MAJOR ANNOUNCEMENTS!!!!

GRADESHEETS - containing your complete LP1 scores, the MT grade (with the MT Bonus/or your REVISED MT grade - whichever is higher) and your "other"  Card/Library/Essay POINTS will be provided next week.  I will compute these grades as soon as your retakes scores are available. 

READ the AIDS HANDBOOK and HIV/AIDS PowerPoint as well as pages 555-560 in your textbook AND the AIDS Articles... for your next lectures...

NEW ESSAYS for class pop quizzes!

Essay 6:  What are "AIDS Denialists?" What techniques do they use? Discuss their ideas and why they are mistaken (the 7 Deadly Deceptions).

Essay 7:  Discuss the 4 phases of HIV/AIDS (CDC pages 555-560 Text chapter 18) and the AIDS Timeline (PPnotes).

Essay 8:  Describe the origin of HIV-1 and HIV-2; discuss the reasons & social changes that resulted in HIV/AIDS spreading around the world during its last "jump" into man versus the previous two movements into man.

IF YOU SAW THE CONSPIRACY PROPAGANDA FILM recently shown at LACC attempting to debunk HIV as the cause of HIV/AIDS and saying that HIV is harmless, bring your questions to the HIV/AIDS lectures next week.  Micro students are free to ask any question and each will be answered by someone who was actually there in the CDC Labs when HIV/AIDS was discovered - me.  The 3 million dead cannot speak (including 29 of my friends and my 2 best friends) and the close to 60 million LIVING with HIV shouldn't be besmirched by those who don't have the disease but encourage people who do to refuse medication that will extend their lives and reduce the spread of HIV to others. 

We won't try to photograph gamma rays, magnetism or compound interest or "read tea leaves, tell your horoscope" or cherry pick our data to support false or pseudoscientific theories like Eugenics.  We won't show you photos of the Lock Ness monster, flying saucers or deny the Holocaust but we will show you how denialists of all persuasions use pseudoscience based on individual antidotal gossip, innuendo and deception to falsely persuade the ignorant .  Truth always defeats hate; but arguing with the crazy can last forever... So we will present the actual history, disease facts, medical tests and the failed and successful treatment evidence data concerning HIV/AIDS.  HIV will be explained in class using the scientific method and repeatable reliable measurable data without using the conspiracy theories of unstable dangerous delusional AIDS Denialists! AIDS is not a racist attack it is just a disease... and diseases see no color.

Think about it, don't accept things as truth, judge the facts for yourself and be logical. See for yourself... I know many of the scientists in this movie personally (Montagnier to Francis) and they each have disavowed the actual edited footage presented as TRUTH in this video, it is shocking how you can twist the truth.  Notice the quick "cut-aways" during the supposed interviews with AIDS experts... The WORLD IS NOT FLAT NO MATTER HOW MANY EDITED CONVERSATIONS YOU SEE! 

Think about how you could "edit" a recorded conversation to make your audience to  believe anything you wanted... then consider these shocking lies... Consider the sources and think about the "other" theories purported as science by the same AIDS denialists - "REAL photos of the Lock Ness Monster" etc.  Watch this slanted hatchet job  and bring your questions to class... Remember you can watch like videos concerning the Nazi Holocaust; denialists don't re-write history they slant it to fit their own prejudices - watch this video and see how lies can be made to seem true... 

Pseudoscience is often just unusual eccentric or funny and strange but it can be dangerous and sometimes it can kill!  Don't be a part of this but see what they are saying because it could KILL YOU or someone you love.  Think about how sad it is that this is being presented as accurate information - this is intentional misinformation being presented as science but it still is Pseudoscience.  Altered facts presented AFTER a pre-formed opinion... Shaping history to make your bizarre opinion "seem" logical.  Making the evidence match your pre-formed opinion - which is fine if believing such couldn't KILL YOU... AIDS DENIALISTS are not presenting logical alternate theories or using freedom of speech they are intentionally making false and dangerous propaganda to influence people and such they can cause the uneducated and misinformed to act irrationally and put themselves and you in danger... thus this video and their ideas are immoral and unethical.  

