Re: response from WBAI re: Null's AIDS denialism

[Guest guest]

If Null says HIV exists, causes AIDS and antiretroviral therapy is a critical component of care, we can rescind the letter. Til then...you can see some of my responses to Mitch here:http://lbo-news.com/2010/11/15/pacifica-death-watch-cont-gary-null-edition/#comments Mind you, I use some colorful language eventually in my disgust for this nonsense. M. On Nov 16, 2010, at 9:54 AM, jesse1234martinez wrote:

I emailed the directors of WBAI, as suggested by someone on the poshealth board, re: the broadcast of Null's program and his AIDS denialism. Below is the response I received from the chairman of the board at WBAI:

[Guest guest]

Interesting reply. You get challenged into a 'time consuming debate' or deal with NULL. Null believes only in Null. A waste of time. Mr. Disinformation, the guy will never change. He's toxic.

MS.

response from WBAI re: Null's AIDS denialism

I emailed the directors of WBAI, as suggested by someone on the poshealth board, re: the broadcast of Null's program and his AIDS denialism. Below is the response I received from the chairman of the board at WBAI:

Dear Jess,

Your form letter makes a number of assertions about what Null believes, let alone says over the air, without documenting your claims.

I cannot speak for (and wouldn't dare try to!), but as a former member of the Holistic and Alternative Treatments Committee of ACT UP-NY, as coordinator of the NoSpray Coalition against toxic pesticides, as a Bro oklyn Green Party organizer -- and as someone who has witnessed relatives, friends diagnosed with HIV and AIDS (and who are said to have died from opportunistic infections related to it) -- I certainly have many questions as to the entire history of HIV, its relationship to what is called "AIDS", ecological impacts and causes for disease based on toxic dumping and pollution, and the appropriateness of pharmaceutical treatments for the "disease". After all of these years, most of them remain unanswered in a way I consider to be satisfactory.

I don't see the point in shutting off that process of questioning, of challenging. In fact, I find it disastrous.

On Null's prior programs on WBAI, discussion of AIDS and HIV accounted for around 10 percent of his programs, maybe less. And, contrary to your (and others') inferences, he never, ever promoted his line of products on the air.

No doubt he benefited financially from his on-air popularity, the same as m ost authors do who are interviewed over the airwaves. But Null was always careful to be very circumspect about his claims, and allowed -- even invited -- contrary opinions on his show (unlike many hosts at WBAI).

That is why in all the attacks upon Null that I've seen concerning this matter, there are very few actual quotes from Null provided by those calling for banning Null from the airwaves. And of those few quotes, not a single one actually provides evidence as to the claims they are marshalled to support.

Furthermore -- and again unlike most other show hosts at WBAI -- Null has agreed to open up his show to those who disagree with him, and to engage in public debates on this and other issues.

Null was arbitrarily fired without any sense of due process from WBAI 6 years ago NOT for making reckless scientific statements on the air, but for running afoul of the then Program Director. Many of those who decry the "arbitrary" decision to r eturn Null to his previous timeslot said nothing at the time about the arbitrary decision to fire him and his audience, along with several other popular producers (such as Knight, for example). So I take such protests from those people as examples of opportunism and hypocrisy.

You write as though anyone who questions the science around HIV and AIDS are all in the same camp, or hold the same views. As you know, for many years the AIDS and HIV critics were hardly united -- they had (and still have) many divisions among them, over such questions as:

- Does HIV exist?

- Does it exist according to Koch's postulates for "isolating" a micro-organism?

- If it exists, is it always present in AIDS cases?

- Can HIV be detected in people who do not have AIDS?

- Could it be a marker for disease and not the cause?

- What do we mean by "to cause"?

- If the virus exists, could it have been produced as part of biowarfare experiments by the US Gover nment?

- What is the role of "Co-Factors" and why are they needed to cause this disease?

- Do people die of AIDS, or from Opportunistic Infections?

- What is the role of malnutrition in AIDS in Africa?

- Why are the definitions for what constitutes AIDS different in different parts of the world, unlike the definition for every other disease?

- Is AIDS a disease or a "syndrome"? What's the difference?

- Did AZT kill more people than it helped?

- Do anti-virals work to save people's lives?

- What are the roles of viruses in the body?

- How accurate are the tests for the virus? For antibodies?

- Are the tests themselves based on flawed science? (Kerry Mullis' view.)

- Are the anti-virals' side effects more debilitating than what they are supposed to be fighting?

- Can rigorous nutrition and supplements fight AIDS better than anti-virals?

On and on and on. These and other questions still haunt our lives. To shut off that debate, to assu me that people's views (including Null's) don't change over time as more knowledge becomes available, or that there is only one Truth and you are its emissary, is ... well ... let's just say that attitude is harmful.

To preclude people from hearing contrasting views on all of this is reprehensible.

Let the people hear the arguments; let the people ourselves decide.

Mitchel Cohen

Chair, WBAI Local Station Board*

*for ID purposes only

PS. Two decades ago I'd written several articles myself on the questions I had (and continue to have) pertaining to HIV/AIDS, and published them in the journal I edited, "Red Balloon". I also wrote a long introduction to a pamphlet I published that featured a very good alternative critique by Bob Lederer, who has since become a proponent of the mainstream view on HIV/AIDS but who had a very different view back then.

I'll be glad to send it to you in electronic form, upon request.

Mitchel