The first time I wrote something for YBYL, I told a true story of what I had heard in the national media and read in Argentinian newspapers about a court of law that acquited a bunch of doctors who were accused of severe misconduct in causing “HIV infections” during dialysis procedures back in 1997.
Since the news nowadays is about the Parenzee case being held in Australia, I wanted to know more about that trial. So last week, I telephoned one of the judges that presided over the case and he immediately agreed to see me in his office. I travelled 300 kilometers just to hear what he could remember.
Judge Guillermo Labombarda had been expecting me as I could immediately see. At first, he wanted to know why I was interested in an old case, but as soon as I told him about the aussie thing, he understood.
We began exchanging information and facts of the dialysis trial, and he gave me copies of some newspaper articles of that time, each of which wrote the same things that the media is writing nowadays about the Perth Group.
The basis for the absolving verdict was very simple, he said. “Both sides of the literature were evaluated and it appeared that the whole thing could in fact be very different from what we had been told for years. So, the Court could not convict anyone when there is such controversy about the issue."
Here I translate some of the statements in the verdict. The Court of Appeals “Sala 2” seated in La Plata City, Capitol of Buenos Aires Province said:
“Thus, it is not properly credited the materiality of an illegal conduct that consists in propagating a dangerous or contagious disease, when from the actual state of science doesn´t emerge as scientifically demonstrated that HIV is the cause of AIDS. I sustain this, not only in the medical doctrine brought by the defense, but also in the Robert Root-Bernstein´s book “Rethinking AIDS, The tragic cost of premature consensus”, Free Press, Macmillan, Inc. New York, 1993”. And further they said: “… if we don´t have the certainty that the detected virus is the cause of the desease, and in fact there are many scientists nowadays thinking that HIV might be just a simple passenger in a complex process of immunedepression caused by other factors (ver “Repensar el Sida“ Editado por AMC, Madrid, España, 1994, passim), this Criminal Court of Law finds no possibility of elaboration of a definitive, legal, and valid judgement. Especially taking into account that people who suffer from kidney insufficiency are often terminal patients whose immunological system is totally depressed, and that situation puts them at risk of almost any infection, specially of the lungs” (Judge Horatio Pimbo).
Another judge of the Court, Benjamin Sal, said: “It is undeniable that the original apocalyptic message of VIH=AIDS=DEATH, is now, at least, controverted. The same doubts are growing about the ethiology, infectiousness, ways of treating the desease, prevention, control, and the social impact that the theory has produced.”
I left his office with a feeling of hope in justice as an institution. As you can see, the Court didn't take sides. It only acknowledged that there was a legitimate controversy among the specialits, and on that basis it could not side decisively for the proseceution.
Men of law must leave the HIV/AIDS dogmas for the believers to whom I say, go back and read your own journals with the proper attitude and attention, because in Argentina, if you don't, you will lose, again.
Marcos el Abogado (aka) "Funes el Memorioso" lives and works in Buenos Aires
Comments