P.S.  Film Makers are propagandists who are trained to create believable non-realities successfully from movies like Jaws, and Paranormal Activity to 2012 using these same techniques... Go see the fantasy but remember it is just fantasy - don't become a fanatic. Just so you know, the WORLD will last beyond 2012 also... even if you are Mayan - FYI!

Copyright © 2000 - AIDS Treatment News. Permission granted for noncommercial reproduction, provided that our address and phone number are included if more than short quotations are used. Subscription lists are kept confidential. AIDS Treatment News, Subscription and Editorial Office: 1233 Locust St., 5th floor Philadelphia, PA 19107 800/TREAT-1-2 toll-free email: aidsnews@critpath.org  http://www.aidsnews.org

How to spot an AIDS denialist

Gallery

Seth Kalichman

Imagine that you or someone you love just received an HIV positive test result. The news is devastating. After a short time you begin to face the diagnosis. You turn to the Internet for answers. Searching the words “AIDS diagnosis” brings up thousands of websites. A whirlwind of information spins your mind. One credible-looking website, Aids.org, reads: “There is no cure for AIDS. There are drugs that can slow down the HIV virus and slow down the damage to your immune system. There is no way to ‘clear’ HIV from the body. Other drugs can prevent or treat opportunistic infections (OIs). In most cases, these drugs work very well. The newer, stronger ARVs have also helped reduce the rates of most OIs. A few OIs, however, are still very difficult to treat.”

With a click of the mouse, an equally credible-looking site, Aliveandwell.org, asks: “Did you know … Many experts contend that AIDS is not a fatal, incurable condition caused by HIV? That most of the AIDS information we receive is based on unsubstantiated assumptions, unfounded estimates and improbable predictions? That the symptoms associated with AIDS are treatable using non-toxic, immune-enhancing therapies that have restored the health of people diagnosed with AIDS and that have enabled those truly at risk to remain well?”

Which do you trust? Which do you believe? Which would you want to believe? Would you choose to believe there may be hope offered by medical treatments or would you prefer to believe that HIV is harmless? This simple example illustrates the lure of AIDS denialism.

AIDS denialism tells us what anyone would want to hear – that HIV does not cause AIDS and that if you live a “healthy lifestyle” (whatever that is) you won’t get AIDS. None of which is true. In fact, there are an estimated 33 million people in the world living with HIV infection. In 2007 there were nearly three million new HIV infections and two million people died of AIDS. People are living longer and healthier lives with HIV infection as a result of earlier detection through HIV antibody testing and the remarkable success of HIV treatments. Indeed, countries that launched aggressive testing and treatment programs, such as Brazil and Botswana, have reduced suffering and prolonged life. In contrast, South Africa delayed testing and treatment programs as a result of former President Thabo Mbeki’s AIDS denialism, policies that resulted in over 300,000 unnecessary deaths and over 35,000 infants senselessly infected with HIV. There is no rational basis for disputing these established facts, and yet rejecting the reality of AIDS is the mission of AIDS denialists.

AIDS denialism is one of several incarnations of denialism. All denialism is defined by rhetorical tactics designed to give the impression of a legitimate debate among experts when in fact there is none. Holocaust deniers claim that historians disagree about the evidence for Nazi mass gassings and systematic murder of Jews. Global warming denialists say that climatologists are torn by the evidence about climate change. 9/11 “Truth Seekers”, as clever a piece of branding as “pro-life”, say the collapse of the Twin Towers resulted from controlled demolition. Vaccine hysterics tell us that the science is split on whether vaccinations cause autism. And AIDS denialists say that scientists are in disagreement about whether HIV causes AIDS.

