HIV experts line up to refute denier

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http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,21151217-2702,00.html

HIV experts line up to refute denier

February 01, 2007

ROYAL

Perth Hospital has been urged to cease all support for a staff member

who denied the existence of HIV while giving evidence in court.

Flinders

University emeritus professor Mc, who conducts research on

HIV-AIDS, said members of The Perth Group, led by Eleni

Papadopulos-Eleopulos, "should not be tolerated by their institutions

who are employing them as scientists and medical professionals".

"The hospital can withdraw supplies and decree they must never

indicate any association with Royal Perth Hospital in any communication

they make, either in writing or on the internet," Professor Mc

said.

Ms Papadopulos-Eleopulos, who is a medical physicist at RPH, has

been giving evidence in the appeal of Andre Chad Parenzee, 35, who has

been convicted of exposing three women to the deadly virus by failing

to tell them he was HIV-positive.

She has testified for the defence that HIV does not exist, does not

cause AIDS and is not sexually transmitted.

Her testimony, along with that of her colleague at The Perth Group,

emergency doctor Val , has spurred at least seven eminent

Australian HIV-AIDS researchers to give evidence for the prosecution.

That evidence starts today with a video link-up from the South

Australian Supreme Court in Adelaide to , director of the

National Centre in HIV Epidemiology and Clinical Research at the

University of NSW.

Immunologist Gustav Nossal is expected to give either written or

oral evidence next week, along with renowned HIV-AIDS researcher and

University of Melbourne associate professor Dax.

Professor Mc will also take the stand, but yesterday he

expanded on claims made in court by the prosecution that The Perth

Group was misrepresenting published scientific papers to support its

claims about HIV and AIDS.

He called for Australian ethical standards, as set out by the

National Health and Medical Research Council, to be applied to The

Perth Group.

A council spokesman said ethical standards were not enforceable upon

scientists unless they received council funding. The Perth Group does

not.

The current joint NHMRC-Australian Vice-Chancellors Committee

guidelines on ethical standards, which dates from 1997, says: "A

researcher shall not with intent deceive, or in reckless disregard for

the truth, omit a fact so that what is stated or presented as a whole

states or presents a material or significant falsehood."

RPH executive director Philip Montgomery said: "Royal Perth Hospital

does not support The Perth Group's views on HIV, and group members have

been instructed that they will not use any hospital resources for work

related to their private research.

"Furthermore, the staff have also been instructed that their private

research should not be linked in any way to Royal Perth Hospital."

Ms Papadopulos-Eleopulos strongly denied misrepresenting others

research, admitting that she accurately represents data from papers but

may disagree with the "analysis and speculation" of the papers'

authors.

And she said an agreement with the hospital made in 1988 allowed her

to publish research admitting her link to the hospital.