Review of the Italian Conference on AIDS and Retroviruses by Prof. Marco Ruggiero

Firenze 2011, The End of Dissent

Prof. Marco Ruggiero March, 2011 On March 27–29, 2011 Firenze, Italy, hosted the Italian Conference on AIDS and Retroviruses, a conference under the High Patronage of the Italian President of the Republic, the Ministry of Health, the Region of Tuscany, the Province of Firenze, the Municipality of Firenze, the Universities of Firenze and Rome, the National Scientific Societies, the Public Health Service, several organizations involved in the fight against AIDS and, most important, the International AIDS Society (IAS). This conference precedes the IAS conference that will be held in Rome in July. It is well known that for more than 25 years the opinions of so called dissident scientists such as Professors Peter Duesberg and Henry Bauer were never allowed in mainstream conferences and any voice questioning the role of HIV in causing AIDS was systematically shut off. Associations for the scientific reappraisal of the HIV/AIDS hypothesis such as Rethinking AIDS were never invited or even allowed to participate. This deplorable state of affairs officially came to an end in Firenze with the formal and official recognition of the contributions of scientists such as Duesberg, Bauer, Fiala, Kohenlein, Rasnick, Pacini, Nicholson, Morucci, Ruggiero, Galletti, Branca, Punzi or Mandrioli, all questioning the role of HIV in the aetiology and pathogenesis of AIDS. In fact, their communications were accepted for presentation after a regular peer–review process and the relative abstracts are now published in a special issue of Infection a peer–reviewed journal of infectious disease that is the official publication of the following societies: German Society for Infectious Diseases Paul Ehrlich Society for Chemotherapy German Sepsis Society Italian Society of Infectious and Tropical Diseases (SIMIT) “Infection” also cooperates with: European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases European Society of Chemotherapy Infectious Diseases Swiss Society for Infectious Diseases “Infection” is abstracted/Indexed in: Abstracts in Anthropology, Academic OneFile, AGRICOLA, ASFA, Biological Abstracts, BIOSIS, CAB Abstracts, CAB International, Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS), CINAHL, CSA, Current Abstracts, Current Contents/ Life Sciences, Current Contents/Clinical Medicine, EBSCO, Elsevier Biobase, EMBASE, EMCare, Environment Index, Expanded Academic, Global Health, Google Scholar, Health Reference Center Academic, IBIDS, Index Copernicus, INIS Atomindex, Journal Citation Reports/Science Edition, OCLC, PubMed/Medline, Science Citation Index, Science Citation Index Expanded (SciSearch), SCOPUS, Summon by Serial Solutions. The four communications that were accepted in the March 2011 supplement to Infection were: Results of Epidemiological Surveillance of AIDS Cases in Tuscany by Branca, Pacini and Ruggiero. Meta-Analysis and Update on the General AIDS Epidemics Predicted for Africa by Duesberg, Mandrioli, McCormack, Nicholson, Del Popolo, Rasnick, Fiala, Koehnlein and Bauer. Effects of Cadmium and Gc-Macrophage Activating Factor (GcMAF) on Intracellular HIV Targets in Normal and Transformed Human Breast Cells by Gabriele Morucci and Tiziana Punzi. Toward Improvements in HIV Epidemiology by Galletti, Pacini, Moracci and Bauer. For the very first time in more than 25 years, statements such as “HIV by itself does not cause AIDS”; “There is no gold standard for HIV tests”; “ARVs such as AZT do not cure or prevent HIV infection or AIDS”, have been recognized as scientifically sound hypotheses worth being presented and discussed at a conference sponsored by the International AIDS Society. If the extremely qualified international Scientific Committee that reviewed and accepted the four communications whose excerpts are quoted above, is to be lauded for scientific integrity and openness of mind, also the Organizing Committee deserves a substantial credit for having accepted Rethinking AIDS as a legitimate association involved in the fight against AIDS. In fact, the Organization accepted the Italian member of the board of directors of Rethinking AIDS, Prof. Marco Ruggiero, as a qualified representative of the HIV/AIDS community and granted him free registration and access to all the events, including the sumptuous gala at the world famous Palazzo della Signoria seat of the Medici Family in Renaissance times. It should be remembered that Firenze, renown in the world for her artistic treasuries, is the city of Galileo, the founder of the modern scientific method and a martyr of the blind dogmatism denying revolutionary ideas labelled as “heretical”. In this occasion Firenze demonstrated once again the supremacy of rational scientific thinking in declaring that the fight against AIDS cannot be deprived of such revolutionary ideas that have been blindly labelled as heretical for so many years. From now on the hypotheses put forward by scientists such as Duesberg or Bauer cannot be dismissed lightly as “denialist delusions” for they have their place in the history of AIDS. And, conversely, all those who will question the central role of HIV in the aetiology or pathogenesis of AIDS, will no longer fear being cursed as denialists. The wind of change blowing from Firenze will allow scientists to focus on the main culprit of AIDS, the immune system, with the obvious, but so far almost neglected, goal of restoring its function. And a re–established immune system will get rid of the (probably harmless) virus “within a few weeks”.