It is easy to be fooled by AIDS denialists. Not only do they tell us what we want to hear, they use methods of persuasion to create the illusion of debate. Just as HIV attacks our immune defences that would otherwise destroy it, AIDS denialists appeal to our sense of scepticism. Indeed, AIDS denialists refer to themselves as dissident scientists and sceptics. Denialists misuse science and rely on pseudoscience to call established fact into question. Denialists also exploit what is not known about how HIV causes AIDS to suggest that HIV may not cause AIDS at all. The more sophisticated efforts of AIDS denialism, like the “documentary” House of Numbers, are most disturbing because they use every trick in the denialist playbook to juxtapose pseudoscience with established science. The best way to recognize AIDS denialism is to know their common tricks of persuasion.

There are two sides to every debate. But just asserting there is a debate does not mean there is one. AIDS denialists rely on a small band of fake experts, mostly retired academics who proclaim that HIV does not cause AIDS. There is not a single instance of an “expert” offered by AIDS denialism that has ever actually done research on AIDS. In rare examples, denialist experts have a history of credible science only to have later gone off the deep end. The most credentialled AIDS denialists are Nobel Laureate Kari Mullis, who developed the PCR technology for sequencing the genetic code, and Peter Duesberg, Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of California-Berkeley and member of the National Academy of Science. Although credentialled, neither is credible. Aside from saying HIV cannot cause AIDS, though he has done no research on AIDS, Mullis has shared his experiences on LSD and encounters with an alien fluorescent raccoon, and Duesberg, who did important work on cancer in his early career, now claims that there is no genetic basis for any cancer. Both have demonstrated an outright disregard for scientific evidence.

But beyond these two high-profile mavericks most of the “experts” in AIDS denialism are out-and-out pseudoscientists. My favourite is Henry Bauer, Emeritus Professor of Chemistry and Science Studies at Virginia Tech University, who claims to have proven that HIV cannot cause AIDS. Professor Bauer is also a self-proclaimed international expert on the existence of the Loch Ness Monster. Detecting fake experts requires looking beyond college degrees and achievements from decades gone by. Do not confuse credentials with credibility. Saying that there is no genetic basis for any cancer, describing extraterrestrial experiences, and searching for big green monsters in Scottish waters should matter when examining the credibility of someone making important claims about the causes of a devastating disease.

In the 1980s legitimate scientists disagreed about AIDS. For AIDS deniers, everything old is new again. AIDS denialists rely on selected research findings from the days when not much was known about AIDS. The first tests for HIV antibodies were less reliable than current testing technologies. There were early debates about what caused AIDS and good ideas that turned out to be dead ends. The drug AZT was prescribed in massive and often toxic doses. But none of this is true any more. Though there remain many debates in medical science about how HIV causes AIDS, there is no longer a debate about whether HIV causes AIDS. Unfortunately, outdated scientific literature is not purged when new knowledge emerges. AIDS deniers use this information to create the illusion of a live debate. Denialists select old findings that support their flawed logic because they have no evidence of their own. Cherrypicking is another favourite rhetorical technique of denialists. This involves selecting a lone scientific finding, presenting the results out of context, and deploying it as evidence for their own conclusions.

Another popular denialist manoeuvre is to call for a definitive single study, analogous to the creationist demand for a definitive transitional fossil to prove evolution. Peter Duesberg for example, asserts that “There is not a single controlled epidemiological study to confirm the postulated viral etiology of AIDS.” He is right about this. No one scientific study ever “proves” anything. Scientists are cautious to draw conclusions from even a series of experiments. To establish that HIV causes AIDS required countless laboratory, clinical, and epidemiological studies, all converging to a definitive conclusion. There is no single scientific paper proving that HIV causes AIDS, just as there is also no single physics experiment proving that a man could land on the moon, no single study that proves excessive exposure to the sun causes skin cancer or one study that proves smoking causes lung cancer. Rather there are tens of thousands of studies containing a wide range of evidence that, taken together, make an overwhelming case.

