Alan:
> >Well your common sense should tell you that your belief that a
> >virus is inactive or inert rather than a living organism is totally
> >irrelevant. We have the ability today to be able to actually
> >see viruses reproducing..meaning to be able to see viruses
> >entering and reprogramming cells to produce more viruses rather
> >than something else.

Axel:
> i just do not believe this at all. please point me to a book or video or
> anything where i can SEE the virus clearly DOING anything. are you telling
> me you have seen a non-living thing, that just happens to be around cells,
> REPROGRAMMING a cell? seriously, i want to see such an incredible thing. i
> have heard that they said the same with the "aids virus", meaning that
> actually the cell was engulfing (sp?) the virus, and they said "look, the
> virus is invading the cell". but now you say REPROGRAMMING? i have to see
> it. please indicate some references.

Carol:
I second that request.

Axel:
> honestly, i am just kidding, for there is NO WAY something dead ever
> does anything. there are no misteries like this.

Carol:
But I have to disagree with you here, Axel.  Just look at computer
viruses.  The mechanism of their destructiveness is basically the
same as that of a biovirus (they are taken in as valid information
and their orders are carried out) but they certainly aren't alive.
Wouldn't you agree?

Axel:
> there are loads of things we human beings do not fully understand,
> etc, but come on, how did they convinced us of the virus thing? it does not
> make sense! organic matter cannot do things to living beings! am i being
> too extremist here? what is so fascinating about the virus explanation of
> disease, that we go to such extremes of imagination? it is not a being,
> then it cannot do anything. beings do things, like moving, eating,
> changing, adapting, healing, breathing, fighthing, etc etc etc, but
> non-living THINGS, do not.

Carol:
It does not follow that since a virus is not a being, it cannot have
an effect on a living being.  Poisons are not alive, yet they can kill.
In the case of a virus that is being replicated by a cell, the cell is
the one doing the doing.  It is really harming itself; the virus is
just the little piece of misinformation that started the cell down a
self-destructive path.

Alan:
> Viruses may not be live organisms as we know them (i.e. which
> contain a nucleus)

Carol:
[It is my understanding that there is much more to being considered
alive than that, but that's kinda beside the point...]

Alan:
> >but they are certainly capable of carrying pieces of DNA and using
> >these pieces to reprogram the DNA in a cell to make the cell produce
> >more copies of the virus.

Carol:
I think Axel's main gripe (correct me if I'm wrong here, Axel) is
the way people continue to assign activities to the virus.  He is
correct.  The virus doesn't DO anything.  It doesn't even reprogram
the cell.  The cell takes in the information and does the dirty deed
itself.  (People like to talk of the "wisdom of the body", but bodies
are often active agents in their own demise.)

Axel:
> what does it mean to die from a piece of organic matter? i do not believe a
> human body can die from organic molecules alone. no way, the body is too
> good for that.

Carol:
It's not really all that different from dying from inorganic matter.
Do you doubt that people can die in a gas chamber?

Alan:
> >A strain of the HIV virus has also been detected in apes BTW, and
> >AIDS is also said to have first broken out in Africa.

Axel:
> i think your posts are interesting and at least I have learned new things
> from them, but it seems that you have not read the anti-AIDS literature.
> hiv is a hoax and a myth, there is no science to back up anything about
> hiv. AIDS does not exist as a separate disease. let me say it more clearly:
>
> AIDS DOES NOT EXIST!

Carol:
I'm an AIDS dissident myself, but I disagree with you here, as I think
most AIDS dissidents would.  AIDS, meaning the observed *syndrome*,
certainly exists.  People did start showing up with collections of
symptoms that, until then, had not been seen in numbers sufficient to
warrant being labeled as a syndrome (though Robert Root-Bernstein has
done a great job of ferreting out very old cases that fit the AIDS
profile).  The big question is WHY so many people suddenly started
showing up with these symptoms.  It is entirely possible that HIV
does not exist, that it is simply an artifact of sloppy science, but
there is no proof either way just yet.  But the syndrome called AIDS,
whatever its cause, certainly exists.

Axel:
> i write this because it is my feeling that in general people who question
> the prevalent food paradigm also question other health-related topics. if
> anybody in this list feels my points about aids are too off-topic, i will
> refrain from saying anything else about it.

Carol:
Considering some of the things that have been discussed on this list,
I would say that this topic is certainly fair game, but I'll also
refrain if there's a lot of disagreement on that.