Re: Response to first two links

AZT is a drug designed to incorporate itself into the virus' DNA, to stop replication. However, it also inhibits telomerase in cells, an enzyme that is essential to cell division. New drugs are being developed to combat HIV, so AZT may not be the final answer. Right now, AZT is one of the only drugs available to fight HIV, so dosages must be correct to not be worse than the disease itself.

Once again, I will provide the web page with studies showing that AZT helps fight AIDS:

http://www.niaid.nih.gov/publications/hivaids/23.htm

Consider all sides of the debate, like you are asking me too.

Peer-reviews journals are subject to all of the human folly we can muster? Would you rather have scientists publish un-reviewed papers at their own discretion? If this happened, then absolutely nothing would be accomplished. A published experiment must be reproducible; usually experiments are repeated independently many times over. If a researcher is driven by "financial gain," why would he publish an experiment that can't be reproduced, and would therefore not result in financial gain?

Viruses are not the only cause of disease, and I think if anyone would know this, the medical community would. You imply that viruses are the only cause of disease when you say "Viruses as the cause of disease is a well-entrenched dogma in the medical community." I think it has been well established that some, not all, diseases are caused by viruses.

Why, if "we have immune systems which are perfectly capable of fighting off any infection," are there ailments that have no record of cure and/or survival when no medical attention at all is given (i.e. Black Plague (caused by bacteria), AIDS, smallpox(caused by a virus), cancer, etc.)? A "lowered immune response" would naturally result in opportunistic diseases, but this is hardly an argument against viruses causing disease. If every disease is caused by a lowered immune response, what causes the different types of disease? Please define "infectious agents."


"Science really only ever advances when we find new ideas (and eventually accept them) -- not when we rehash the same ideas over and over and try to force them onto data which do not support them."

This is a contradiction in itself. New ideas should be accepted when they can be shown to be true, or at least supported to be true. Ideas can't be accepted simply because they are "new." In your studies you must have found out that Science is advanced when people study an idea in every way possible, in essence, "rehashing" the same ideas over and over. Tweet