CJ: That sounds like a serious flaw in the idea that these particles are transmitted from one person to another. How do the experts respond?

EPE: They avoid it. And the knobs problem is not something new. The German group drew attention to it in the late 1980s and again in 1992 [15,16]. As soon as an HIV particle is released from a cell, all the knobs disappear. This single fact has many ramifications. For example, three quarters of all hemophiliacs tested are HIV-antibody positive. The claim is that these hemophiliacs have HIV infections acquired from infusions of contaminated factor VIII, which they need to treat their clotting deficiency. The problem is that factor VIII is made from plasma, which is blood with all the cells removed. That means if there are any HIV particles present in factor VIII, they must be floating free in solution. But if cell-free HIV has no knobs, then those HIVs have no way of getting into fresh cells to infect them.

CJ: Then how do you explain HIV antibodies and AIDS in hemophiliacs?

EPE: My colleagues and I have published several papers discussing alternative explanations for AIDS in hemophiliacs, including one wholly devoted to the subject [17].

[Editor's note: Even if there is no HIV, the presumed HIV proteins are still present in the plasma from which HIV is claimed to be isolated. Thus, Factor VIII made from such plasma would contain those proteins, and it would therefore cause patients treated with it to produce antibodies against those proteins. So you don't need HIV to become "HIV-positive." As for "AIDS," Papadopulos-Eleopulos and her colleagues in their papers explain that clotting factor therapy itself is immune suppressive.]

CJ: I find it very hard to accept that hemophiliacs have not been infected through contaminated clotting concentrates. And I bet hemophiliacs do, too.

EPE: Let me explain another way. According to the CDC, if an HIV-infected person sheds blood due to a cut, that blood is only infectious for a few hours, because drying destroys HIV [18]. Have you ever seen a vial of factor VIII? It comes as a dry, flaky, yellowish powder. By the time it's used, it's at least a couple of months old. So how can factor VIII cause HIV infection?

CJ: How solid is the evidence prior to March 1997 that HIV exists?

EPE: Sticking to particles, all the evidence comes from electron micrographs of whole cell cultures. Not density gradients. From this evidence it can be said that cell cultures contain a large variety of particles, some of which are claimed to look like retroviral particles. That's all. None of the particle data has been taken further. No purification, no analysis, and no proof of replication.

Several research groups, including Hans Gelderblom and his associates from the Koch Institute in Berlin who specialize in this area, have examined these cultures and found not just one type of virus-like particle, but a stunning array of them [13, 19, 20].

This raises several questions. If one of these particle species really does represent a retrovirus experts call HIV, what are all the others? Which of these particles band at 1.16 gm/ml? If the HIV particles cause AIDS, why doesn't one or several of the other retroviral-looking species also cause AIDS? Why don't all the particles cause AIDS? Or, rather than causing AIDS, is it possible that AIDS causes these objects, including the ones called HIV, to appear? Is it possible that the culturing process causes these objects to appear?

And when it comes to HIV, the HIV experts can't even agree upon which of these various objects to call HIV. There are three subfamilies of retroviruses, and HIV has been classified by different research groups under two of these subfamilies, as well as three different species.

CJ: Where does this leave us?

EPE: We still don't know what any of the particles are. We don't have a definite particle proven to be a retrovirus from which to take proteins and RNA to use in tests for infection in people, or to do experiments to try and understand what is happening if there truly is a virus causing AIDS.

CJ: Let's suppose that we do have a picture of a band at the right density gradient, and it contains nothing but thousands of particles all the right size and shape, and with knobs. What should be done next to prove these objects are retroviruses?

EPE: The next steps are to disrupt the particles, find out what proteins and RNA are in them, prove one of the proteins is an enzyme, reverse transcriptase, which turns RNA into DNA, and that the RNA codes for all the proteins. And finally, take more of the density gradient and prove that when pure particles are put into a virgin cell culture, exactly the same particles made up of the same constituents come out.

CJ: And has this been done?

EPE: No. To understand what has been done, we really must examine Gallo's experiments from 1984.