Well in reading through the labelled-"dissident" literature, I don't see any whistleblower factor at all. I too agree with what JiG and Squirt have mentioned in that with a lot of conspiracy theories, they just seem implausible because eventually someone would up and say something.

But so-called AIDS dissidents aren't necessarily the people saying AIDS was created by the government or created to wipe out gays and blacks or that it's a profit-driven conspiracy on the part of the pharmaceuticals in cahoots with the gov't or anything like that.

That's not what the predominant "AIDS dissident" arguments talk about. Not at all.

Rather, they argue that there's no genuine scientific proof of a correlation between HIV and AIDS, much of mainstream science's views on HIV/AIDS is the result of people jumping on the bandwagon, flawed studies and conclusions early in the HIV/AIDS timeline, faulty science, so on. That people were so blinded by the shock of the initial outbreak, the desire to offer solutions and find treatments/cures that they neglected basic scientific principle, made poor judgements, and drew flawed conclusions that became accepted as fact. That the entire HIV/AIDS orthodox viewpoint is a circular logic rooted in early mistakes. The scientific community was too eager to accept early conclusions. They moved forward with those early conclusions being the basis of future perceptions, perspectives, research, etc. But those early conclusions were in fact wrong, all propogated by a cycle corrupted by its flawed origins.

So these "AIDS dissidents" aren't necessarily demonizing anyone or saying all scientists, doctors, researchers are engaged in a conspiracy. They're just saying they're going about it all wrong.

Some of the main points they tend to raise are...

1. "HIV tests" actually just being tests for antibodies and none of the tests that you or I can get at the local gay and lesbian center or from our doctor or whatever actually test for an actual virus. Just the antibodies. But we've come to accept the presence of an antibody equals the presence of the virus when, in fact, that's not been determined. It's just assumed because that's the standard.

2. Potential non-HIV causes of AIDS symptoms. AIDS isn't necessarily a disease in and of itself. It's a collection of diseases or conditions that, when appearing in a person who's tested positive for HIV antibodies, qualify as AIDS. Opportunistic infections (pneumonia, hepatitis, and others), high viral load, low cd4 and t-cell counts. But all of the conditions that qualify someone as having AIDS occur in non-HIV-positive people. It's just that when you get pneumonia when you have HIV, you have AIDS. When you get pneumonia when you don't have HIV, you have pneumonia. So again the correlation and relationship is more assumed through circular logic than independently and objectively sound. All kinds of conditions and illnesses absent HIV can cause high viral load and low tcell counts ("viral load" tests don't actually count isolated virus units. It's the result of a complicated numerical equation based on numbers of virus particles. Not whole virus units). So again, mainstream science is assuming too much. The HIV/AIDS relationship only makes sense when you accept what the AIDS dissidents view as flawed original conclusions.

3. HIV/AIDS medications may very well be responsible for alot of the health problems experienced by HIV/AIDS patients. Not out of kinda spite or evil intent to support the pharmaceuticals. But because, in a genuine effort to help, the medical community inadvertently creates the conditions that in turn end up requiring more effort to help.

4. Unsound decisions, definitions, designations by the CDC and other such bodies distort the facts and #'s involved (number of HIV infected individuals, new infections, what constitutes infection, what constitutes AIDS, so on)

5. The behavior of high risk groups (drug users, gay men) is just as likely to cause the kinds of conditions that would yield a positive HIV antibody test result (remember... the dissidents say that test itself is flawed) as they are to cause AIDS conditions. So is someone getting sick as a result of HIV/AIDS or is it the result of excessive drug use, exposure to other known bacterial and viral infections, so on?

6. Africa HIV/AIDS statistics are totally flawed and wrong. Subsaharan Africa - due to malnutrition, lack of sanitation, clean water, available healthcare, so on - would be experiencing all of the problems attributed to AIDS even without HIV. And that the HIV numbers from Africa are just bad estimates.

Anyways, I totally probably just hacked and massacred the HIV/AIDS dissident argument there.

But all that randomness aside, really my only point was that "AIDS dissident" doesn't necessarily mean they're talkin about some evil right wing conspiracy. There are many respected (or formerly respected before they spoke out with views against the mainstream thought) scientists and researches and doctors who are part of the so-called AIDS dissident movement.

They're not saying "It's all a conspiracy!!!!"

They're saying "Whoa... fellas... I think we got it wrong and so let's take a step back and rethink our approach to this whole thing."

Now, I'm not quite about to subscribe to the AIDS dissident point of view. Related to but not necessarily the "whistleblower" factor... you'd figure if mainstream science does really have it all wrong more experts would come to that realization. That's why I'm skeptic of the skeptics. That and the fact that they cite the same research over and over. Rather than come up with new references. Though at the same time, the dissidents address both of those problems I have with why I can't fully accept what they're saying. So who knows. haha.

But regardless... it's still fascinating to read through their papers, their points of view, and study their argument.