The real AIDS epidemic : how the tragic HIV mistake threatens us all

Four decades after And the Band Played On created an image of the AIDS epidemic that has survived in the public consciousness to this very day, mathematician Rebecca Culshaw is sounding the alarm that everything that iconic book told us about AIDS is demonstrably wrong. And that mistaken understanding of AIDS and its cause has the potential to affect all of us, not just certain so-called risk groups. In The Real AIDS Epidemic , Rebecca Culshaw describes her slow uncovering of these reasons over her years researching HIV for her work constructing mathematical models of its interaction with the immune system. It is rare that a researcher, having studied HIV, ever expresses any doubt in the paradigm, and an even rarer event still when she abandons the field altogether. Culshaw's book, updated from its original edition, which was titled Science Sold Out , is one of the great insider-turned-whistleblower stories of our time. The Real AIDS Epidemic focuses on the politics of the changing definition of AIDS and the flaws in all HIV testing. In a much broader sense, it explains how the current, government-based structure of scientific research has corrupted science as the search for truth. It offers not only scientific reasons for HIV/AIDS being untenable, but also sociological explanations as to how the theory was accepted by the media and the world so quickly. In particular, this book offers a scathing criticism of the outrageous discriminatory measures that have been leveled at HIV-positives from the inception. She also warns that the toxic drugs being foisted on the Black and gay communities constitute one of the worst medical violations of human rights since the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment. The compelling case she makes that the AIDS establishment has led us into a biomedical disaster through incompetence, fraud, and deceit will have many readers throwing their hands up and feeling helpless and hopeless. But she does something no other book that is critical about HIV and AIDS has done. She suggests a series of strategic actions the scientific community, Congress, the media, and the public can take to undo the damage that the powerful AIDS establishment has done since the epidemic began in 1981. Four decades after And the Band Played On created an image of the AIDS epidemic that has survived in the public consciousness to this very day, mathematician Rebecca Culshaw is sounding the alarm that everything that iconic book told us about AIDS is demonstrably wrong. And that mistaken understanding of AIDS and its cause has the potential to affect all of us, not just certain so-called risk groups. In The Real AIDS Epidemic, Rebecca Culshaw describes her slow uncovering of these reasons over her years researching HIV for her work constructing mathematical models of its interaction with the immune system. It is rare that a researcher, having studied HIV, ever expresses any doubt in the paradigm, and an even rarer event still when she abandons the field altogether. Culshaw's book, updated from its original edition, which was titled Science Sold Out, is one of the great insider-turned-whistleblower stories of our time. The Real AIDS Epidemic focuses on the politics of the changing definition of AIDS and the flaws in all HIV testing. In a much broader sense, it explains how the current government-based structure of scientific research has corrupted science as the search for truth. It offers not only scientific reasons for HIV/AIDS being untenable, but also sociological explanations as to how the theory was accepted by the media and the world so quickly. In particular, this book offers a scathing criticism of the outrageous discriminatory measures that have been leveled at HIV-positives from the inception. She also warns that the toxic drugs being foisted on the Black and gay communities constitute one of the worst medical violations of human rights since the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment. The compelling case she makes that the AIDS establishment has led us into a biomedical disaster through incompetence, fraud, and deceit will have many listeners throwing their hands up and feeling helpless and hopeless. But she does something no other book that is critical about HIV and AIDS has done. She suggests a series of strategic actions the scientific community, Congress, the media, and the public can take to undo the damage that the powerful AIDS establishment has done since the epidemic began in 1981 A petition organized by advocacy group AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) has been delivered to publisher Simon & Schuster. The petition alleges that the forthcoming The Real AIDS Epidemic: How the Tragic HIV Mistake Threatens Us All (March 28) by Rebecca Culshaw is factually incorrect and carries a risk to public health.The ACT UP statement read in part:The thesis of Culshaw’s book is that HIV does not conclusively cause AIDS, but that this was a ‘mistake’ made in the 1980s and never amended or corrected. To the contrary, that HIV causes AIDS was demonstrated first in the 1980s, when the virus was discovered, and subsequently research has only strengthened that causal link in the subsequent decades, including via in vitro systems, in animal models, including non-human primates, via molecular phylogenetics, and in human samples.The statement called for the publisher to “create a public health working group to assure community members that this will not happen again” and also characterized Culshaw as a “recognized AIDS denialist.”The United Nations estimates that around 650,000 people died in 2021 from AIDS-related illnesses, and that more than 40 million people have died since the beginning of the epidemic. There were 38.4 million living with HIV in 2021. The National Institutes of Health notes that antiretroviral drugs have increased the lifespan of people living with HIV from one year in the 80s to a normal life span today.