I am a copy editor and proofreader living in the Los Angeles area. I currently manage the Wikipedia page on the Rethinking AIDS website.
Contents |
The Misuse of Primary Sources in HIV/AIDS Articles
Since many of my edits deal with HIV/AIDS, I should probably point out that as a heterosexual in excellent health whose only recreational drugs are found in wine, beer, and an occasional cigar, my viewpoint is merely that of an incredulous bystander. I've never forgotten this shout in a crowded theater and what it foretold of shouts to come. Much later I read Peter Duesberg's 1996 book Inventing the AIDS Virus and knew I'd been right all along.
Since then I've come to suspect something else about the orthodox HIV/AIDS hypothesis: it can't and won't be actively maintained in detail in Wikipedia by editors using their real names. The problem is that the logic and assumptions of the hypothesis are so fundamentally dishonest that anyone who publicly and continually defended its details would necessarily suffer a damaged personal and professional reputation. And who else would bother, other than someone with a vested interest, one way or another? And what better solution than to hide behind a pseudonym? In Wikipedia virtually all editors use pseudonyms by custom and choice, but it's my theory that active orthodox HIV/AIDS editors must hide their identities.
By contrast, the existence of The Group for the Scientific Reappraisal of the HIV-AIDS Hypothesis, of which I am a layman signatory, would seem to indicate that AIDS-dissident viewpoints could be maintained in Wikipedia by people using their real names, professions, and locales. If they did so, then over time the contrast of real names and pseudonyms would become increasingly obvious to more and more readers, particularly if the real-name edits had uniformity and integrity -- and could be enforced. To achieve that end, I submit one of Wikipedia's founding precepts governing the use of primary-sources to guide the cat-herd of AIDS-dissident editors:
From WP:NOR:
“ | Our policy: Primary sources that have been reliably published may be used in Wikipedia, but only with care, because it is easy to misuse them. Any interpretation of primary source material requires a reliable secondary source for that interpretation. A primary source can be used only to make descriptive statements that can be verified by any educated person without specialist knowledge. | ” |
That is probably the single most broken rule in Wikipedia's HIV/AIDS articles. A typical example can be found here, in which the following claim is made, with bold emphasis added:
“ | The triphosphate form also inhibits DNA polymerase used by human cells to undergo cell division[1] but is far more effective at inhibiting reverse transcriptase than it is at inhibiting DNA polymerase alpha making it much better at inhibiting HIV replication than interfering with human cell division.[2][3] | ” |
But there's a problem, as demonstrated by the following quote from the Discussion section of footnote 2, Furman, et.al., with bold emphasis added:
“ | The thymidine analog 3'-azido-3'-deoxythymidine is a potent inhibitor of HIV replication in vitro (1) and shows little effect on the growth of cultured human fibroblasts and lymphocytes (Table 1). The in vitro "therapeutic index" (concentration that inhibits cell growth 50% divided by the concentration that inhibits virus replication 50%) for azidothymidine with the target H9 cells or PBLs was 2104. These results suggest that, in these cells, azidothymidine is a highly selective inhibitor of HIV replication. | ” |
And this quote from the Discussion section of the third footnote, Mitsuya, et. al.:
“ | It is worth stressing that the activity of an agent against viruses in vitro does not ensure that the agent will be clinically useful in treating viral diseases. Toxicity, metabolic features, bioavailability, and other factors could negate the clinical utility of a given agent. | ” |
Notice that the quote from the article, lacking the in vitro qualifier repeatedly used the authors themselves to describe their experiments, implies an in vivo affinity. And remember that any interpretation of primary-source material requires a reliable secondary source for that interpretation, and the footnoted statement is making a claim that AZT is far more effective and much better. And now click on the two footnotes (in the article itself they are currently numbered 22 and 8, in that order). Are they descriptive statements that can be verified by any educated person without specialist knowledge? Or are they primary sources caught in the act of being misused?
