Archive of Press Articles

“HIV Man To Appeal Decision” – Sunday Times (Perth):
“A MAN convicted of endangering life by having unprotected sex with three women while knowing he had HIV will appeal against a landmark Supreme Court ruling against him…[more]”

Ruth Pollard of the Sydney Morning Herald takes the prosecution expert witnesses’ claims at face value in her article Shadow of doubters, by echoing Judge Sulan. She claims that “The deaths of thousands in the developing world should weigh heavily on their [AIDS rethinkers presumably] souls…[more]”

The Australian, “HIV does not exist appeal thrown out”

Sean Fewster of the Adelaide Advertiser writes "A Supreme Court judge has thrown out claims made by self-professed HIV experts that the virus does not exist, calling their evidence ‘implausible’”.

In an article on Stuart McDonald, an Australian gay man accused of deliberately trying to infect people, Simon Daniel of Sydney asks “Are we so confident of a causal connection between HIV and AIDS that we should condemn people for sexual behaviour that would otherwise be regarded as normal?”

The Australian – “AIDS specialist called to explain evidence”

Jeremy Roberts – AN eminent doctor was yesterday hauled back into a Supreme Court witness box to explain comments he made in private that appeared to conflict with his sworn testimony.

Emeritus Professor Peter McDonald, of Flinders University in Adelaide, had testified early last month that he “had no doubt” that HIV was the cause of AIDS.

His evidence was part of series of high-powered prosecution experts against an appeal of a HIV-positive man, Andre Chad Parenzee, convicted last year of exposing three women to HIV.

An infectious diseases expert, Professor McDonald chaired the national committee which distributed funds for HIV research from 1988 to 2004.

He was pivotal in organising the appearance of more than six prosecution witnesses in the case, including the co-discoverer of HIV Robert Gallo.

They were rebutting testimony by two defence witnesses, medical physicist Eleni Papadopulos-Eleopulos and emergency doctor Val Turner, that HIV did not exist and so did not cause AIDS.

But yesterday Professor McDonald was asked to explain an email he sent to US-based scientists just three days after he gave evidence, which was later forwarded to Parenzee’s defence team.

“I think I share with you some scepticism about the jump from scientific observation to a deduction that HIV transmission and pathogenesis is set in stone and becomes a legitimate basis for criminal prosecution,” the email says in part.

Defence lawyer Kevin Borick asked if Professor McDonald had “a reasonable doubt as to how HIV causes AIDS?”

“I have a doubt about the details,” said Professor McDonald.

Prosecution witnesses told the court that HIV attacks immune system cells, which decline in number over time, leading to the patient contracting AIDS.

Professor McDonald was asked to consider evidence that there were conditions in which immune system cells declined, but the patient did not test positive to HIV.

Professor McDonald said the court faced a “definitional” problem, in that AIDS was defined by several symptoms, one of which was a positive test for HIV.

Professor McDonald said he remained certain that HIV caused AIDS, but was unable to point to a single paper which, by itself, proved the link.

“We have heard about a large number of papers published in this court and I can not agree that there is no evidence that HIV causes AIDS – taken together the evidence shows HIV results in AIDS,” he said.

He stood by his statement in the email that it was “inappropriate to lock people in jail for sexual transmission of HIV”.

He said “criminalisation” of HIV transmission would undermine the public health system, which relied on people voluntarily submitting to HIV tests and treatment.

“With treatment to get the viral load down, the risk of transmission are vastly minimised,” said Professor McDonald.

“The vast majority of patients who are infected with HIV who come into a system of treatment do not behave in manners that cause them to transmit their infection – it is part of the system of care.”

The Australian – “Witness opposes jail for HIV cases”

Jeremy Roberts – Courts should not jail men for sexually transmitting HIV to partners, according to a private email by a prosecution expert who testified this month against a man convicted of exposing three women to HIV.

Emeritus professor Peter McDonald sent the email to scientists in the US on Saturday, three days after he told an Adelaide court he “had no doubt” HIV caused AIDS.

Defence lawyers were sent the email and showed it to Supreme Court judge John Sulan in a hastily arranged hearing on Tuesday. Justice Sulan has called Professor McDonald back to be cross-examined on the document next Wednesday.

