Update - UT East Texas Prof Claims HIV & AIDS unrelated

[glbt_equality]

July 18, 2007 -

I spent much of the day today exchanging emails with folks at Johns Hopkins University and a Dr Jeanne Bergman, who is the Director of Planning and Policy Research for The Center for HIV Law and Policy in New York... regarding my article on the tridd website about a book written by UT Tyler's (our) own Dr Rebecca Culshaw.

Dr Culshaw's book is all about the supposed "myth" that HIV and AIDS are somehow related. In other words, Dr Culshaw (who is actually a doctor in mathematics, not medicine) has made the dangerously irresponsible claim that HIV does not cause AIDS.

Dr Culshaw also claims that neither HIV nor AIDS actually exist, and encourages patients to stop taking antiretroviral (ARV) medications, calling them "poisonous." If you're interested in a summary of the erroneous claims made in her book, check this page, from the AIDSTruth website: http://www.aidstruth.org/science-sold-out-summary.pdf

And the really, really sad part is that UT Tyler has allowed her to use her University credentials to peddle her book, and in the process, has been granting tacit University approval to her egregiously erroneous "research."

Well, this has understandably caused great stir in academic circles in less conservative parts of the country (i.e. everywhere outside of East Texas). Dr Bergman makes the point that:

- ideas that may seem crackpot can have very real effects, because it is natural to want to believe that AIDS isn't real.
- So people stop worrying about safe sex (because they believe HIV doesn't exist, or isn't harmful, or can't be sexually transmitted,
- they stop seeing their doctors or taking ARVs, and they become highly vulnerable to all sorts of quackery.
- Worst of all, they get sick and die, because neither the virus nor their immune systems care what they believe in or don't.
So I've contacted the Tyler newspaper, and I encourage you to do the same. Let's start calling on all our local newspapers, TV & radio stations, etc, and try to put an end to this. Dr Culshaw certainly has the right to say whatever she believes, but she should not be able to use her University position or credentials to propagate such outrageously life-threatening information as the University is currently allowing.

Wouldn't it be nice if the University of Texas made some kind of public statement distancing themselves from Dr Culshaw's bizarre position -- and insisted that she "cease and desist" the use of her otherwise prestigious credentials in this irresponsible and reprehensible manner?

Yes, I know... and it is indeed as preposterous as it sounds. But then again, we're in East Texas, where (sometimes, apparently) up is down.

-- Troy Carlyle

See the full article and references here:
http://www.tridd.com/index_files/East_Texas_Attitudes_Selected_Falsehoods.htm

[Progo35]

Actually, this sounds like a cop out from the bad side of the New Age movement, which often distorts the Eastern idea of suffering not being real into saying that if we believe something is true, it makes it true, so if we believe that we have aids, we create the reality of having aids, but if people with HIV stop believing that they are going to get aids, it won't happen. I'm surprised that the the University of Texas isn't peeved with her over this.

[Zerbie]

Doesn't UT have some kind of academic integrity rule by which a professor who knowingly passes on false research is disciplined??? Doesn't this amount to implicating that the entire UT system adheres to false research? Isn't that illegal?

[glbt_equality]

Since originally posting this, I've received a positive response from the new medical reporter at the Tyler Courier-Telegraph, and it looks like the newspaper will be interested in running this story, which is great news.

I've also spoken both with members of the board for the County Health Department and the board for the Community Health Clinics on Northeast Texas (or CHCNET) of which I'm a member -- and I'm optimisticx about our chances of getting both boards to draft letters to the University expressing our concern about this as an issue concerning public health.

It is a slippery slope, however, to punish a professor for coming up with an outrageous theory, due to concerns regarding academic freedom, etc. Many great and wonderful ideas have started as unpopular theories. Still, in this case, I believe we are on safe ground to ask that the University distance themselves on the grounds that many lives are at stake.

Please keep in mind (as I am myself constantly reminded) that East Texas suffers from strongly enforced anti-HIV and anti-GLBT biases. I am frequently dismayed by my inability to publish, for example, items in various regiounal newsletters that may result in ireful withdrawal of financial support to the organizations poublishing the newsletters.

This same anti-HIV dynamic, I fear, might be responsible for the University's reluctance to make any kind of public statement that may make them appear to be sympathetic to our cause. As an example of this sentiment, all of the local HIV housing was shut down last year, and a concerted effort has been made to close our only HIV clinic. At least one other East Texas HIV clinic was shut down earlier this year when operating funds were "reallocated."

[BruceChris]

To rule a country somewhere in Africa.

P&L, BC