AIDS denialists will also demand even more specific evidence, only to change the demand once the evidence is produced. One example of this “pushing back the goalpost” technique was the former Sunday Times journalist and prominent AIDS denier Neville Hodgkinson’s claim that HIV tests are invalid because HIV has never been isolated. When scientists provided evidence that HIV has been isolated, the demand changed; Hodgkinson argued that the isolated virus was “impure”. Denialists now demand that the virus be isolated in “pure form”, that is uncontaminated by proteins. The demand for a pure virus devoid of cellular proteins is impossible to meet as it defies the biological nature of viruses. Such shifting of the grounds of debate allows denialists to claim that they are the ones following the evidence, and it is the AIDS establishment – an alliance of careerist researchers and greedy drugs companies – who are propagating pseudoscience.

All denialism is entrenched in conspiracy thinking. A spectrum of such thinking motivates AIDS denialism, covering everything from a government conspiracy to invent HIV for genocide against Africans and gays to a pharmaceutical industry conspiracy to sell toxic drugs. One of my favourites is the flamboyant conspiracy thinking of vitamin entrepreneur Matthias Rath, who said “The people and the governments of the world have to decide whether they are ready to stop being manipulated by the pharmaceutical industry and embrace instead the scientific knowledge that is now available to fight the global HIV/AIDS epidemic with effective, safe and affordable natural means.” The “natural means” Rath is referring to, of course, are the useless vitamins that he peddles to the poor. Though Rath has now been prevented from marketing his phony cure in Africa, and famously lost his libel suit against Ben Goldacre when he exposed his fraudulent practices, great damage was done and he continues to agitate for AIDS denialism through his spurious Health Foundation.

But while some denialists are clearly charlatans out to make a quick buck out of other people’s misery, many are perfectly genuine, which is what makes them especially dangerous. They can be persuasive because they actually believe what they say. Evidence means nothing to them. Their thought process resembles what psychiatrists call an “encapsulated delusion”, where despite what appears to be otherwise rational thinking there is an intractable maladaptive belief system that is impermeable to contrary evidence. Many of these people have themselves been diagnosed with HIV, and cling to the hope that this is not a death sentence. This adds a particular poignancy to their claims. A potent irony also hangs over denialism; year on year AIDS deniers who have tested positive for HIV succumb to AIDS-related illnesses. The most visible of such cases was Christine Maggiore, the founder of the Alive and Well movement that claims there is no causal link between HIV and AIDS. Maggiore believed that HIV does not cause AIDS even after the AIDS-related death of her three-year-old daughter and right up until her own death of AIDS in 2008. AIDS denialists are therefore a mixed bag of rogue scientists, pseudoscientists, conspiracy theorists, and snake-oil salesmen. There are also vocal AIDS denialist activists, primarily HIV positive people who are in deep denial of their diagnosis and seek the insulating bubble offered by AIDS denialism.

So, what can we do about AIDS denialism? There will always be crazy people who say crazy things. AIDS denialists only do harm when people listen to them. The best defence against AIDS denialism is improved public understanding of science and medicine. We all need to know how to recognise cranks and crackpots and their sinister rhetorical devices. When searching for reliable information make sure it does not rely on old, most likely outdated, sources. Find credible sources of current information and trust them, but keep pressing them with questions. Familiarise yourself with the basic facts of HIV and AIDS and be sceptical of far-fetched conspiracies. Be informed and think critically, but don’t fall for global conspiracy hysteria or accept pseudoscience because that is what you want to hear. We know that drugs companies make huge profits, and that scientists rely on research grants and can be fallible. This does not mean there is a global conspiracy to misrepresent the science. AIDS researchers and the pharmaceutical industry, believe it or not, are in it to save lives.