Professor McDonald was pivotal in marshalling more than six highly regarded HIV scientists and clinicians to give evidence. He is an expert on infectious diseases and for 15 years up to 2002 chaired the national committee that provided funding for HIV research.

The witnesses appeared in the appeal of Andre Chad Parenzee, 36, who was convicted last year of endangering the lives of three women with whom he had unprotected sex despite knowing he was HIV-positive.

The prosecution was rebutting members of the HIV sceptic Perth Group, who claimed HIV had never been adequately identified in the laboratory and could not be said to cause AIDS.

In the email, Professor McDonald says Parenzee’s jailing was “inappropriate”. He also admits to doubts over the link between HIV and the onset of AIDS.

However, he told The Australian his email did not contradict his testimony. There was “some conjecture” among scientists about the mechanism by which HIV leads to AIDS, he said, but this “in no way destroys the notion that HIV causes (immune system) cell reduction and causes AIDS”.

He said his email reflected a “personal view” about the law.

The previous article apparently only made it into one local print edition of “The Australian” and was yanked before it went nationwide, and thus was never available on the web.

Adelaide Indymedia – "Gallo does Bush impersonation in court"

The Australian – "HIV sceptics beyond stupid, says top scientist"
Robert Gallo, the American scientist who established the link between HIV and AIDS in 1984, appeared for the prosecution yesterday in the application for an appeal by an HIV-positive man convicted of exposing three women to the virus. “I can’t believe that it occupies the time of the court - it is that absurd,” Professor Gallo said.
Defence witnesses - medical physicist Eleni Papadopulos-Eleopulos and emergency doctor Val Turner - have testified that the science behind HIV is flawed, that the virus has not been purified, that tests for it are indirect and unreliable, and that it is not sexually transmitted or the cause of AIDS.
They appeared for Andre Chad Parenzee, 36, who was convicted in February last year on three counts of endangering life.
Professor Gallo said he had reviewed much of the defence testimony and rejected it as “misunderstanding” at best, and “misrepresentation” of HIV and AIDS research, at worst.
He called on numerous medical fields and his vast research experience to describe HIV, its first laboratory isolation in the 1980s, its attack on the immune system, and the success of treatments and blood screening.
Professor Gallo’s testimony was a coup for prosecutors, who have fought Parenzee’s application in more than three weeks of hearings since March last year.
Professor Gallo gave evidence by satellite, appearing in the corner of an office at his research institute in Baltimore, Maryland, about 9pm Baltimore time. He described the defence testimony as “beyond stupid”, “sad”, “deeply nonsensical” and “extremely wrong”.
He suggested the defence witnesses, members of the HIV dissident study circle the Perth Group, were using the case as “a ploy” to advance their theories.
He lost patience with defence lawyer Kevin Borick’s “provocative” questioning of the accuracy of HIV tests.
”You are driving me nuts with this ... for God’s sake,” he said.
Claiming “no one knows more about HIV testing than me”, he said his work had contributed to the cleansing of HIV from Australia’s donor blood supply in the late 1980s. “I don’t expect a thankyou but I don’t expect to be provoked to that degree,” he said.
Since 1996, Professor Gallo has led the Institute for Human Virology, which employs more than 100 scientists researching chronic viruses, including HIV.
He was the most-cited scientist between 1980 and 1995. In the past 20 years he has been rated third in the world in “impact factor”, which measures scientists’ influence outside their field.
He has 27 honorary degrees and has twice won the Albert Lasker Award in Medicine, the most recognised award for biomedical science in the US.
But it was possible his appearance backfired yesterday, when he appeared to take exception to the court inquiring into the science of HIV and AIDS. He was asked by prosecutor Sandi McDonald to consider the defence’s proposition that HIV does not cause AIDS. “That’s a silly comment ... It is a sad commentary,” he said, prompting judge John Sullan to comment: “Not everybody would say that.”

ABC News – "HIV discoverer blasts doubters in SA court"

Sydney Morning Herald – "AIDS research pioneer rejects HIV claims"

The Age – "25 million dead people can't be wrong. Or can they?"

