Ah, unfortunately this got too long, so I had to split it.
To be honest, I think D&K are confused themselves about what the study’s meant to show. D&K call it “a study of AIDS patients”, but then they write “our relatively small sample supports the hypothesis that without anti-HIV drugs and/or recreational drugs HIV fails to cause AIDS.” But if the subjects were all AIDS patients, how could the study show that they failed to progress to AIDS? They would already have had AIDS!
I think this was a confusion of terminology, and “AIDS patient” in the general sense was used to just refer to all HIV+ patients he was treating. It did not refer to only a subset that had later stage ‘AIDS’ symptoms. At least, that’s how it read to me.
From what I understand, Koehnlein somehow found a way to treat patients without antivirals legally, so patients seeking non-antiviral treatment came to him. His ‘study’ is just a record of all such patients, when they first came under his care, their backgrounds, and eventual prognosis (a couple of deaths out of thirty or so patients so far).,
Also, I doubt Koehnlein did systematically test the subjects periodically for AIDS. CD4 counts are missing for some of the asymptomatic patients, and to test them for AIDS, they would have needed CD4 counts. So either Koehnlein didn’t have their CD4 counts (which implies that Koehnlein wasn’t periodically testing them for AIDS), or Koehnlein’s selectively withholding CD4 counts (and something funny’s going on).
Koehnlein may subscribe to the Duesberg hypothesis, and as such wouldn’t place any special value on persistent tracking of CD4 counts.
Ah, unfortunately this got too long, so I had to split it.
It might be for the best! This splits the Koehnlein study discussion and the general HIV discussion into their own separate subthreads.
I think this was a confusion of terminology, and “AIDS patient” in the general sense was used to just refer to all HIV+ patients he was treating. It did not refer to only a subset that had later stage ‘AIDS’ symptoms. At least, that’s how it read to me.
Yes, we initially read the phrase differently. I originally interpreted it at face value, figuring that in a review article about HIV & AIDS, D&K would take care to avoid confusing having AIDS with being HIV+. I now think I might’ve given them too much credit.
Nonetheless, at one point, D&K must be using “AIDS patients” with its narrow meaning (patients with AIDS proper) and not its informal one (patients with HIV who may or may not also have AIDS), because the statistics they quote for German AIDS patients match the Robert Koch Institut’s AIDS statistics, but not the organization’s HIV+ headcount.
Whatever D&K’s intentions or confusions, my earlier point that the study can’t provide strong, simultaneous support of all the conclusions drawn from it still stands.
Koehnlein may subscribe to the Duesberg hypothesis, and as such wouldn’t place any special value on persistent tracking of CD4 counts.
If so, Koehnlein’s testing his (her?) own definition of AIDS, not an orthodox one, and all bets are off.
Ah, unfortunately this got too long, so I had to split it.
I think this was a confusion of terminology, and “AIDS patient” in the general sense was used to just refer to all HIV+ patients he was treating. It did not refer to only a subset that had later stage ‘AIDS’ symptoms. At least, that’s how it read to me.
From what I understand, Koehnlein somehow found a way to treat patients without antivirals legally, so patients seeking non-antiviral treatment came to him. His ‘study’ is just a record of all such patients, when they first came under his care, their backgrounds, and eventual prognosis (a couple of deaths out of thirty or so patients so far).,
Koehnlein may subscribe to the Duesberg hypothesis, and as such wouldn’t place any special value on persistent tracking of CD4 counts.
It might be for the best! This splits the Koehnlein study discussion and the general HIV discussion into their own separate subthreads.
Yes, we initially read the phrase differently. I originally interpreted it at face value, figuring that in a review article about HIV & AIDS, D&K would take care to avoid confusing having AIDS with being HIV+. I now think I might’ve given them too much credit.
Nonetheless, at one point, D&K must be using “AIDS patients” with its narrow meaning (patients with AIDS proper) and not its informal one (patients with HIV who may or may not also have AIDS), because the statistics they quote for German AIDS patients match the Robert Koch Institut’s AIDS statistics, but not the organization’s HIV+ headcount.
Whatever D&K’s intentions or confusions, my earlier point that the study can’t provide strong, simultaneous support of all the conclusions drawn from it still stands.
If so, Koehnlein’s testing his (her?) own definition of AIDS, not an orthodox one, and all bets are off.