And finally, hard as it might be for believers in free speech and open debate, if you encounter AIDS denialism, do not enter into a debate. AIDS denialists want to create the impression that there is a debate regarding HIV causing AIDS and debating feeds the illusion. This debate was exhausted years ago. Now it merely serves as a distraction from the ongoing struggle to explain how and why HIV causes AIDS and trying to prevent it. In the words of The Who, and the title of Richard Wilson’s excellent book on scepticism, “Don’t Get Fooled Again”.

Seth Kalichman‘s book Denying AIDS: Conspiracy Theories, Pseudoscience, and Human Tragedy is published by Springer/Copernicus - all royalties from the book are donated to buy HIV treatments in Africa.

The AIDS Denialist Hall of Shame

Peter H Duesberg is the most important figure in HIV/AIDS denialism because he is a credentialled scientist who claims HIV does not cause AIDS. In fact, Duesberg says that HIV is harmless, although he has never actually worked on HIV or AIDS. Early in his career Duesberg was part of a research group that mapped the very first cancer-causing gene. Soon after, he refuted his own work and proclaimed that no genes could cause cancer. Rather, Duesberg says that cancers are only caused by environmental factors that deform our chromosomes. Using the same logic, he claimed that HIV cannot cause AIDS. Over the years Duesberg has been proven wrong on both accounts. But despite evidence to the contrary, Duesberg does not give in. He appears to fully believe that there is no genetic basis for any cancer and that HIV does not cause AIDS.

David Rasnick is Peter Duesberg’s closest associate. Rasnick was trained as a scientist and had conducted research, although never with humans and never with HIV or AIDS. He also conducted “clinical studies” for Matthias Rath in South Africa in their scam to prove that vitamins can treat AIDS – activities that have since been ruled unlawful by South African courts.

Jody Wells, Huw Christie and Michael Baumgartner published London’s Continuum Magazine which served as an outlet for AIDS denialism, including pseudoscientific “studies”. Continuum ended after the editors all died following long bouts with AIDS.

Neville Hodgkinson is a health journalist who worked for the Sunday Times in the 1990s, and was a driving force behind the Times’s infamous AIDS denialist coverage. He remains active in AIDS denialism.

Gordon Stewart, Emeritus Professor of Public Health at the University of Glasgow, has signed on to several AIDS denialist letters and has published conspiracy-oriented articles proclaiming the “HIV-AIDS model owes its popularity to widespread censorship.”

The Perth Group: Eleni Papadopulos-Eleopulos and Valendar Turner not only say HIV cannot cause AIDS, they say HIV may not exist at all. In an appeals hearing for a man who was fighting a conviction for knowingly sexually infecting women with HIV, the Australian courts found The Perth Group unqualified to express opinions about the existence of HIV.

Henry H Bauer, Professor Emeritus of Science at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, claims that HIV cannot cause AIDS, based on flawed logic and misuse of AIDS statistics. He has published AIDS denialism papers with Peter Duesberg. Professor Bauer is also a leading authority on the existence of the Loch Ness Monster.

Christine Maggiore was founder of Alive & Well, claiming that HIV tests are invalid and HIV treatments are toxic poison. Her three-year-old daughter Eliza Jane Scovill died of complications from AIDS. In 2008 Ms Maggiore herself died of pneumonia and disseminated herpes, two ADS-related conditions.

David Crowe is the President of the Rethinking AIDS Society and runs the Alberta Reappraising AIDS Society in Canada. He manages the most visible and up-to-date AIDS pseudoscience website on the internet, which posts numerous clippings from scientific journals out of original contexts and in support of denialist claims.

Kary B Mullis is a Nobel Laureate chemist who co-authored the essay “What causes AIDS? It’s an open question”. Mullis regularly questions whether HIV causes AIDS. He is widely regarded as an eccentric and has no credentials in AIDS research.

