Re: establishment false assumptions about hiv

"I don't have to read every scientific paper to see the big picture. Yes, a big part of it is politics. The way people's beliefs are manipulated is through the media. I don't have those beliefs anymore, so I can see through the propaganda."

I didn't say you had to read EVERY scientific paper. But if you are accusing a scientific phenomenon (which actually occurs, and is directly observable, and which can be proven in the laboratory, and which you too could prove in the laboratory if you had the training) of being "convenient", you are essentially accusing it of being not real. You are saying that it is bad science. Good Science is not convenient; if it confirms the theory, it may be elegant, but it is not "convenient". I see no way that you can call something bad Science unless you actually understand it (and to do that, you would have had to have read it).
You can say that scientists' ideas are manipulated. That does not change the fact that the phenomena you find to be "convenient" are directly observable, and you, or anyone else with different assumptions, can replicate the findings if you so wish. Calling something propoganda does not make out a cogent argument against it. For the second time, what is the problem with the Science regarding HIV progression? How is it "propaganda"? And how can you know it is propaganda if you do not even know what it says because you have not even read it?

"Science only applies to a narrow set of conditions. If you consider only Science you can get bogged down in minute details and miss the big picture."

I might say that those who refuse to look at the details in constructing their "big picture" are quite likely to get the entire landscape wrong! We are, after all, dealing with a very complex subject matter. I am suspicious of those who try to over-simplify things by saying "no, no, I see the big picture". Such arguments have been used to justify all sorts of incompetencies and atrocities throughout history. Perhaps some of us are able to keep forests AND trees in our pretty little heads at the same time? Perhaps those of us who can't should not be the ones running things?

"The conclusions you reach from a scientific experiment are based on your previous beliefs. If you and I have different beliefs we will have different conclusions based on the same experiment."

You still are not saying what your problem is with the long-term non-progressor studies. This is a whole bunch of rhetoric that does not answer my question, and just skips around the point.

Or, to take it one step back in your discourse, you are not saying what beliefs you think are leading scientists to jump to incorrect conclusions in the long-term non-progressor studies. If you are going to make a specific claim, you need to back it up with more than generalities about scientists being brainwashed dolts or whatever. That's just ideology and, quite frankly, your own brand of propaganda (whether one agrees with it or not). It says nothing about why you find the LTNP studies invalid. If scientists are a bunch of brainwashed dolts, it should be incredibly easy to look at a LTNP study and find the flaws.

"It's a convenient way to explain things that go against their medical model."

That would suggest that LTNPs go against the "medical model" of HIV progression. Nothing could be further from the truth! I'll assume that you, like most HIV denialists, are a decade or so behind on HIV research, but you really should catch up! It would actually be quite a lot to read in one sitting, so why don't you tell me what you think the current medical model of AIDS pathogenesis is, and why you think LTNPs go against it, and perhaps I can help clear up any misconceptions (since I actually do keep up on the literature).

"It's very similar to how people are taking hiv medication due to the fear of getting sick and dying."

Nobody scares people into taking HIV medications. In the US (and every other country), there is currently a conservative approach to prescribing ART: most immunologists probably think earlier treatment is better (and there is data to support this), but practical considerations prevail, and treatment is started relatively late. The textbook of HIV medicine recommends not even trying to reason with patients who have firmly decided that they do not want HIV medication (denialists). HIV patients go through all sorts of nutritional counseling, and their doctors give them vitamins, encourage all sorts of lifestyle changes to keep them healthy, etc. But other than this (none of which prevents a person from getting AIDS, although it may slow it down by a year or two), there is little besides medication that can stop progression. Many have tried. Many have failed.

It's not actually fear of getting sick and dying. Perhaps you do not remember the 1980s: people WERE dying, everywhere, all the time. Nothing could stop it. And it laid to waste some of the most beautiful, muscular, well-cared-for men who ever graced this earth. Perhaps you (and others) do not intend to soil their memories by suggesting that anyone can prevent AIDS if they really REALLY want to and just take good care of themselves. But you do.
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