The Australian – “HIV sceptics’ ’half truth’”

The Advertiser, Adelaide – "AIDS pioneer [Robet Gallo] new star witness"

The Australian – "HIV deniers a 'joke'"

The Sunday Times (Perth) – "Royal Perth Hospital rejects virus debate"
ROYAL Perth Hospital executive director Philip Montgomery has moved to protect the hospital's reputation over links to a dissident group that claims HIV is a myth and does not cause AIDS.
Dr Montgomery this week directed the group's leader, Eleni Papadopulos-Eleopulos, to remove all references to the hospital from its website and other material.
He also insisted that Ms Papadopulos-Eleopulos and two other group members -- all physicians at the hospital who have nothing to do with AIDS research or treatment there -- didn't use hospital resources for the group's work.
People wanting to contact the group via its website are directed to an RPH email account. Dr Montgomery said he would be extremely concerned if group members were communicating their controversial views, perhaps with AIDS patients from around the world, from their workplace.
Dr Montgomery fears people may get the false impression that the group has the hospital's backing or is engaged in hospital-sanctioned work.
He said the HIV ``heretics'' were like people who once argued that the Earth was flat.
``This institution is actually 180 degrees, diametrically opposed to them,'' he said. ``The hospital is a leader in HIV treatment and management.''
The group's long-held claims have embarrassed and dismayed the hospital's own AIDS treatment specialists, some of whom are internationally renowned.
Their embarrassment intensified this week when Ms Papadopulos-Eleopulos attended the Supreme Court of South Australia to give evidence in support of Andre Chad Parenzee, a 36-year-old with HIV who has been convicted of knowingly endangering the lives of three women by having unprotected sex with them.
Parenzee, who infected one of the women, is appealing against the conviction.
On Tuesday Ms Papadopulos-Eleopulos repeated her view that AIDS was not caused by the HIV virus and could not be transmitted via sex. Asked if she would have unprotected sex with an HIV-positive man, she replied: ``Any time.''
Another group member, Valendar F. Turner, a former RPH emergency physician who now works as medical director of the WA Health Department's HealthDirect advice line, also testified in support of Parenzee.
On Friday, RPH's top immunologist and AIDS expert, Martyn French, gave evidence at the hearing, saying the group's views were harmful to his patients.
The group claims that strong drugs used on HIV-infected patients don't work and might actually cause AIDS.
Ms Papadopulos-Eleopulos was unavailable for comment this week.
One of the group's original members from the 1980s, John Papadimitriou, a professor of pathology at WA University, said his involvement with the group was ``peripheral''.
``All we are doing is looking at the data and saying perhaps there is an alternative explanation,'' he said.
``We feel that perhaps the evidence doesn't support the (prevailing) theory.
``We are not denying AIDS. AIDS does exist. What we are arguing about is how it is induced.
``I am only asking questions. I am not into beliefs. I can only go with the data. If anything, we are asking the establishment to plug the holes in their theory.''
Prof French, who often bumps into the AIDS dissenters in the hospital's corridors and lifts, said yesterday he was glad for the chance to challenge them in court.
He said the group had done no original research of its own. All it did was ``cherry pick'' from other people's work to support their arguments.
``Firstly, they focus on scientific data that is over 20 years old. That is totally irrelevant now because an enormous amount of water has gone under the bridge since then,'' he said.
``The evidence that HIV exists and is the cause of AIDS is overwhelming.
``I think it would be fair to say that Royal Perth is recognised as a world leader in treatment of, and research into, HIV infection. It's an enormous irony.
``There are some people around the world who follow (the Perth group's views). They are seriously undermining public health programs.
``Some of our patients have expressed doubts about their treatment because of the views of this group. They have said that anti-retroviral therapy is ineffective and toxic.
``So much of what they say is nonsense. Over the years my attitude has been just to ignore them and hope that they will go away, but they don't go away. They come back with more and more outlandish views.
``Another thing that distressed me is the way they got involved with the advisory panel to the South African Government on HIV. A lot of us (AIDS experts) around the world feel that those activities delayed the introduction of anti-retroviral therapies in South Africa.''
flintj@sundaytimes.newsltd.com.au
www.theperthgroup.com/index.shtml