AIDS Denialists: How to Respond

AIDS TREATMENT NEWS Issue #342
John S. James

For over ten years self-styled "AIDS dissidents" have said that HIV does not cause AIDS, that AIDS is not a contagious disease, that HIV is a harmless retrovirus (some say, instead, that HIV does not exist), that AIDS treatments are poisons which themselves cause the disease, and that the AIDS epidemic is a huge medical fraud promoted by corrupt pharmaceutical companies, scientists, and doctors. This movement has learned to appeal to very different agendas; and along with heavy doses of misinformation it weaves some accurate facts and emotional, social, and political truths. It has hidden funding, celebrity endorsements, and corporate journalists who can get its views publicized in mass media as news. It does not conduct medical research nor take care of patients, but has more than a decade of experience in learning how to debate and look credible.

Our concern is not the ideas--we agree that all sorts of ideas should be explored and debated--but rather the direct translation of casual speculation and debating points into the medical care of patients with life-threatening illness, which is strongly encouraged by many of the "dissidents."

In the U.S., where AIDS treatments usually have been accessible to patients who need them, this movement has made noise for many years, but has found only a tiny constituency of believers who will put their lives at risk by rejecting all medical advice in favor of the rhetoric and debate. But recently it has been revitalized by tapping into other agendas in developing countries, where people have been told that they are going to die and have no chance of treatment, because the drugs have been priced far beyond their reach (by U.S. and international government policies to protect the interests of major corporations, as well as by corporate greed). The "dissidents" (we believe a better term is "AIDS denialists") have found a new audience among leaders and publics who are understandingly suspicious of a Western-dominated, heavily corporate mainstream which pursues its own profit above all else, and offers millions of people around the world nothing but death.

How to Answer:

For years most AIDS doctors and scientists have seen the denialists as a lunatic fringe best ignored in hopes that it would go away. They did not want to bring it more attention, or spend their time rehashing issues that were settled years ago in the scientific community. And few of them were prepared for this debate--for while they have spent their time treating patients or conducting medical research, the other side has spent years doing nothing but debating, learning what goes over and what does not in various forums, and learning how to use the Internet, where anything can be made to look credible.

Many now agree that refusing to answer is a mistake. AIDS professionals and activists often forget that the world looks different to people who do not have the same access they do.

We have had long conversations with sincere, intelligent people, including patients and journalists, who had clearly been influenced by the denialists and who told us that we were the first person they had ever found who would talk to them to defend the "mainstream" view. Their doctors would not discuss it, nor would any researchers they asked. Most people do not have the background or training to judge a technical scientific argument themselves; instead, they look at how they are being treated. When one side will not give them the time of day on the issue while the other is always available, they may believe those they can talk to, without hearing any other view.

While some researchers and activists have answered the denialists (for Web links, see http://www.niaid.nih.gov/spotlight/hiv00/default.htm), it has long been difficult for patients to find understandable and effective written answers to some of their claims.

So if one does answer the denialists' arguments, what form should the answers take? We have discussed this with a number of activists, and there is clearly an emerging consensus:

(1) The denialist position consists of about 5 to 10 major points (depending on how you count them--we list 7 below), which are repeated again and again. Each must be addressed separately, with separate flyers or brochures which healthcare and service professionals can give to clients to address their individual concerns.

(2) The back-and-forth debate format is not especially useful here, because it tends to turn on technical points, asking readers to make their own decisions on the scientific merits of the issue, which most people are not prepared to do. A better format is to explain what the denialists are saying, then show with two or three examples that their arguments are not credible--that the assertions on which they ask others to base life-and-death decisions usually leave out far more compelling information than they include.

Most importantly, we need to explain what is really going on in treatment and research--the human story as well as the medical/scientific one, a reality more interesting than the stick-figure ideologies of the denialists. Here we should avoid the argumentative style of trying to score points against the other side. Instead, follow the truth wherever it may lead; when there is truth in the denialist case, by all means acknowledge it.

(3) Eventually we will need an in-depth, well-referenced document explaining the issues to healthcare and AIDS service professionals, and also to patients and anyone else who wants this detailed information. (For an example of what part of this document might look like, see the article by Bruce Mirken which we published in our last issue, "Answering the AIDS Denialists: CD4 (T-Cell) Counts, and Viral Load," AIDS TREATMENT NEWS #341, April 21, 2000. This article addresses one of the seven or so major denialist assertions, which we list below. The other six articles still need to be written.)

