HEAL London

To cast our eyes over what is now a relatively old news item, in July 2007 the New York Times published an article, "Morrison says error in HIV test hurt career". This relates to the boxer Tommy Morrison who was previously diagnosed HIV+ and effectively banned from boxing, but has subsequently been diagnosed HIV negative by various means and is now boxing again.

What's interesting about this is that Tommy Morrison is challenging the shibboleth that HIV tests are reliable, by virtue of having had several positive diagnoses previously and has now had several repeated negative diagnoses. This contradicts the presuppositions in the popular belief and mainstay of the HIV/AIDS orthodoxy that once you've 'got' HIV, you've got it for life. His results can only mean that either:

a) HIV tests are not reliable, or

b) You don't necessarily have HIV for life.

To consider either of these being true strikes at the very heart of 'HIV/AIDS', and would be a severe threat to the profitability of AIDS and many people's careers if too many people started believing this, so scientists asked have had to do some serious pedalling to try to explain it. One gets a sense also that the journalist who wrote this story wants to cling to the orthodox beliefs, judging by their unabashed repetition of some of the orthodox mantras - "The virus is not curable" - but yet is also trying to make sense of it themselves.

It's a delicious pleasure to read about dogmatic scientists squirming when their arrogant assertions are challenged by empirical evidence. You can read the full article here.