffling about virus theories, none of it relevant or
even mildly interesting. Most of it complete garbage. ]
> And now we come to my problem with Peter Duesberg. To put it
> bluntly, the man is dishonest in his arguments.
YOU dare to write this!
[ Lengthy waffling about "Aids", based upon false premises about
"HIV", none of it relevant or even mildly intresting. All of
it complete garbage. ]
A scientific paper by Duesberg and Rasnick, ‘The Drug-AIDS Hypothesis’
is published as a supplement to the latest Continuum. Perhaps you will
read it, and thereby dispell some of your persistent confusion on this
point.
John
—
"Predictions that "HIV" would put at risk all sexually active people
have proved completely ill-conceived. Even female prostitutes do not
get Aids unless they are also heavy drug users."
from _AIDS: The Failure of Contemporary Science_,
by Neville Hodgkinson
In <860269050…@blackdog.demon.co.uk> j…@blackdog.demon.co.uk
(himself) writes:
>[ Lengthy waffling about "Aids", based upon false premises about
> "HIV", none of it relevant or even mildly intresting. All of
> it complete garbage. ]
>A scientific paper by Duesberg and Rasnick, ‘The Drug-AIDS Hypothesis’
>is published as a supplement to the latest Continuum. Perhaps you will
>read it, and thereby dispell some of your persistent confusion on this
>point.
Thanks, I’ve read it. It’s claptrap, for reasons already outlined
in my message to Californ. In the Vancouver prospective study it was
found that heavy nitrate and other drug use over more than 10 years
fails to produce AIDS in HIV-negative gay men. Obviously, the HIV test
is predicting something there– immunity to AIDS. Obviously,
HIV-negativity protects even against "popper poisoning."
Steve Harris, M.D.
sbhar…@ix.netcom.com(Steven "Steven B. Harris" writes:
> Thanks, I’ve read it. It’s claptrap, for reasons already outlined
> in my message to Californ. In the Vancouver prospective study it was
> found that heavy nitrate and other drug use over more than 10 years
> fails to produce AIDS in HIV-negative gay men. [...]
Again, one has to be astounded at the ease with which you are fooled.
This study has been found to be flawed in so many aspects as to be
quite misleading. (Typical for "Aids science.")
For anyone interested in learning about the real dangers of these
substances (which DOCTOR Harris implies are safe), an appendix to
their new book _The AIDS War_, by John Lauritsen & Ian Young,
‘Toxicities of Poppers (Nitrite Inhalants), A Brief Bibliography’
will prove useful. No less than 23 books and papers are referenced.
Harris’s ignorance on the subject is totally inexcusible.
John
—
"If you call up scientists asking simple, intelligent questions
about the cause of Aids you get a kind of irrational fury. It is
like holding a cross to a vampire."
Celia Farber, editorial board, Reappraising Aids.
j…@blackdog.demon.co.uk "himself" writes:
> For anyone interested in learning about the real dangers of these
> substances (which DOCTOR Harris implies are safe), an appendix to
> their new book _The AIDS War_, by John Lauritsen & Ian Young,
> ‘Toxicities of Poppers (Nitrite Inhalants), A Brief Bibliography’
> will prove useful. No less than 23 books and papers are referenced.
Their excellent new book is ‘The AIDS Cult’, of course, and I have
to apologise to anyone who didn’t notice the mistake. ‘The AIDS
War’ is a much larger (but no less excellent) book by John Lauritsen
containing important articles and reports that have been published
throughout the "Aids" scandal.
‘The AIDS Cult’ is subtitled "Essays on the Gay Health Crisis," and
is affordably published by Asklepios, Box 1092, Provincetown, MA
02657-0245. Its contributors include some of the most perceptive and
informed observers of the "Aids" scandal. Essential reading.
John
—
"What people living with an "HIV-positive" or an "AIDS" diagnosis need,
is not a new drug, but a counsellor with a clear mind and a warm heart.
They need someone who will treat them as a whole person, not as a patient
labelled with particular diagnoses. They need a friend, who will help
them put their lives in order, and who will guide them back to the path
of good health." Psychological & Toxicological Causes of "AIDS"
quote from ‘The AIDS Cult’, by John Lauritsen & Ian Young
himself wrote:
[edit]
> "Essays on the Gay Health Crisis,"
[edit]
>Its contributors include some of the most perceptive and
>informed observers of the "Aids" scandal.
