Archiv für März 2013

SPIEGEL Online behauptet „Forscher heilen Baby von HIV-Infektion“ – und betreibt damit letztlich nur wieder haltlose Pharma-Propaganda

Dienstag, 05. März 2013

„Experts question whether this so-called cure of HIV of a 2-year-old [girl by using an aggressive three-drug treatment that started when the she was only 30 hours old] is real, and whether high doses of potentially toxic drugs should be administered before an HIV diagnosis can be confirmed.“
abc news, „Experts Question So-Called HIV ‚Cure'“, 6. März 2013

„The [New York] Times report states: ‚doctors announced…that a baby had been cured of an HIV infection for the first time….‘ – but the report notes that the claimed ‚cure‘ has not been confirmed, published, or even peer reviewed… Unless independently verifiable documented evidence is presented for confirmation, this story appears to be propaganda… The much hyped story about the alleged ‚miraculous‘ cured HIV-infected baby may have  been planted to obscure the announcement on Monday, of a FAILED ‚AIDS prevention‘ study conducted on more than 5,000 HIV-NEGATIVE African women.“
Vera Sharav, Alliance for Human Research Protection (AHRP), in den Kommentaren „A Baby Alleged to Have been ‚HIV Infected‘ is ‚Deemed Cured‘–But Where is the Proof?“ und „Anti-AIDS pill, vaginal gel unsuitable for Africa: study“ über die haltlose Behauptung der Mainstreammedien, Forscher hätten ein Baby von einer so genannten HIV-Infektion geheilt

„Forscher heilen Baby von HIV-Infektion“ behauptet SPIEGEL Online – und lässt Wissenschaftlichkeit dabei mal wieder vermissen; Foto: AP

Wie unwissenschaftlich und faktenfern gerade auch der SPIEGEL immer wieder über den Themenkomplex HIV/AIDS berichtet, haben wir schon des öfteren dokumentiert (siehe hier). Im Grunde ist es so: Der SPIEGEL betet eins zu eins das nach, was ihm die mit der Pharmaindustrie verbandelten Medizinautoritäten vorsagen, während die Fakten besagen, dass es keine harten wissenschaftlichen Beweise dafür gibt, dass das so genannte HI-Virus (HIV) nachgewiesen wurde, dass „HIV“ so genanntes AIDS macht, dass so genannte HIV-Tests eine „HIV“-Infektion nachweisen und so genannte Virus-Last-Messungen eine Virenanzahl messen usw. (siehe dazu mein Buch „Virus-Wahn“, das ich zusammen mit dem Kieler Internisten Dr. med. Claus Köhnlein geschrieben habe).

Wer den Schmu mit HIV/AIDS einmal verstanden hat, kann über SPIEGEL-Artikel nur noch den Kopf schütteln
Wer dies einmal verstanden hat, der kann über Artikel wie „Forscher heilen Baby von HIV-Infektion“, den SPIEGEL Online gestern (4. März) brachte, einfach nur noch den Kopf schütteln vor Unverständnis darüber, wie faktenfern hier berichtet wird von Medien, die sich selber als investigativ oder gar als „Sturmgeschütz der Demokratie“ bezeichnen.

Wie wissenschaftlich unfundiert eine solche Schlagzeile und auch der Inhalt eines solchen Beitrags sind, hat auch Vera Sharav von der der New Yorker Patientenschutzorganisation Alliance for Human Research Protection (AHRP) gut beschrieben (der Titel ihres Kommentars lautet „A Baby Alleged to Have been ‚HIV Infected‘ is ‚Deemed Cured‘–But Where is the Proof?“). Sie konstatiert:

The New York Times front page article, „In Medical First, Baby With H.I.V. Is Reported Cured,“ in its sub-heading acknowledges, „SOME SKEPTICISM VOICED“.

Furthermore, the Times report states: „doctors announced…that a baby had been cured of an HIV infection for the first time….“
but the report notes that the claimed „cure“ has not been confirmed, published, or even peer reviewed.

Indeed, The Times notes that „Dr. Persaud and other researchers spoke in advance of a presentation of the findings at a Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections.“

„If the report is confirmed, the child born in Mississippi would be only the second well-documented case of a cure in the world.“
Well documented?

Unless independently verifiable documented evidence  is presented for confirmation, this story appears to be propaganda.
The announcement is calculated to persuade health policy officials to divert scarce healthcare dollars for expensive AIDS drug cocktails to be forced on newborn babies born to poor, uninformed young women.

