I am continuing my series reviewing Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.'s book on Anthony Fauci. In the last two entries (1, 2), I have been critiquing his many pages dealing with his many arguments that HIV is not the cause of AIDS. I continue this here.
AIDS and Kaposi's sarcoma
On page 224, Kennedy begins a subchapter entitled Kaposi's Sarcoma with the statement, "In 1990, four leading scientists at the CDC suggested in the Lancet that Kaposi's sarcoma was common in young gay men who indisputably did not have HIV." (emphasis mine, the reason why, below)
As is typical, Kennedy can't get anything right. He does not provide a reference to such a study in his citations, but he is clearly referring to this article which was published in the Lancet in 1990, Kaposi's sarcoma in HIV-negative homosexual men. It had six authors but only one member of the CDC.
They did not find the phenomenon "common." The paper says that in 349 male homosexual or bisexual patients in a dermatology practice who had Kaposi's sarcoma, 6 had no signs of HIV infection. The "young" gay men averaged 45 years old.
Kennedy goes on to say several times that Kaposi's sarcoma (KS) is the defining disease of AIDS. Pages 224 and 225: "KS—the disease most central to the definition of AIDS," ". . . KS was the initial and defining symptom of AIDS," "The very existence of AIDS was inextricably linked to KS," and "Kaposi's sarcoma was the AIDS-defining illness. 'In the beginning,' says Farber, 'AIDS was Kaposi's sarcoma.'" Kennedy does tend to repeat his points, add nausea. [sic]
Although I will allow that Kaposi's sarcoma's presence was found early on, it wasn't present in the initial report. It certainly wasn't the defining disease of AIDS as pointed out in an actual study by four members of the CDC published in Lancet in 1990. They came to the conclusion that "Among persons with the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) reported to Centers for Disease Control by March 31, 1989, 15% (13,616) had Kaposi's sarcoma."
Since one of the authors, Thomas Peterman of the CDC, was in on both studies, I assume that Kennedy confused the two papers, and somehow came to conclusions neither paper said.
Kennedy quotes Gallo in saying, "HIV . . . might only be a catalytic factor in Kaposi's: there must be something else." As I mentioned in a previous post, Gallo went down a rabbit hole looking at the protein "tat" as a cofactor in Kaposi's.
The cause of Kaposi's sarcoma is now well-understood and involves the virus HHV-8 which becomes active in immunocompromised patients, much the way that HIV-caused immunodeficiency causes complications by cytomegalovirus.
AZT as Culprit
On page 225, RFK, Jr. begins a subchapter titled "AZT as Culprit" with "After 1987, Dr. Duesberg and his followers argue, the vast majority of 'AIDS deaths' were actually caused by AZT—Dr. Fauci's 'antiretroviral' chemotherapy purposefully concocted to kill human cells." Purposefully concocted to kill human cells means tested as an antitumor agent.
He goes on to say, "The FDA, after all, had deemed AZT too toxic to use for even short-term cancer therapy." (Page 226) This is a complete lie. Prior to being tested as an antiviral, AZT had been tested only in mice as an anti-leukemic. The FDA does not make such pronouncements of toxicity from animal trials. Furthermore, as the original reports show, AZT did not fail due to toxicity, it failed due to not having sufficient toxicity against tumor cells.
Jerome Horwitz was the main researcher who synthesized and tested AZT in the 1960s. To quote the account as presented in the Los Angeles Times, "When Horwitz tested AZT, or azidothymidine, on leukemic mice, nothing happened. He admitted defeat and didn’t think about it again until the mid-1980s, when scientists were randomly testing drugs in a frantic search for one that would combat AIDS."
To quote Horwitz directly in the journal article he wrote about it, "None of the synthetic analogues [including AZT] manifested significant activity when screened against L1210 leukemia in BDF mice," and there was "low cytoxic [sic, correctly cytotoxic] activity observed with these agents as anti-leukemia drugs." Low cytotoxic activity says that they were not toxic to cells.
