Dueling HIV Theories: Does It Glue or Loop?

"That's just like my glue theory of cell killing, now, isn't it?" William Hazeltine, CEO of Genencure, Inc. told a reporter for Nature recently when asked about Robert Gallo’s “loop theory” of HIV promoted cell killing, which he also claims explains how the virus can discriminate between boys and girls and remain 80% male in the US after 25 years while being  evenly distributed between the sexes in Africa. I personally think it is as good an explanation as any I’ve heard, and makes more sense than the hand job hustle his partners in crime fooled the NY Times with last week. The following is taken from a recent exclusive interview in which Dr. Gallo agreed to talk to YBYL about Hazeltine’s remarks. [Otis]

Gallo:  "Glue? Did I hear that correctly? Hazeltine is calling my “loops” virus glue?”

His tone of voice suggested criminal offense.

YBYL: "Well, sure. There's a lot of talk around that Glue and Loop Theory are really different ways of saying the same thing. Some scientists say Loops is just an obscure way of talking about Glue They say that glue theory -- that HIV infected cells get glued together, and that no two HIV infected cells are glued up the same way -- is much clearer than talking about Loops and that glue has been found, whereas nobody has ever seen a Loop. Do you have any comment on that?"

Gallo: “Do I have any comment on that? Yes, I have plenty of comment on that. You're no scientist and you just listen to me. I run the most prestigious HIV laboratory in the world. Just you get that straight. There is no such thing as virus glue. Do you hear me? It's an experimental artifact. Viral Glue Theory is just Loop Theory in drippy clothes. There's no glue there. If there were, it would be like a machine all gummed up. Where's the thinking in glue? Did you ever ask yourself that question? Go ask it of your scientists. Talk about being obscure. If Loops were glue, then Loops couldn't loop. It's the Loops that form a kind of Scotch tape, linking -- that's the important word -- linking and looping, you get it?  When I wrote my 'Outline of the Theory of the Loop and Infectious Disease,' I spoke about a mathematical glue -- it's really too difficult to explain, there's just no good mathematics around to describe it, but that's what it is, mathematical glue, a mathematical glue that pastes, mathematically speaking, of course, the cell and the virus and another cell together. That's where they got the idea of a glue. The rest of the article was too difficult for them to understand.  Mathematics is what Loops are all about. You can't manufacture mathematical glue. It's like calling the plus sign of addition, a glue. Addition isn't pasting numbers together. Adding uses a mathematical glue. HIV’s got a mathematical glue too -- in the Loops. But it's a lot more complicated than 'gluing' numbers together. It 'glues' patents. That's what comes of trying to simplify mathematical and scientific ideas. It gets to be a gooey mess -- a lot of glue. Virus glue is like putting shit between papers and hoping they'll stick together. Sure they'll stick, but who wants the papers after that?”

That's what HIV theory does -- puts shit in your brains, I thought, but didn’t say as Dr. Gallo continued on about the centripetal force of Italian ejaculations stripping the essential looping chemicals from the virus and that was why the “Mack truck that could kill Superman” needed special loop gene mutations to infect XX genotypes in the west but not in Africa where the variants contained pseudo-polymorphic loop mutations that suppressed the effect, in trans, of partial replication defectives, thus accounting for an uneven sexual distribution; cursed me for being a layman with no scientific credentials, and then abruptly hung up the phone with no additional explanation.

[With thanks to Marcel Girodian for the concept, and Israel Rosenfeld for most of the words]

Comments

[Robert Gallo]

You left out the most important question Otis. But what can one expect from a layman reporter with "denialist" tendencies hopelessly out of his depth when interviewing genius?

So I will answer it here since the internet allows for almost *instant publication* of important results.

"How did the original infection of people in rainforests become an epidemic? Here we must rely on history. I presume people in rainforests (especially hunters) were occasionally infected for a long time, but died with their disease. Migration to cities may have been associated with increased prostitution. The movement of the rainforests to the world can be seen as the consequence of post World War II societal changes: increased travel with increased promiscuity, advancing intravenous drug addiction, and blood and blood products moving from one nation to another for medical purposes."

"A reflection on HIV/AIDS research after 25 years" (Retrovirology 2006, 3:72) Received 4 October 2006/Accepted 20 October 2006/Published 20 October 2006

www.retrovirology.com/content/3/1/72

[noreen martin]

Who cares about some loop or glue theory Robert Gallo but what we would like to know is why you stole this virus from the French, another from the Japanese, why have you let the "probable" cause of AIDS be spoken as the gospel truth, why did you patent a fraudalant test, to become an overnight millionaire and why have you let thousands of lives be ruined and allowed many deaths by toxic drugs, which were due to lies or your work. This is what we all want to know!

[Knobless Oblige]

Speak for yourself Ms. Martin!