‘Perth Group’ seen as AIDS danger
Australians have dropped their guard on AIDS.
Martyn French said HIV infections were rising across the country.
And he said that in contrast with the rest of the country, more than 50 per cent of new infections in WA involved heterosexuals.
“A worrying trend is that we’re seeing people who acquired the infection overseas, in Africa or South-East Asia, while working or travelling there,” Prof French said.
“There are still guys going up to Thailand and using prostitutes. Obviously, they don’t believe they’re at risk.”
Across the rest of Australia, most new infections involved gay men.
And an AIDS vaccine remained a long way off.
“Most of the experts predict it will be another 10 years or more,” Prof French said.
The good news was that treatments were improving.
“Treatments are extremely effective and relatively free of side effects,” he said.
“If they are taken properly, my view is that most patients can expect a normal life expectancy.”
That is one of the reasons he finds the views of the “Perth group” so dangerous.
“Before I went to Adelaide (to give evidence in court) I contacted all my colleagues who manage patients with HIV infection and they are all universally and emphatically against the views of the Perth Group.”

Adelaide Independent – "AIDS: world waits on SA verdict"
TWENTY years ago Andre Chad Parenzee arrived in South Australia from Cape Town, South Africa. He was just 15 years old as he settled into his strange new country. He went to school. He grew up. He become a chef and settled in Port Pirie, the state’s fourth-largest city, known less for its fine restaurants than its lead smelters and industrial plants. The future looked good – until 1998, when he had a blood test.
He was told he carried the human immunodeficiency virus, commonly called HIV.
He told his fiancée he had cancer, and she believed him. They married. He often had sex with her, unprotected sex, knowing he had been diagnosed with the virus. And then he had sex with two other women.
Of course, he had a reason, which was good enough for him. “It was just the fact that I didn’t know how she would react to me telling her. I thought she would leave me like everyone else,” he said.
And leave him she eventually did, because Parenzee’s secret stayed secret no more. It happened after one of the three women had her blood tested as well. To her horror, she found she now also carried signs of the virus. In came the Director of Public Prosecutions. In came the Supreme Court. And in came the jury’s verdict: “Guilty, guilty, guilty!” to three counts of endangering lives. Fifteen years, went the judge’s gavel.
That was last year. This year, Parenzee, 35, is arguing for leave to appeal on the grounds that AIDS doesn’t exist, and that neither does HIV. So if it doesn’t exist he should be free to walk and continue to have sex - without warning his partners. Parenzee sits impassively in the dock, staring into the middle distance, stroking his goatee. If the chef understands the scientific arguments raging around him – and because of him - about retroviruses, blots, mathematical deviations, and statistics, then his face doesn’t show it.
This is believed to be the first case in any jurisdiction, in any court, in any country, where AIDS itself is on trial.
That’s why the eyes of the world are now on the handsome sandstone Court of Criminal Appeal in central Adelaide, where a red-robed, horsehair wigged-judge, His Honour John Sulan, is deciding whether there is enough scientific controversy about the existence of HIV and AIDS to give Parenzee another shot at freedom.
Now it may seem that 25 million dead are some sort of proof. That’s how many people are alleged to have died of AIDS-related causes in the past 25 years. And the toll keeps rising exponentially. It’s now three million a year, victims of what could be the greatest mass epidemic of all time. Could all these corpses really be lying?
Yes, say experts. Not all experts, of course, but enough to occupy the witness box at District Court for the past week. That’s right – experts arguing in a court of law that unprotected vaginal intercourse with a suspected HIV carrier is safe. In fact, the climax of Tuesday’s testimony was an exchange between prosecutor Sandi McDonald and defence witness Eleni Papadopulos-Eleopulos. “Would you have unprotected vaginal sex with a HIV-positive man?” asked McDonald. “Any time,” replied Papadopulos-Eleopulos.
Papadopulos-Eleopulos, a slight, middle-aged bachelor of science and medical physicist at Royal Perth Hospital, knows the importance of her evidence. Another witness for the defence is emergency doctor Val Turner from the same hospital.
The first the world knew of HIV was when a virologist at the world-renowned Pasteur Institute in Paris was trying to find the cause of a new disease then sweeping the western world. No-one knew what the disease actually did, and at that stage it did not even have a name. But its name was death. It was AIDS, a syndrome rather than a specific disease.
American doctors noticed it among gay men around the San Francisco area, and even then it seemed to be a collection of other diseases and infections. Healthy people have a healthy immune system so when a virus or bacteria invades, the body throws its formidable defenses at the intruder. But with AIDS, the body’s natural defenses seem terminally, hopelessly damaged. People with AIDS can die of any number of diseases which most people would shake off. Many, in fact, die of candida, which everyone knows as the common fungal irritant thrush.
So what caused AIDS? No-one knew, but one Parisian researcher, Dr Willy Rozenbaum, thought it might be caused by a virus. He asked virologist Luc Montagnier for help. In 1983, Montaginer announced he had discovered the signature of a new virus. And he said it was the AIDS culprit.
But incredibly, even to this day, neither Montaginer nor anyone has ever seen the virus even under the most powerful electron microscope, or isolated it in a petri dish. And there is as yet no “gold standard” test for HIV. Different countries interpret test results differently. It’s possible to be diagnosed with HIV in Australia, and have the same test show you free of it in the United States.