Like many compounds that fail at one use, AZT became a repurposed drug. Before the outbreak of HIV, AZT was tested as antiviral back in the 1970s against a different virus and failed.
Kennedy goes on to say, "Cancer patients typically take chemo agents for only two weeks. Thanks to Tony Fauci's Fischl study, doctors were now prescribing AZT for life!" (page 226)
Cancer patients will certainly be surprised to learn that they only take chemotherapy for two weeks. That statement is a slap in the face of chemotherapy patients who are enduring therapy for many months.
AZT belongs to a class of chemical called nucleoside analogs. These drugs are commonly used for viral illnesses. There are 27 different approved nucleoside analogs and they are used for HIV, hepatitis B, hepatitis C, COVID-19, cytomegalovirus, herpes simplex virus, and varicella-zoster virus infections. These are not weird, highly toxic chemicals although, as with any drug, their toxicities should be kept in mind.
AZT is not "highly carcinogenic." It is rated 2B in terms of carcinogenicity, "those that have been classified as possibly carcinogenic to humans."
With this as background, AZT has several significant toxicities. It can not only inhibit HIV viral replication but mitochondrial function. Among its chief potential toxicities are lactic acid build-up, fatigue, liver toxicity, and anemia.
On page 228, in a subchapter titled "Is AZT Mass Murder?", Kennedy says, "The [AIDS] death rate climbed precipitously after the commercial introduction of AZT. In 1987, "AIDS deaths rose by 46 percent." He goes on to provide the numbers of deaths by year: 16469 dying in 1987, 21176 in 1988, 31694 in 1990, and 37040 in 1991."
Lets look at the growth in the number of HIV infections.
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| The estimated number of those 13 and older infected with HIV in the United States by year infected. From: Bosh, et al, 2021 |
The numbers presented in the above graph are only estimates which is why the numbers are rounded off and repeated. (Before 1984, for example, there was no HIV test. Even after 1984, it was not universally applied and estimates have to be made of the number of those untested but positive.) Putting the above graph's figures into table format:
New HIV cases, US, by year.
1981 20,000
1982 60,000
1983 60,000
1984 130,000
1985 130,000
1986-1990 85,000 each year.
The ability to determine whether people were HIV positive and the ability to determine the safety of the blood supply began in the mid-80s and this event curtailed the increase in cases per year. Let's compare the two sets of data. Since HIV takes years to cause AIDS, the HIV line in the graph below represents HIV infection year plus six. The graph is mine.
Orange dots represent HIV cases (plus six years) and blue dots represent AIDS deaths (Kennedy's figures). HIV cases increased at a much greater rate than death due to AIDS. AZT is certainly not the only reason why the AIDS death rates declined in comparison to the infection numbers. Care for AIDS patients improved over time, among many examples, prophylaxis for PCP pneumonia. Care could start sooner due to the knowledge of patients being HIV positive. It is likely that the early AIDS cases were rapid progressors with a more virulent virus: that is why they were found to have AIDS ahead of others.
Another major reason for a continuing increase in number of AIDS deaths is due to the fact that AZT, when used a single agent, is a weak drug.
AZT was never great. From March 1987 to October 1991, it was the only antiretroviral therapy approved in the United States. To address the main problem regarding AZT, I refer to another class of anti-HIV drugs, the NNRTIs. When the NNRTIs were discovered, they were immediately noted as being powerful anti-HIV drugs and relatively safe. However, the virus quickly gained drug resistance being fully resistant in a matter of weeks. On their own, they proved useless. AZT is similar, however, its usefulness, on its own, lasted months, not weeks.
AZT is continued to be used as are the NNRTIs. In combination, resistant mutations of the virus have a much reduced chance of escape. Multi-drug therapy for HIV allows a patient to live nearly a full life equal to those who are HIV negative.
Martin Hill Ortiz is a professor of pharmacology and author of several novels.
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| The Missing Floor |
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