Myself and a goodly number of others I imagine with PROPER scientific credentials and a deep understanding of HIV pathogenesis debate, wish VERY much to know on which side of the ledger, so to speak, Dr. Gallo comes down, and are XXXtremely interested in whether it is loops of the non-fruity, para-transfinite, mathematical kind or simple amalgams of gluey 'cules that account for the destructive properties that have been attributed to HIV since it arrived on The Murch decades ago.

The other stuff you rant about is nothing but vulgar ad hominems of the sort we have grown both accustomed to from you denialists and quite tired of dear lady, if that is indeed what you are.

[Lise]

"The movement of the rainforests to the world"

I look'd toward Birnam, and anon, methought,
The wood began to move.

Ring the alarum-bell! Blow, wind! come, wrack!
At least we'll die with harness on our back.

[Otis]

I was just checking some of the referrals from this morning and found that Dean Esmay has noticed this Gallo interview in a cute "one worder", "Heh" - with a hyperlink.

As of a few moments ago, the comments to it contained the following:

davedief ([email protected])

Uh, oh. Looks like a metaphor battle is brewing here.

11.5.2006 9:00am

Eccles the Idiot:

I beg to differ davedief,

I myself have written several letters to the editor of Nature, Phillip Campbell, urging him to open an entire correspondence section to this important (non-metaphorical), debate within the ranks of the HIV/AIDS orthodoxy, as it shows those dumb denialists what a real scientific debate looks like, instead of the tripe and creationist arguments they like to throw around.

11.5.2006 10:27am

[Aetiology Fan]

Typical.

I have checked all the recent issues of Nature going back to the beginning of this summer and there is absolutely no interview with Dr. Hazeltine, and furthermore he is *not* the CEO of Genencor, Inc. The denialist morons can't even spell correctly.

I advise you all to come over to Dr. Smith's site, where you can find really sophisticated writing and up to the minute factoids that come in handy when I play Jeopardy with my sophisticated, intellectual friends after we finish watching The West Wing, right John?

[William Hazeltine]

Of course Gallo defends his "Loop theory". Unfortunately, he has little evidence to back up his "mathematical" glue. He should take a look at my slide published on the NIH website -- which shows DEFINITIVELY that as the amount of virus glue increases, the level of DVD4+ T-cells decreases dramatically, and the infectious diseases occur. I would like to see Gallo produce a similar slide for his "Loop theory". Scotch tape, my ass.

-- Honest Dollar Bill Hazeltine, *not* to be confused with the once well-known, now retired with a platinum parachute provided by conning hundreds of millions of stockholder dollars by promising "cures for death", former Harvard HIV/AIDS researcher, patron of the fine arts and founder of Human Genome Sciences, Willam A. Haseltine.

[jspreen]

I advise you all to come over to Dr. Smith's site

You may advise but the problem is that Dr. Smith locks people out every time she doesn't know what to say anymore.

[Gianpiero Siron]

Honestly, I do not know for certain that the words of Dr. Gallo above are all in the spirit of good natured fun, although I would wager considerable sums if offered the chance that they are.

However, this "loop" is real and not funny at all, and I wonder how many other people have wondered about it over the years.

The man who invented HIV, looped it into his own personal multimillion dollar, taxpayer funded institute, called with no shame, The Institute of Human Virology IHV

How's that for "In your pasta fazuuli face" out there?

Makes me proud to be Italian.

[Undergrad Gal/Guy (XX/XY)]

Hey there!

Bet you were wondering where I was but honestly do you think I spend all my time on the internet? Well I don't o). I have been busy getting my outrageous library fees adjusted so that I can register for all the classes that I thought I didn't have to take and that brings me to why I have to take a break from this important stuff to write to my fav weblog or whatever it is.

This Dr. Smith sounds a lot like my ditzy bio prof. Every time anyone in the class says anything that is not like a total nodding up and down 6 o clock yes she turns into the beetch that our hairdresser says she is besides being a lousy tipper.

Think they could be related?

All that other stuff about loops and crazy glue sounds way cool but I couldn't find nothing about it on the net with my best 3.5 mins of Googling so I guess that it must be pretty advanced and that's why prof Ditz didn't even mention it.

[patrick Moore]

Prof. Smith's website is where biomass flies extrordinarily LOW. It is a good place for character assassination only.

"I advise you all to come over to Dr. Smith's site, where you can find really sophisticated writing and up to the minute factoids that come in handy..."

factoid= fact-like, resembling a fact.

[Kevin]

"I advise you all to come over to Dr. Smith's site"

jspreen wrote:
You may advise but the problem is that Dr. Smith locks people out every time she doesn't know what to say anymore.

Wonder if she's locked me out. I haven't checked the site in a few days but I was pulling the ears of a few of her favorite henchmen, last week. They're a fun bunch, given their unique combination of ill-manners and stylized ignorance.