dChan - Q Origins Project Archive

The technique for measuring viral load is known as RNA PCR – ribonucleic acid polymerase chain reaction (25). Mainstream scientists regard this test as the most specific documentation of HIV’s presence in a person’s body. It is often used when the ELISA and WB tests are negative, because PCR can detect the virus’ genetic material (or its RNA/DNA fragments), before the human body has had a chance to recognize the virus, produce antibodies in defense, and react positively in an antibodies-only test (26).

Despite its enhanced specificity, many mainstream scientists and practitioners recommend caution when using PCR for screening or diagnosing infection (27). For instance, authors of a study published in JAMA in 2006, in which PCR was used with a sample of almost 3,000 people, concluded: “The PCR assay is not sufficiently accurate to be used for the diagnosis of HIV infection without confirmation” [(28), p. 803].

PCR technology evolved quickly since it was introduced in 1983 (25). Although being employed, mostly, for assessing viral load (less for screening and diagnosis), it should give us pause to learn, however, that Dr. Kary Mullis – the scientist who won the 1993 Nobel Prize for inventing the PCR test and whose quote introduced this article (Table (Table1)1) – has strongly opposed using the technique for determining the amount of virus circulating in plasma. Lauritsen explains:

Kary Mullis … is thoroughly convinced that HIV is not the cause of AIDS. With regard to the viral-load tests, which attempt to use PCR for counting viruses, Mullis has stated: “Quantitative PCR is an oxymoron.” PCR is intended to identify substances qualitatively, but by its very nature is unsuited for estimating numbers. Although there is a common misimpression that the viral-load tests actually count the number of viruses in the blood, these tests cannot detect free, infectious viruses at all; they can only detect proteins that are believed, in some cases wrongly, to be unique to HIV. The tests can detect genetic sequences of viruses, but not viruses themselves [(29), p. 3].

If to this picture we add human endogenous retroviruses (or HERVs) (30) as potential confounders, the genetic sequences detected in a PCR test may not be those from an exogenous virus, at all, and may explain the test’s substantial false-positive rates (18, 27). HERVs consist of retrovirus-like particles produced by host cells that are stressed or dying. In other words, when various infections assail the body, and certain cells experience stress or die in large numbers, they can manufacture by-products similar to retroviruses. These by-products can be reactive when testing for HIV antibodies, protein antigens, and viral loads (31). Culshaw summarizes it well:

A retrovirus is nothing more than RNA with an outer protein shell. The shell enables it to bind to cells of the type it infects, and once it gains entry, the outer coating disappears and the RNA is transcribed to DNA and incorporated as provirus into the host cell’s own genome. It is for this reason that retroviruses are called enveloped viruses, and it is also the reason that it is very difficult to distinguish between exogenous retroviruses (those that originate outside the body from a foreign invader) and endogenous retroviruses (those that are manufactured from our own retroviral-like genetic sequences under conditions of cellular stress, including diseases) … Much of the genetic material attributed to HIV is in fact DNA or RNA from [these] decaying cells (…) Human beings are filled with such endogenous retroviruses [(32), pp. 53, 55–56].

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4172096/