Viruses, like humans, have protein in their DNA. Tests for HIV look not for the virus itself, but for evidence of its proteins. It’s like identifying a tiger by its footprint or a dog by its fleas. And how to test if someone had ‘full-blown AIDS’? Well, HIV is thought to attack the body’s T-cells – the ones which fight infection. The test for AIDS essentially counts your T-cells.
But Papadopulos-Eleopulos says that’s not good enough. “I am a scientist, I look for science - I do not look for consensus,” she said in evidence.
In that she is right - the number of people who believe something is no indication of its truth. After all, there was a time when most people believed the world was flat. So why isn’t her minority scientific opinion more widely debated? Papadopulos-Eleopulos and her colleagues believe it’s partly because of money.
American researcher Robert Gallo also claimed to have found evidence of the virus around the same time as the French team. The dispute about who “discovered” it was eventually settled at a meeting between, of all people, US President Ronald Reagan and French Prime Minister Jacques Chirac. At stake was not just honour. It was hundreds of billions of dollars.
The fight against HIV and AIDS is wallowing in money, brimming with it. Researchers might still be laboring in the scientific salt-mine were it not for AIDS money – some are now fabulously rich and famously famous. The money available in the field is unimaginable. Australia shares some of the $1.4 billion which Bill Gates gave away for AIDS research.
And that’s just one donation. After the historic Reagan- Chirac handshake, the US and France shared patent rights to mass-marketed blood screening tests for HIV, tests worth billions. Royalties fund the world’s richest private research centers. Then there the are drug companies. Plus reputations, probably the most valuable of all.
Which is why it’s not just the ordinary public in the gallery at the District Court. State, Federal, and international government health authorities as well as tens of thousands of medical researchers will be pouring over the transcripts. For the defence is Kevin Borick, one of South Australia’s best-known and most expensive QC’s (working pro bono on the appeal application). On the other side of the table is experienced Adelaide-educated prosecutor Sandi McDonald.
Seldom did Parenzee look at Papadopulos-Eleopulos as she was giving the evidence which he hopes will save him. He continued to stare at the opposite wall, and slowly stroke his beard.
And now the big guns have been brought in to fire for the Crown – among them the director of the Australian National Centre for HIV, Professor David Cooper AO, his deputy Professor John Kaldor, Emeritus Professor Peter McDonald from Flinders University, the eminent medical virologist and infectious diseases physician at Westmead Hospital, Dominic Dwyer, and the biggest gun of all, Sir Gustav Nossal himself, who said outside the court this week that in his opinion people who claim HIV does not exist are “a considerable embarrassment to the scientific community”.
People are in jails the world over because their fingerprints have been found at the scene of the crime. Courts regard fingerprints as incontrovertible proof. They are no longer in debate. As long as Parenzee’s witnesses convince the court that there is legitimate scientific debate about the existence of HIV, he may be back on the streets.
There is still no cure for HIV, no magic inoculation as there is for polio or smallpox. And there is still no way of giving the body back its ability to fight common infections which most people shake off with a few days in bed, and which are fatal to AIDS sufferers. But if AIDS doesn’t exist, what’s killing them?
Ms Papadopulos-Eleopulos says AIDS is a disease caused by the inside of the body becoming oxidised following repeated exposure to semen through passive anal intercourse. It cannot be transmitted from one person to another during vaginal sex.
And yet thousands of people have shown signs of the virus after receiving contaminated blood. So are the HIV doubters visionaries like Galileo or lunatics like the Flat Earthers?
Doubters of HIV and AIDS are distained by their opponents. Experts called by the Crown were emphatic – HIV is a specific virus, and vaginal sex passes it on. From the public gallery, though, Parenzee’s supporters – his mother has reportedly spent $250,000 on the defence – saw even professors make some concessions under Borick’s penetrating cross-examination.
At least a few scientists are in the anti-HIV camp. “If there is evidence that HIV causes AIDS, there should be scientific documents which either singly or collectively demonstrate that fact, at least with a high probability. There is no such document,” Nobel prize-winning chemist Dr. Kary Mullis said in 1993.
Even University of California’s Dr. Harry Rubin, professor of Molecular and Cell Biology, has expressed doubts. “It is not proven that AIDS is caused by HIV infection, nor is it proven that it plays no role whatever in the syndrome,” he said in 1994.
The judge can decide this case only on the evidence before him. The court cannot call on William of Ockham, the 14th century philosopher who said that in any question, the simplest answer which relies on the least supposition is probably the correct one. That principle is now known as Ockham’s Razor, and in this case Ockham’s razor suggests HIV will lead to AIDS.
Malaria was once thought to be caused by ‘’bad air’’. Leeches were once the preferred treatment for a dozen ailments – in the 1800s French and English hospitals used 13 million a year. Ulcers were believed even a few years ago to have been caused by stress or spicy foods. Will a virus-caused immune deficiency go the same way? Or will Ockham’s razor slice through the dissenters?
The case continues.