(4) From this in-depth document can come the flyers, brochures, videos, Web sites, and other media.

Seven Deadly Deceptions:

Here is our list of the major denialist arguments. As noted above, the problem is not unorthodox ideas, but their immediate translation into personal medical advice, usually to tell patients to reject all medical care for HIV or AIDS, as well as suggesting that safer sex and other infection- control precautions can be ignored. So for each of the seven points, we include the corresponding action item. We are continually amazed at how casually sheer speculation gets translated into life-and-death decisions.

* HIV is harmless (or does not exist), and AIDS is not contagious--so sexual and other precautions are unnecessary.

* The HIV test is unreliable--so don't get tested.

* AIDS drugs are poisons, pushed by doctors corrupted by the pharmaceutical industry--so don't take any of them, no matter what your doctor says--or don't go to a doctor at all, especially if you feel well.

* Viral load and CD4 tests are useless--so don't use them.

* AIDS deaths would have gone down anyway, even without new treatments--so you don't need medical care.

* AIDS is over, or never existed, or only affected small risk groups--so there is no important need for medical research on AIDS or HIV, or for AIDS services.

* The free speech of dissenters has been suppressed--so you can't believe anything you hear.

Note: We omitted the idea that AIDS was created in a government laboratory to kill African Americans, gay people, or others. This conspiracy theory is widespread in some communities, but usually does not urge people to reject medical care, or safer sex or other precautions against infection.

Note on "Denialists" vs. "Dissidents"

Some of these medical ideologists are upset with the term "AIDS denialists"; they prefer "AIDS dissidents," which suggests parallels with such historic examples as anti- totalitarian dissidents, or Galileo.

We use "denialists" because it is more specific and descriptive. There can be many kinds of AIDS dissent. But the denialists regularly deny that precautions against infection are necessary, deny that HIV testing is appropriate, deny that any approved treatments should be used (or CD4 or viral load tests to monitor disease progression), deny that treatment saves lives, and often deny that AIDS is a real epidemic, or even a real medical condition.

The problem is not ideas, but the organized efforts to practice bizarre medicine, telling people with a major illness to reject care entirely. Denialists have convinced pregnant women or mothers of HIV-positive children to reject treatment universally recommended by their doctors--then harvested publicity from court cases which result. In the U.S. and other countries where treatment is available, they have found few who will sacrifice their own lives; but now they are going to South Africa and elsewhere in the developing world, seeking to deny medical care to people who will have little or no voice in the decision, while also impeding public-health campaigns to slow the spread of HIV infection.

The issue here is not freedom to express ideas; no one is stopping that. The issue is destructiveness by a handful of professional or semi-professional denialists whose ideas and behavior have failed to win them the respect they want.

The AIDS denialist movement will be remembered if it can do serious damage to worldwide efforts to control the pandemic. Otherwise it will be largely forgotten, like similar movements during other epidemics in the past.

IF YOU HAVE SPECIFIC QUESTIONS go to AEGIS.org
000505
ATN34210

Copy the board daily in the front of the room into your LRB... the back board is being erased and you must check on the front board and here for your LRB daily/weekly announcements from now on...

DO NOT MISS EVEN ONE MORE CLASS UNLESS YOU ACTUALLY HAVE A FEVER; if you do have to miss because of "fever" as soon as the fever is gone, come to one of my other classes.

BARLOW RESPIRATORY HOSPITAL IS LOOKING FOR VOLUNTEERS - GAIN Experience in Healthcare!  The next recruitment cycle begins November 10 – December 18, 2009.  Barlow Respiratory Hospital’s main location is in Los Angeles but also has satellite locations at Presbyterian Intercommunity Hospital in Whittier and Valley Presbyterian Hospital in Van Nuys.  Contact Barlow Respiratory Hospital...

