And the winner is..........
The esteemed, Dr. John Moore, Cornell University.
Why, oh Why, are you picking on Doc Moore this week, Hank? He seems like a swell fellow, Yes, a bit nerdy, but he's got his Phd from Cambridge, seems to know a bit about immunology, so what's the problem?
Well, here's the problem:
First, he signed this snotty little, half-assed, ridiculous, piss-poor pseudo-rebuttal to Celia Farber's piece in Harper's. I like the "grid" format, which renders it completely unpublishable. I like how they exhumed Dr. Robert Gallo from exile in Maryland, to sign his name to this stupid piece, all the while ignoring Gallo's own scientific misconduct documented by the New York Times.
Second, he also helped develop this web-site, which is the same rehash of bogus propaganda, anonymous "government" arguments and misleading scientific citations to further hornswoggle generations of Americans about the serious flaws in the current AIDS paradigm.
Third, he is a whiner. Here's a letter he wrote to Harper's, which would embarass most red-blooded Americans concerned about the issue. It deserves a good fisking:
To the Editors,
I am writing regarding Celia Farber's article "Out of Control", published in the latest edition of Harper's Magazine.
Ok, good start, John.
The article is unfair, inaccurate, contains many deceptive statements and, overall, shames the reputation of a serious magazine.
Can we get more vague and conclusory, John?
Ms. Harper makes many, silly scientific errors in her article, most of which could have been detected if the magazine had been appropriately diligent in its fact-checking.
Ms. Harper? Hey, dipshit -- the magazine is called "Harpers," the author you just noted above is Celia "Farber."
Only a few of the errors, however, are new and original ones; the majority are a repetition of the myths and willful misunderstandings about HIV and AIDS that have been perpetuated over the past 20 years by Ms. Farber and her fellow-members of a small clique of AIDS denialists.
We're waiting, John. You've wasted 5 or 6 sentences. Get to the @#%@%@ point! Also, "small clique of AIDS denialists means ---- the Triple Play!
The truth about HIV and AIDS has been published many times, in scientific publications, on the NIH's website, and as a statement signed by over 5000 individual scientists, physicians and health-care workers in 2000 - the Durban Declaration.
Still waiting, John. Please, please say something coherent. Also, in response to "NIH's website," we again mention the -- Triple Play!
Ms. Farber and her friends choose, quite deliberately, to ignore these inconvenient facts, because to acknowledge them would be to destroy the entire basis of her article.
Which "inconvenient facts" are you sputtering about, John? The inconvenient fact that nevirapine killed Ms. Hafford, or that Dr. Edward Tramont tried to cover-up his bogus science with respect to the Nevirapine trials in Uganda? Thank God for Dr. Fishbein.
If Harper's Magazine cares about accuracy and truth in reporting, it would grant equivalent space to bona fide scientists to publish a detailed rebuttal of Ms. Farber's falsehoods about HIV and AIDS.
Umm, you morons tried it, and gave us an unpublishable grid. However, you still haven't pointed out an error in the article.
I very much hope you will consider doing this: morality and fairness demand that you do.
Right. You poison the well by calling them "Denialists," and insinuate that Harpers lacks a fact-checker, yet you grovel for equal time. Ho-hum, John.
The central theme of Ms. Farber's article is that medical professionals, government officials and AIDS activists have united in a global conspiracy to enrich themselves at the expense of the public, by acting as the poodles of the pharmaceutical industry in promoting drugs that don't work for a disease that doesn't exist.
Totally false. Typical Goebbels'-esque strawman. Not a "global conspiracy," you moron, John, just bad science and pharmaceutical greed.
It's a compelling story - for lovers of conspiracy theories. But is it remotely plausible?
More straw.
Conspiracies only work when very, very few people are involved: if one wants to keep a secret, tell nobody else what it is. Is it realistic to believe that none of the hundreds of thousands of people involved in this alleged conspiracy over a 25-year period would have broken ranks by now? Surely someone would have spilled the beans, because of an attack of conscience, or a fight over the scale of the bribes?
Wheelbarrows full of straw. Hysteria. As for broken ranks, see what happened to Dr. Duesberg and Dr. Fishbein. This guy Moore is pathetic!
But no: this hasn't happened, because the conspiracy does not exist.
Right, the conspiracy doesn't exist. Glad we finally got there, John.
AIDS researchers and activists are united by one theme: the desire to prevent HIV from spreading further and to treat those who are already infected by this lethal virus.