The Times quotes Dr. Deborah Persaud of Johns Hopkins stating: „It’s proof of principle that we can cure HIV infection if we can replicate this case.“

Proof in principle is NOT proof of cure!

„Some outside experts, who have not yet heard all the details, said they needed convincing that the baby had truly been infected. If not, this would be a case of prevention, something already done for babies born to infected mothers.“

Dr. Daniel R. Kuritzkes, chief of infectious diseases at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston is quoted stating:  “The one uncertainty is really definitive evidence that the child was indeed infected.”
The Times reports: „The mother arrived at a rural hospital in the fall of 2010 already in labor and gave birth prematurely. She had not seen a doctor during the pregnancy and did not know she had H.I.V. When a test showed the mother might be infected, the hospital transferred the baby to the University of Mississippi Medical Center, where it arrived at about 30 hours old.“

„Typically a newborn with an infected mother would be given one or two drugs as a prophylactic measure. But Dr. Gay said that based on her experience, she almost immediately used a three-drug regimen aimed at treatment, not prophylaxis, not even waiting for the test results confirming infection. „

„Without test results confirming infection…“  Does this not constitute medical malpractice?

„Virus levels rapidly declined with treatment and were undetectable by the time the baby was a month old. That remained the case until the baby was 18 months old, after which the mother stopped coming to the hospital and stopped giving the drugs.When the mother and child returned five months later, Dr. Gay expected to see high viral loads in the baby. But the tests were negative. „

„Suspecting a laboratory error, she ordered more tests. “To my greater surprise, all of these came back negative,” Dr. Gay said. „

„There have been scattered cases reported in the past, including one in The New England Journal of Medicine in 1995, of babies clearing the virus, even without treatment.“

The Times report suggests the tenuous reliability of the announced „miracle“
„One hypothesis is that the drugs killed off the virus before it could establish a hidden reservoir in the baby. One reason people cannot be cured now is that the virus hides in a dormant state, out of reach of existing drugs. When drug therapy is stopped, the virus can emerge from hiding.“
„In the United States, transmission from mother to child is rare — several experts said there are only about 200 cases a year or even fewer — because infected mothers are generally treated during their pregnancies. „

„Dr. Bryson, who was not involved in the Mississippi work, said she was certain the baby had been infected and called the finding “one of the most exciting things I’ve heard in a long time.”

Does any of this sound like proven scientific findings???

By Monday afternoon the story was no longer on the Times‚ website front page.

Und heute schreibt Vera Sharav von der AHRP in einem weiteren Kommentar („Anti-AIDS pill, vaginal gel unsuitable for Africa: study“):

The much hyped story about the alleged „miraculous“ cured HIV-infected baby may have  been planted to obscure the announcement on Monday, of a FAILED “ AIDS prevention“ study conducted on more than 5,000 HIV-NEGATIVE African women.

Medscape reports: „A large study to determine if pre-exposure prophylaxis could prevent HIV transmission among high-risk women failed to show any significant differences between those who took oral medication or vaginal gel or placebo medications in protection against acquiring infections.“  http://www.medpagetoday.com/MeetingCoverage/CROI/37659

Read more: http://www.ahrp.org/cms/content/view/909/9/

There are many elements of concern about the Mississippi baby story–who has been identified as a girl.

The Wall Street Journal reported:

„…at about 18 months, for reasons that aren’t clear, the mother stopped bringing the baby in for the checks. Dr. Gay summoned health-department and child-protection workers, who found her last August, and she returned to the clinic.  The baby had been off therapy for at least five months, Dr. Gay said. Before resuming treatment, Dr. Gay ordered a test to make sure the baby’s virus hadn’t developed resistance to any of the drugs. To her astonishment, technicians couldn’t find any virus to test.“ „At first, Dr. Gay worried that she had been treating an uninfected baby for more than a year.“

How often, one wonders, have doctors like Dr. Gay, subjected uninfected, healthy babies to retroviral drugs?

If there are some reported cases of „babies clearing the virus, even without treatment“–as reported in The New England Journal of Medicine–why are doctors and government researchers only focusing on aggressive prescribing regimens using multiple drugs at ever higher doses?
Another concern is doctors who are summoning „child protection workers“ to coerce individuals into submission of their babies to possibly unnecessary aggressive treatment.

Indeed, had the Mississippi mother obeyed the baby’s doctors, by not withdrawing the aggressive drug regimen from her infant, that baby would have been condemned to be on those drugs for life!

Read our expanded discussion on our website:  http://www.ahrp.org/cms/content/view/909/9/