[edit]
The accuracy of tunnel vision is always 100%. The blind
following the more blind, and all cheered along by the
blindest seeing eye doggy we could find. What luck eh?
[edit]
> "What people living with an "HIV-positive" or an "AIDS" diagnosis
> need, is
[edit]
> a counsellor with a clear mind and a warm heart.
> They need someone who will treat them as a whole person,
[edit]
> They need a friend,
[edit]
> quote from
[edit]
> John Lauritsen & Ian Young
I’d rather cuddled with Cujo and Stephan King.
(less fleas, ticks, and mites. rabies would be
respite from the diatribe.)
Pandoke
-professional dog trainer
"Johnny, lay down. Play dead. Good doggy. Stay…"
-from Tricks You Could Teach Dogshit
PANDOC PRESS
himself wrote:
> No less than 23 books and papers are referenced.
That’s incredible — I’d have never guessed Lauritsen was so literate.
But did he (Lauritsen) actually read them, or does he just refer to
them?
Wally
In <860331964…@blackdog.demon.co.uk> j…@blackdog.demon.co.uk
(himself) writes:
>sbhar…@ix.netcom.com(Steven "Steven B. Harris" writes:
>> Thanks, I’ve read it. It’s claptrap, for reasons already
outlined
>> in my message to Californ. In the Vancouver prospective study it
was
>> found that heavy nitrate and other drug use over more than 10 years
>> fails to produce AIDS in HIV-negative gay men. [...]
>Again, one has to be astounded at the ease with which you are fooled.
>This study has been found to be flawed in so many aspects as to be
>quite misleading. (Typical for "Aids science.")
Sure it has, JohnBull. It’s one thing to say that a study has been
found to be flawed, it’s quite another to produce evidence for it.
We’re waiting.
>For anyone interested in learning about the real dangers of these
>substances (which DOCTOR Harris implies are safe), an appendix to
>their new book _The AIDS War_, by John Lauritsen & Ian Young,
>’Toxicities of Poppers (Nitrite Inhalants), A Brief Bibliography’
>will prove useful. No less than 23 books and papers are referenced.
ROFL. A whole 23? There were 10 times that number of references
in my own review, and unlike Lauritsen, I’ve read the papers I cite.
Lauritsen or anybody else is invited to give evidence that classic AIDS
(fungal and viral opportunistic infections, complete CD4 loss) occurs
in nitrite users who are HIV-negative, of which the studies contain
adequate numbers.
The closest anyone has gotten to this (so far as I tell), are a
couple of reports of KS in HIV-negative gay men (drug use status not
given, unfortunately). But KS is an odd disease which occurs in other
contexts besides AIDS, even to younger people (though this is rare in
the US), and which does NOT show the same relation to CD4 levels that
other AIDS opportunistic infections do. Although KS seems to be caused
by a virus (the KSHV or HHV-8 virus), and although it seems to be
related to immune suppression, it’s not any variety of immune
suppression we can easily measure. It’s possible to find people with
KS and normal CD4 counts, for instance– something that never happens
with PCP.
Still HIV-negative KS is incredibly rare in gay men, and if
nitrates caused KS, it would be incredibly common if the use of
nitrites among gay men is anything like the universal that Lauritsen
has implied. It isn’t. So much for Lauritsen’s theories– they
aren’t very predictive. Furthermore, in groups of HIV-negative gay men
who are KNOWN to be heavy users of nitrates, both KS and AIDS could not
possibly fail to be widespread. They aren’t. They are rare enough
that I can find no reports at all of them occuring, and in the
Vanceuver study (as noted) they are specifically noted to be absent.
Wups. Where did they go, JohnBull?
In order to claim that HIV-negative people get AIDS, it is necessary
to define AIDS in a way which makes it a totally different syndrome
than the one that was originally described in 1981. Duesberg tried to
do this in the San Francisco study, but oral candida is not AIDS, no
matter how much Duesberg would like it to be.
Steve Harris, M.D.
Please comment on the possibility that HIV is a marker with the more
aggressive HHV-6 as the main culprit or at least co-factor in this
disease. See over 200 articles on Medline under the subject of HHV-6.
The conclusions are interesting for those who see a conspiracy under every
pharmaceutical grant.
David