Perhaps, the theme should be to treat AIDS patients? Perhaps, y'all have gone on a microbial goose-chase over a virus, that is so sparse, it cannot be cultured from AIDS patients, and is so harmless, that rats and monkeys don't even get it.
You might also want to take into account that at least one of the leading denialists, Dr. David Rasnick, a source of much of Ms. Farber's "information", is a paid employee of Matthias Rath, a multi-millionaire peddler of vitamin pills as a "cure" for AIDS who is engaged in a sales war against the pharmaceutical industry in South Africa.
Umm, don't recall reading much about Dr. Rasnick in the article, John. His one quote was:
"The scientific-medical complex is a $2 trillion industry. You can buy a lot of consensus for that kind of money."
Seems, kinda true and factual.
Of course, Ms. Farber neglects to point this out, but again in the interests of fairness, it's as relevant to the article as the calumnies perpetuated against bona fide scientists who know that antiviral drugs work as treatments for AIDS whereas vitamin pills do not.
Huh? Nothing in the article mentions vitamin pills. As for antiviral drugs, well, How'd they work out for Ms. Hafford?
An alternative argument might be that we are all, collectively and individually, simply too stupid to realize that we have wasted 25 years of our professional lives working on the wrong subject; that we lack the intellectual capacity to weigh the evidence, to understand the underlying science, to reject flawed hypotheses.
Now, we're finally making sense:)
Is this possible, given the sheer numbers and professional qualifications of the people involved (see, for example, the aforementioned Durban Declaration)?
Yes. See CIA -- report on weapons of mass destruction, Iraq in, March 2003.
Ms. Farber mentions in her article a few scientists, and a larger number of laymen, who have chosen not to believe that HIV causes AIDS.
Yes
By doing so, she makes a classic error: scientific truth is not established by one or two people, ....
True.
...it is created by consensus within a research community.
False. See Critchton, Michael, speech about bogus scientific consensus. Also, see global warming and eugenics. Also, see stem cell fraud.
It is always possible to find dissidents and denialists for any argument put forward by humans, be it scientific, political or the best shade to use for the bathroom wallpaper.
Incoherent.
But the mere existence of dissidents and denialists does not mean that they are right.
True. That's why Dr. Duesberg has published extensively on the issue.
Those familiar with the quiz show "Who wants to be a millionaire" will know that the best lifeline available to a contestant is to "Poll the audience". Almost always, the majority opinion of the audience is the correct answer; only a perverse person would elect to go with the outliers.
Huh? Is this man totally daft????? Methinks, he oughta cool it with unpopular game shows.
The causal relationship between HIV and AIDS has been accepted by numerous professional organizations, including the National Institutes of Health, the World Health Organization, the United Nations, the Pasteur Institute, the UK Medical Research Council and many others of equivalent standing.
Classic appeal to authority. We ain't interested in government bureuacracies, John, Where's the paper that proved it? Should be easy to cite.
Why? Because the scientific facts are so rock-solid, Ms. Farber's ill-informed opinions notwithstanding.
And, said "scientific facts" are .......?
In the interest of fairness and accuracy in reporting, you have an obligation to publish this letter. You should also commission an article of equivalent length from bona fide scientists, or at least from an objective science writer who understands the subject, to present the real facts about HIV and AIDS to your magazine's readership.
John Moore, PhD
Professor of Microbiology and Immunology
Weill Medical College of Cornell University, New York
Cold day in Hell, before that amateur screed sees the light of publication, but who knows, maybe the editors of Harper's are feeling charitable.
But, anyway, there you have it. A whining little weasel, who can't point to a solitary fact in Ms.Farber's piece that is inaccurate. Typical.
And, that is why, Dr. Moore, is .....
The Scientific Schmuck of the Week!
Long, but worth it!
The guy is a schmuck -- poor writer, too.
Why do they ignore the 2 main elements of the Harpers' article: the death of the pregnant woman and Fishbein's heroic effort to shead light on the cover-up?
Posted by: Bobby Baum | April 04, 2006 at 07:46 PM
I read the NY Times piece re Gallo, you cited. Remarkable.
Whatever happened to that charge of fraud?
Posted by: Fred Mack | April 04, 2006 at 08:04 PM
Hank,
Harsh! I did a google scholar search on "John P. Moore." He's all hot and heavy over CCR5 genes, but he's totally lost.
Also, here's his pitiful attempt to explain away the utter FAILURE to develop a vaccine.
Hmmm. Tried to link to a commentary in Nature Medicine, but couldn't.
Posted by: Cynthia | April 05, 2006 at 02:42 PM