Pneumocystis carinii: A misunderstood opportunist

Pifer, Linda

doi:10.1007/bf02014871

Cited by 14 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 25 publications

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“…Pneumocystis pneumonia is often described and perceived as an AIDS-specific pneumonia. However, Pneumocystis carinii is a ubiquitous fungal parasite that is present in all humans and may become active upon immune deficiency like many others (Freeman, 1979;Pifer, 1984;Williford Pifer et al, 1988;Root-Bernstein, 1990a). Since bacterial opportunists of immune deficiency, like tuberculosis bacillus or pneumococcus, are readily defeated with antibiotics, fungal and viral pneumonias predominate in countries where antibiotics are readily available.…”

Section: Aids Diseasesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…About 90% of the AIDS diseases from Africa are old African diseases that are very different from those of the American/European epidemic (Section 2.1.2, Table 1). The African diseases do not include Pneumocystis pneumonia and candidiasis (Goodgame, 1990), although Pneumocystis and Candida are ubiquitous microbes in all humans including Africans (Freeman, 1979;Pifer, 1984).…”

Section: Aids Risk Groups and Risk-group Specific Aids Diseasesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, the proponents of infectious AIDS who reject HIV as the sole cause or see it as one of several causes of AIDS have failed to establish a consistent alternative to or cofactor for HIV. Instead, they typically blame AIDS on viruses and microbes that are widespread and either harmless or not life-threatening to a normal immune system, such as Pneumocystis, cytomegalovirus, herpes virus, hepatitis virus, tuberculosis bacillus, Candida, mycoplasma, treponema, gonococci, toxoplasma and cryptosporidiae (Section 3.5.7) (Freeman, 1979;Mims and White, 1984;Pifer, 1984;Evans, 1989c;Mills and Masur, 1990;Bardach, 1992). Since such microbes are more commonly active in AIDS patients than in others, they argue that either chronic or repeated infections by such microbes would generate fatal AIDS (Sonnabend et al, 1983;Stewart, 1989;Mills and Masur, 1990;Root-Bernstein, 1990a,c).…”

Section: Alternative Infectious Theories Of Aidsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Aids acquired by drug consumption and other noncontagious risk factors

Duesberg

1992

Pharmacology & Therapeutics

125

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The hypothesis that human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is a new, sexually transmitted virus that causes AIDS has been entirely unproductive in terms of public health benefits. Moreover, it fails to predict the epidemiology of AIDS, the annual AIDS risk and the very heterogeneous AIDS diseases of infected persons. The correct hypothesis must explain why: (1) AIDS includes 25 previously known diseases and two clinically and epidemiologically very different epidemics, one in America and Europe, the other in Africa; (2) almost all American (90%) and European (86%) AIDS patients are males over the age of 20, while African AIDS affects both sexes equally; (3) the annual AIDS risks of infected babies, intravenous drug users, homosexuals who use aphrodisiacs, hemophiliacs and Africans vary over 100-fold; (4) many AIDS patients have diseases that do not depend on immunodeficiency, such as Kaposi's sarcoma, lymphoma, dementia and wasting; (5) the AIDS diseases of Americans (97%) and Europeans (87%) are predetermined by prior health risks, including long-term consumption of illicit recreational drugs, the antiviral drug AZT and congenital deficiencies like hemophilia, and those of Africans are Africa-specific. Both negative and positive evidence shows that AIDS is not infectious: (1) the virus hypothesis fails all conventional criteria of causation; (2) over 100-fold different AIDS risks in different risk groups show that HIV is not sufficient for AIDS; (3) AIDS is only 'acquired,' if at all, years after HIV is neutralized by antibodies; (4) AIDS is new but HIV is a long-established, perinatally transmitted retrovirus; (5) alternative explanations disprove all assumptions and anecdotal cases cited in support of the virus hypothesis; (6) all AIDS-defining diseases occur in matched risk groups, at the same rate, in the absence of HIV; (7) there is no common, active microbe in all AIDS patients; (8) AIDS manifests in unpredictable and unrelated diseases; and (9) it does not spread randomly between the sexes in America and Europe. Based on numerous data documenting that drugs are necessary for HIV-positives and sufficient for HIV-negatives to develop AIDS diseases, it is proposed that all American/European AIDS diseases, that exceed their normal background, result from recreational and anti-HIV drugs. African AIDS is proposed to result from protein malnutrition, poor sanitation and subsequent parasitic infections. This hypothesis resolves all paradoxes of the virus-AIDS hypothesis. It is epidemiologically and experimentally testable and provides a rational basis for AIDS control.

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Section: Aids Diseasesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Aids Risk Groups and Risk-group Specific Aids Diseasesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Alternative Infectious Theories Of Aidsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Aids acquired by drug consumption and other noncontagious risk factors

Duesberg

1992

Pharmacology & Therapeutics

125

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“…Therefore, many different mechanisms, including ones in which HIV is said to depend on cofactors to cause AIDS, have been discussed (6,12,31,32,35,61,91) (166) and replication-defective mutants of cytocidal viruses (87). Iflatent viruses or microbes were pathogenic at the level of activity of HIV, most of us would have Pneumocystis pneumonia (80-100%) (167), cytomegalovirus disease (50%6) (88), mononucleosis from EBV (50-100%) (see above; ref. 88), and herpes (25-50%o) (88) all at once, and 5-l0o also would have tuberculosis (168), because the respective pathogens are latent, immunosuppressed passengers in the U.S. population at the percentages indicated.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Human immunodeficiency virus and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome: correlation but not causation.

Duesberg

1989

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

109

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AIDS is an acquired immunodeficiency syndrome defined by a severe depletion of T cells and over 20 conventional degenerative and neoplastic diseases. In the U.S. and Europe, AIDS correlates to 95% with risk factors, such as about 8 years of promiscuous male homosexuality, intravenous drug use, or hemophilia. Since AIDS also correlates with antibody to a retrovirus, confirmed in about 40% of American cases, it has been hypothesized that this virus causes AIDS by killing T cells.

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“…The first cases were reported in infants with protein caloric malnutrition [2]. P. carinii pneumonia (PCP) occurred in patients with primary immunodeficiency disorders and in patients receiving immunosuppressive drugs for malignancies or organ transplantation [3,4]. Most of the subsequent cases were sporadic until the emergence of Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) in 1981.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%