The Australian – "Expert attacks HIV sceptics"

The Australian – "HIV experts line up to refute denier"
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 Peter McDonald, 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 McDonald 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 Turner, 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 David Cooper, director of the National Centre in HIV Epidemiology and Clinical Research at the University ofNSW.
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 Elizabeth Dax.
Professor McDonald 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.
Another view........
Adelaide: HIV on trial Meanwhile, national newspaper The Australian, reports that John Sulan, a South Australian Supreme Court judge, has set aside two weeks to allow arguments to be heard in the appeal court from so-called ‘experts’ who believe that HIV is not the cause of AIDS.
Although the paper adds that prosecutors objected to these witnesses’ status as “experts, Justice Sulan said he would address the objection after their evidence was heard.”
Earlier this year, the paper reports, a man was convicted “of endangering the lives of three women and faces 15 years in prison. One of the women now has HIV.”
During the man’s appeal hearing last week, his lawyer argued that his “client’s conviction cannot stand if HIV is based on flimsy science” and called several “expert witnesses” who are well-known ‘AIDS denialists’.
The main witness, Elena Papadopulos-Eleopulos - a medical engineer who co-founded the so-called ‘Perth Group’ - told the court “that HIV was not a retrovirus and could not be transmitted by sexual intercourse.”
However, one of the five expert witnesses for the prosecution, Professor Andrew Grulich from the National Centre in HIV Epidemiology and Clinical Research, described the group’s claims as “insane. They have a very long and convoluted argument that has been comprehensively disproved many times,” he told the court.
”What they say is outrageous and quite dangerous,” Professor Grulich added, “because it encourages people to not be concerned about transmission.”

