Virus Mania
Foreword by Etienne de
Harven
The Content of this Book
Has To Be Read, Quickly and Worldwide
The book Virus Mania by
Torsten Engelbrecht and Claus Köhnlein presents a tragic message that will,
hopefully, contribute to the re-insertion of ethical values in the conduct of virus
research, public health policies, media communications, and activities of the pharmaceutical
companies. Obviously, elementary ethical rules have been, to a very dangerous
extent, neglected in many of these fields for an alarming number of years.
When American journalist
Celia Farber courageously published, in Harper’s Magazine (March 2006)
the article “Out of control—AIDS and the corruption of medical science,” some readers
probably attempted to reassure themselves that this “corruption” was an
isolated case. This is very far from the truth as documented so well in this
book by Engelbrecht and Köhnlein. It is only the tip of the iceberg. Corruption
of research is a widespread phenomenon currently found in many major, supposedly
contagious health problems, ranging from AIDS to Hepatitis C, Bovine spongiform
encephalopathy (BSE or “mad cow disease”), SARS, Avian flu and current
vaccination practices (human papillomavirus or HPV vaccination).
In research on all of these
six distinct public health concerns scientific research on viruses (or prions
in the case of BSE) slipped onto the wrong track following basically the same systematic
pathway. This pathway always includes several key steps: inventing the risk of
a disastrous epidemic, incriminating an elusive pathogen, ignoring alternative
toxic causes, manipulating epidemiology with non-verifiable numbers to maximize
the false perception of an imminent catastrophe, and promising salvation with
vaccines. This guarantees large financial returns. But how is it possible to
achieve all of this? Simply by relying on the most powerful activator of human
decision making process, i.e. FEAR!
We are not witnessing viral
epidemics; we are witnessing epidemics of fear. And both the media and the
pharmaceutical industry carry most of the responsibility for amplifying fears, fears
that happen, incidentally, to always ignite fantastically profitable business.
Research hypotheses covering these areas of virus research are practically
never scientifically verified with appropriate controls. Instead, they are
established by “consensus.” This is then rapidly reshaped into a dogma,
efficiently perpetuated in a quasi-religious manner by the media, including
ensuring that research funding is restricted to projects supporting the dogma, excluding
research into alternative hypotheses. An important tool to keep dissenting
voices out of the debate is censorship at various levels ranging from the
popular media to scientific publications.
We haven’t learnt well from
past experiences. There are still many unanswered questions on the causes of
the 1918 Spanish flu epidemic, and on the role of viruses in post-WWII polio (DDT
neurotoxicity?). These modern epidemics should have opened our minds to more critical
analyses. Pasteur and Koch had solidly constructed an understanding of
infection applicable to many bacterial, contagious diseases. But this was
before the first viruses were actually discovered. Transposing the principles
of bacterial infections to viruses was, of course, very tempting but should not
have been done without giving parallel attention to the innumerable risk
factors in our toxic environment; to the toxicity of many drugs, and to some nutritional
deficiencies.
