Brain Fertilizer

Yeah, I'll fisk the New York Times:

Or at least parts of it:

City health officials announced on Friday that they had detected the rare strain of H.I.V. in one man whose case they described as particularly worrisome because it merged two unusual features: resistance to nearly all anti-retroviral drugs used to treat the infection, and stunningly swift progression from infection to full-fledged AIDS.

Umm, no, they detected no such thing. At least, absolutely no evidence of a new strain of HIV was given at all. At the very most, all they can say is that this man's AIDS progressed atypically fast. But if the average time for AIDS to appear is 10 years (as they say now), and some people are AIDS-free nearly 20 years after being diagnosed with HIV, well, then this isn't strange at all, is it? Is it too much to expect scientists to be consistent in their claims? If this is unusual, then 10 years isn't the average. If 10 years isn't the average, why did the early AIDS sufferers have it appear within the first 3-5 years of being exposed to HIV?

And resistance to anti-retroviral drugs? Might that not indicate it isn't a retrovirus causing it?

By last month, it was clear that three of the four classes of anti-retroviral drugs used against H.I.V. were not working in this case, and the man showed signs of AIDS, including rapid weight loss, a high level of the virus in his bloodstream, and a depleted supply of crucial immune system cells.

Unless, of course, the anti-retroviral drugs are causing the rapid weight loss and depleted supply of crucial immune system cells, as Dr. Bialy and others have asserted.

...people have developed a false sense that AIDS no longer poses a significant threat, leading to a rise in unprotected sex. Clear evidence of the trend has been seen in the growing number of cases of sexually transmitted diseases like syphilis, chlamydia, and lymphogranuloma.

Well, then shouldn't we be seeing a significant rise in the number of HIV cases? From my understanding, estimates of the number of HIV cases in the US has pretty much held steady between 950,000 and 1,000,000 cases. The HIV virus is smaller than the syphilis pathogen, so it's not like differing effectiveness of condoms could explain that non-HIV STDs are rising while HIV infections remain pretty much constant.

Unsafe sex practices combined with growing resistance to medications among people with H.I.V., has had officials warning for years about a possible resurgence of AIDS, a fear voiced yesterday by many people across the country as they struggled to make sense of the news out of New York.

...and yet, there is no resurgence of AIDS to date. There's just one AIDS case that progressed far more rapidly than normal, and that's it.

I tell you, the justifications and excuses used to justify the premise that HIV causes AIDS remind of those used by a witch doctor to explain why the spirits aren't cooperative...

Just for kicks, here's a bibliography with a few summaries to guide your investigation.