Also, please come to the Micro-40 on Fri 12-4 as we must do the lab work as quickly as possible.  You will be applying all that you memorized for the MIDTERM exam.  You will isolate, purify, and test your unknown microbe.  Then you will... inoculate all the test media, incubate and evaluate the experimental data.   Finally, you will collect and collate your data, confirm it with me and use it to write your Unknown Lab Report paper...

REMEMBER, if you keep attending and trying you will do fine... I emphasize the grades that are most recent and the way you are keeping up with the class... your lab work will be moving along now and you will do great.  DO NOT GIVE UP NOW!  Keep trying!  KEEP AT IT!

1) FOR LECTURE: We will cover about 75% of a chapter in each class from now on!!!  There will be a daily Essay or Pop Quiz to make sure that you keep up with the work.  This week we are covering chapter 11 Eurkaryotic Parasites & then Chapter 10 + The AIDS Handook.  Read the book, make your Eukaryotic Disease Flashcards for the parasites that we are going to emphasize in our review --- from my online website: Filarial Diseases (5), Plasmodial (1), Leishmaniasis (2), Schistomsomiasis (1) , Trypanosomiasis (2), and Dracunculiasis (1). Print-out my notes and attend the lectures and videos.  I will not begin work on Wiley until I have time around Wed. November 11.

2)  Micro-40 PREP HOURS are performed in ST-110 (Please go to the door just South of the ST-112 classroom and knock there when completing your hours).  Contact me and Mr. Lu at kennyusa_la@yahoo.com to schedule your 10 hours; if you make an appointment be sure to call the Prep Room just before you arrive to make sure that we are still there (323) 953-4000 x2802.  Remember you must attend 10 hours of help sessions in ST-112 on Fri/Sat (4th week to 14th week) AND schedule 10 hours learning MicroPrep Procedures in ST-110 to receive a grade in Micro-40! Have you started your 10 hours with Mr. Ken for Lab Prep?  WE NEED HELP MAKING MEDIA THIS WEEK.... CONTACT Mr. Ken by email and phone! We are available almost all day on FRIDAYS - if we are not there when you arrive, take the dirty slides beside the sinks in ST-112 and wash them in ST-110 until we arrive!  If you are told to "clean sides or tubes" until Ken returns from autoclaving in the other building... please do as you are told.  Several people this weekend thought they could decided what they wanted to do... not us!  You are there to learn and to help the Micro labs run smoothly... and that often involves "CLEANING."

3)  WE ARE STARTING AGAIN FOR THE FINAL EXAM MATERIAL - The Chapters 11, 10 (& AIDS HANDBOOK) and then Chapters 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 and 18 are next.  We will be doing your streak isolation, "Dots are Us Lab" and the Purity as well as the Optimum Temperature Labs.  WASH YOUR HANDS AND DISINFECT BEFORE & AFTER EACH LECTURE AND LAB!!!

We will have Lecture then Lab except in the Biol 112 classes where we will have Lab and then Lecture each night.  Bring your lab coat and materials as well as you CARDS and ATLAS every class! There will be essays each week again about the chapter material for that week.  This week it is chapter 10 

4) CHANGE THE TIMES ON YOUR CARDS FOR READING TWO UNKNOWN TESTS:  KIA to 48 hrs and Thio to 3-5 days.  BRING YOUR CARDS & ATLAS to every class!  Wash your hands and disinfect before and after each lecture and lab meeting!

5) The following points are left in the class:  Wiley for each chapter 10-17; your typed Unknown Paper; your Lab Record Book, THE FINAL EXAM and various Essays and Pop Quizzes on the material covered that week!

6) Wiley for chapters 10 and 11 begins Nov. 12, 2009; the END date for chapters 10 and 11 is November 27 at 11 PM.

7) We will be doing chapter 10 lectures and HIV/AIDS next week... be ready

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