Isn HIV supposed to kill T-cells?
Richards: That’s what Gallo initially claimed, but Abbot labs grows its HIV in human T-cells. It’s even called an immortal cell line, because the leukemia cells don’t die. To date, no researcher has demonstrated how HIV kills T-cells. It’s just a theory that keeps money flowing into the pharmaceutical approach to treating AIDS. Rasnick: Gallo patented the leukemia T-cell mixture the very same day he announced he’d found the “probable cause” of AIDS. What do HIV tests do? Rasnick: They look for antibodies in your blood to proteins that are taken out of this mixture. Your body produces antibodies as a response to all foreign material – germs, yeasts, viruses, even the food you eat. Viruses are DNA or RNA strands wrapped in protein building blocks. Antibodies grab onto these proteins, immobilizing and destroying the virus. When these antibodies encounter different viral proteins in the future, they’ll very often grab onto them, too. This is called cross-reactivity. Duesberg: Viruses are o