Wikipedia's current HIV/AIDS articles depend on such rule-violations. Without them, the article text quoted above would look like this, bold emphasis added:
“ | In vitro the triphosphate form also inhibits DNA polymerase used by human cells to undergo cell division[4] but is far more effective at inhibiting reverse transcriptase than it is at inhibiting DNA polymerase alpha making it much better at inhibiting HIV replication than interfering with human cell division in vitro.[2][3] | ” |
That book-ending in vitros quietly and instantly kill the entire article, because without something to back up the implied much more effective and much better in vivo therapeutic benefit of AZT there is no documented reason to prescribe or ingest it. To prevent or at least forestall a total collapse of their overarching hypothesis, orthodox editors have made it their business to keep the pseudo-reference in, using all the squid ink they can muster. In doing so they have broken the fundamental rule regarding primary sources: drawing a conclusion from it. Look at how the conclusion is justified that in vitro is an unnecessary qualifier in describing AZT's experimental mode of action. Would a secondary source require such clarification?
Many such corrections are waiting to be made. It may even be true that in every HIV/AIDS article there is only one correction, like the above one, that need be made and enforced to destroy the credibility of the entire article.
Proofreading
I've greatly expanded the Wikipedia article on Proofreading. It has a strong reported daily readership and spam is quickly reverted, yet there is no ongoing exchange of comments on the Talk page. At first this struck me as very odd, and for awhile I suspected that it could only mean that the stats were bogus. That they may be, but in the stats for Paul McCartney and Barack Obama the pattern holds -- many thousands of daily hits on their main pages, but practically none for their Talk pages -- McCartney's in particular is way out of balance.
It seems that a very, very small number of anonymous Wikipedia editors control the information that the rest of the world sees and accepts with an almost bovine docility. Something to think about.
Jane Jacobs
I've expanded the section of Jane Jacobs's page that deals with her book The Question of Separatism. This small book, now out of print, is vintage Jane and a masterpiece. Yet it was ignored upon publication and has since been forgotten. Jacobs was a naturalized Canadian citizen when her book was published, and that may be why it was ignored -- she couldn't be a prophet in her own (adopted) country -- or perhaps to become a Canadian is to disappear, even in Canada. Had she still been living in the U.S. it would have been a different story. [Apparently not, if Bill Bryson's comment at the end of this article is to be believed.]
References
- ^ Plessinger M, Miller R (1999). "Effects of zidovudine (AZT) and dideoxyinosine (ddI) on human trophoblast cells.". Reprod Toxicol 13 (6): 537–46. doi:10.1016/S0890-6238(99)00052-0. PMID 10613402.
- ^ a b Furman P, Fyfe J, St Clair M, Weinhold K, Rideout J, Freeman G, Lehrman S, Bolognesi D, Broder S, Mitsuya H (1986). "Phosphorylation of 3'-azido-3'-deoxythymidine and selective interaction of the 5'-triphosphate with human immunodeficiency virus reverse transcriptase.". Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 83 (21): 8333–7. doi:10.1073/pnas.83.21.8333. PMC 386922. PMID 2430286. http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=386922.
- ^ a b Mitsuya H, Weinhold K, Furman P, St Clair M, Lehrman S, Gallo R, Bolognesi D, Barry D, Broder S (1985). "3'-Azido-3'-deoxythymidine (BW A509U): an antiviral agent that inhibits the infectivity and cytopathic effect of human T-lymphotropic virus type III/lymphadenopathy-associated virus in vitro.". Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 82 (20): 7096–100. doi:10.1073/pnas.82.20.7096. PMC 391317. PMID 2413459. http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=391317.
- ^ Plessinger M, Miller R (1999). "Effects of zidovudine (AZT) and dideoxyinosine (ddI) on human trophoblast cells.". Reprod Toxicol 13 (6): 537–46. doi:10.1016/S0890-6238(99)00052-0. PMID 10613402.