The Australian – HIV sceptic backs unprotected sex
A MEDICAL physicist at Royal Perth Hospital has declared that she would have unprotected sex with an HIV-positive man, believing she would not be at risk of infection.
Eleni Papadopulos-Eleopulos was giving testimony at the Supreme Court of South Australia during an appeal by a man convicted of exposing three women to HIV. She was asked by prosecutor Sandi McDonald whether “you would have unprotected vaginal sex with a HIV-positive man”.
”Any time,” replied Ms Papadopulos-Eleopulos.
The admission came on the last day of Ms Papadopulos-Eleopulos’s cross-examination. She is the lead expert witness for Andre Chad Parenzee, 35, who was convicted in February last year on three counts of endangering life. A jury found Parenzee had unprotected sex with three women despite knowing he was HIV-positive. He infected one of them.
He remains in custody awaiting sentencing. His mother, Jeanette Thumlert, has spent $250,000 on her son’s defence. Some of that money has gone to flying two expert witnesses from Perth on three occasions since October last year.
The witnesses, Ms Papadopulos-Eleopulos and emergency doctor Val Turner, represent the Perth Group.
The group’s key claim is that HIV has never been isolated and identified as a retrovirus. HIV is the result of the misinterpretation of laboratory phenomena and experiments, the group says.
Ms Papadopulos-Eleopulos says AIDS is a disease that results from the oxidising of the inside of the body from repeated exposure to semen resulting from passive anal intercourse. It is not a “virus” and cannot be “transmitted” from one person to another during sex.
Ms Papadopulos-Eleopulos’s views are largely ignored by mainstream scientific journals.
She has a bachelor of science and is a medical physicist at Royal Perth Hospital, with Perth Group member David Causer, the head of clinical physics.
A spokeswoman for the hospital said neither worked with AIDS patients or in HIV research. “Their views are not consistent with the hospital’s views on HIV-AIDS,” she said.
Despite the Perth Group’s marginal position, its evidence in the Parenzee appeal has spurred up to seven eminent HIV-AIDS scientists to give rebuttal testimony. The prosecution has told the court that Ms Papadopulos-Eleopulos has misrepresented scientific papers and will call some of the papers’ authors to set the record straight.
Renowned immunologist and World Health Organisation public health expert Gustav Nossal is preparing to give written evidence or appear in person debunking the testimony. He has called the HIV sceptics “a very considerable embarrassment to Australian science”.
Yesterday, Ms Papadopulos-Eleopulos continued her strident defence of her claims.
She was asked to consider the good record of anti-retroviral drugs in extending the lives of HIV-AIDS patients.
Judge John Sulan asked: “Is it your evidence that it is a waste of resources to give anti-retrovirals to pregnant women?”
”Yes,” she said.
The case continues.

The Australian – "Nossal attacks HIV skeptics"

Herald Sun – "Expert witness says HIV 'doesn't exist'"

The Australian – "Doubts on HIV's existence 'insane'"

The Advertiser, Adelaide – "Judge's doubts on 'expert' witness"

The Australian – "Accused denies existence of HIV"

ABC News Online – "Man to challenge existence of HIV in court"

The Advertiser, Adelaide – "HIV, sex not linked, 'experts' tell court"

The Advertiser, Adelaide – "No proof of HIV, claims lawyer"
THE lawyer for an HIV-positive man who endangered the lives of three women by having unprotected sex, and infecting one of them, has told the Supreme Court his client may not even have the virus.
Andree Chad Parenzee, 35, was found guilty by jury, despite claiming he thought the withdrawal method was a safe way of having sex.
But his lawyer, Kevin Borick, QC, yesterday said he had been speaking with scientists from Perth, the U.K. and the U.S. and that questions had been raised about whether HIV was sexually transmitted.
“I envisage that there is a real issue even whether my client has what is called the HIV virus,” he said.
“There is as yet no proof that the virus, if in fact it is a virus, is transmitted sexually.”
He said that research showed there were differÂences in methods for testÂing the virus and that there was an “inherent risk” of getting a false reading for it.
At the trial, the three victims testified that they had unprotected sex with Parenzee on numerous occasions. Two of them said they believed Parenzee had cancer.
Prosecutors said Parenzee knew the risks and that the virus was sexually transmitted.
Mr Borick hinted his client may lodge an appeal against his conviction.
Parenzee was remanded in custody for a further hearing in two weeks.

ABC News Online – "SA lawyer seizes on new research in HIV infection case"