Cancer research had similar
problems. The hypothesis that cancer might be caused by viruses was formulated
in 1903, more than one century ago. Even today it has never been convincingly
demonstrated. Most of the experimental laboratory studies by virus-hunters have
been based on the use of inbred mice, inbred implying a totally unnatural
genetic background. Were these mice appropriate models for the study of human
cancer? (we are far from being inbred!) True, these mice made possible the
isolation and purification of “RNA tumor viruses,” later renamed “retroviruses”
and well characterized by electron microscopy. But are these viral particles
simply associated with the murine tumors, or are they truly the culprit of
malignant transformation? Are these particles real exogenous infective
particles, or endogenous defective viruses hidden in our chromosomes? The
question is still debatable. What is certain is that viral particles similar to
those readily recognized in cancerous and leukemic mice have never been seen
nor isolated in human cancers. Of mice and men…
However, by the time this
became clear, in the late 1960s, viral oncology had achieved a dogmatic,
quasi-religious status. If viral particles cannot be seen by electron
microscopy in human cancers, the problem was with electron microscopy, not with
the dogma of viral oncology! This was the time molecular biology was taking a
totally dominant posture in viral research. “Molecular markers” for
retroviruses were therefore invented (reverse transcriptase for example) and
substituted most conveniently for the absent viral particles, hopefully salvaging
the central dogma of viral oncology. This permitted the viral hypothesis to
survive for another ten years, until the late 1970s, with the help of
increasingly generous support from funding agencies and from pharmaceutical
companies. However by 1980 the failure of this line of research was becoming
embarrassingly evident, and the closing of some viral oncology laboratories
would have been inevitable, except that…
Except what? Virus cancer
research would have crashed to a halt except that, in 1981, five cases of
severe immune deficiencies were described by a Los Angeles physician, all among
homosexual men who were also all sniffing amyl nitrite, were all abusing other
drugs, abusing antibiotics, and probably suffering from malnutrition and STDs
(sexually transmitted diseases). It would have been logical to hypothesize that
these severe cases of immune deficiency had multiple toxic origins. This would
have amounted to incrimination of these patients’ life-style…
Unfortunately, such
discrimination was, politically, totally unacceptable. Therefore, another hypothesis
had to be found—these patients were suffering from a contagious disease caused
by a new…retrovirus! Scientific data in support of this hypothesis was and,
amazingly enough, still is totally missing. That did not matter, and
instantaneous and passionate interest of cancer virus researchers and
institutions erupted immediately. This was salvation for the viral laboratories
where AIDS now became, almost overnight, the main focus of research. It generated
huge financial support from Big Pharma, more budget for the CDC and NIH, and nobody
had to worry about the life style of the patients who became at once the
innocent victims of this horrible virus, soon labeled as HIV.
Twenty-five years later,
the HIV/AIDS hypothesis has totally failed to achieve three major goals in
spite of the huge research funding exclusively directed to projects based on
it. No AIDS cure has ever been found; no verifiable epidemiological predictions
have ever been made; and no HIV vaccine has ever been successfully prepared.
Instead, highly toxic (but not curative) drugs have been most irresponsibly
used, with frequent, lethal side effects. Yet not a single HIV particle has
ever been observed by electron microscopy in the blood of patients supposedly
having a high viral load! So what? All the most important newspapers and
magazine have displayed attractive computerized, colorful images of HIV that
all originate from laboratory cell cultures, but never from even a single AIDS
patient. Despite this stunning omission the HIV/AIDS dogma is still solidly
entrenched. Tens of thousands of researchers, and hundreds of major
pharmaceutical companies continue to make huge profits based on the HIV hypothesis.
And not one single AIDS patient has ever been cured…
Yes, HIV/AIDS is emblematic
of the corruption of virus research that is remarkably and tragically
documented in this book.
Research programs on
Hepatitis C, BSE, SARS, Avian flu and current vaccination policies all developed
along the same logic, that of maximizing financial profits. Whenever we try to understand
how some highly questionable therapeutic policies have been recommended at the
highest levels of public health authorities (WHO, CDC, RKI etc.), we frequently
discover either embarrassing conflicts of interests, or the lack of essential
control experiments, and always the strict rejection of any open debate with
authoritative scientists presenting dissident views of the pathological processes.
Manipulations of statistics, falsifications of clinical trials, dodging of drug
toxicity tests have all been repeatedly documented. All have been swiftly
covered up, and none have been able to, so far, disturb the cynical logic of today’s
virus research business. The cover-up of the neurotoxicity of the mercury
containing preservative thimerosal as a highly probable cause of autism among
vaccinated children apparently reached the highest levels of the
Virus Mania is a social
disease of our highly developed society. To cure it will require conquering
fear, fear being the most deadly contagious virus, most efficiently transmitted
by the media.
Errare humanum est sed diabolicum
preservare… (to err is human, but to
preserve an error is diabolic). Etienne de Harven, MD
Professor Emeritus of
Pathology at the