RA2009 SPEAKER BIOGRAPHIES

David Crowe

david.crowe@aras.ab.ca

David Crowe is a science critic and writer based in Calgary, Canada. He has a degree in biology and mathematics and has written extensively on HIV/AIDS, failures of modern medicine and telecommunications. He was one of the founders of the Green Party of Alberta, and is president of Rethinking AIDS and the Alberta Reappraising AIDS Society.

Michael Tracey

michael.tracey@colorado.edu

Professor Michael Tracey has been Professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Colorado at Boulder since 1988. From 1981 to 1988 he was head of the London based Broadcasting Research Unit, then Britain's leading think tank dealing with media issues. He received his Bachelor's degree in Politics from the University of Exeter in 1971, and his doctorate from the Centre for Mass Communications Research at the University of Leicester in 1975. From 1975 to 1981 he was a Research Fellow at the Leicester Centre. Tracey has written eight books, including his 1983 biography of Sir Hugh Greene, Director General of the BBC from 1960 to1969, "A Variety of Lives; a Biography of Sir Hugh Greene" (Bodley Head) and his 1998 book, "The Decline and Fall of Public Service Broadcasting" (Oxford University Press.) Tracey has also written scores of articles on many different aspects of media and communication, but most notably dealing with the history, condition and future of public service broadcasting. He has also lectured in many different countries. From 1991 to 1998 he was a Trustee of the International Institute of Communications, and from 1994 to 1999, Visiting Professor and Chair of International Communications at the University of Salford. More recently he has produced documentaries, with his friend and colleague David Mills, and their work has appeared in the UK on Channel Four, ITV, and the American networks CBS, Court TV and A&E. They are currently — 2009 — developing a documentary series that will profile the lives of successful men who never knew their fathers. In 2008 he published his first e-book on http://www.scholarsandrogues.com. "From Xmas to August: an Essay on Murder, Media Mayhem and the Condition of the Culture" is about his decade-long involvement in the case of JonBenet Ramsey. He is currently working on a book of essays, "The Inner Moonlight: Literacy, Culture and the Future of Democracy" and writing the authorized biography of the life and times of the legendary British broadcaster Donald Baverstock. He lives with his wife, Jen, three dogs, Beau, Jess and Babe and his cat Miss Bardot, in a small hamlet at 9,000 feet in the Rocky Mountains west of Boulder.

John Lauritsen

john.lauritsen@verizon.net

John Lauritsen graduated from Harvard in 1963. He is a writer, retired survey research analyst, gay liberationist, AIDS dissident, and freethinker. His first major AIDS article, "CDC's Tables Obscure AIDS-Drugs Connection", was published in February 1985. Beginning in 1986 he wrote for the New York Native, which in eleven years would publish over fifty of his articles. His AIDS-dissident books include Death Rush: Poppers & AIDS (1986), AZT: Poison by Prescription (1990), The AIDS War (1993) and (co-edited with Ian Young) The AIDS Cult: Essays on the gay health crisis (1997).

Peter Duesberg

duesberg@uclink4.berkeley.edu

Peter H. Duesberg, Ph.D. is a professor of Molecular and Cell Biology at the University of California, Berkeley. He isolated the first cancer gene through his work on retroviruses in 1970, and mapped the genetic structure of these viruses. This, and his subsequent work in the same field, resulted in his election to the National Academy of Sciences in 1986. He is also the recipient of a seven-year Outstanding Investigator Grant from the National Institutes of Health. On the basis of his experience with retroviruses, Duesberg has challenged the virus-AIDS hypothesis in the pages of such journals as Cancer Research, Lancet, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Science, Nature, Journal of AIDS, AIDS Forschung, Biomedicine and Pharmacotherapeutics, New England Journal of Medicine and Research in Immunology. He has instead proposed the hypothesis that the various American/European AIDS diseases are brought on by the long-term consumption of recreational drugs and/or AZT itself, which is prescribed to prevent or treat AIDS. Since 1996, he has published extensively on the chromosomal (aneuploidy) theory of cancer. http://www.duesberg.com/

Etienne de Harven

pitou.deharven@orange.fr

Etienne De Harven obtained his M.D. degree in 1953 from the Université Libre de Bruxelles, (where he later became "Professeur Agrégé" in Pathology). He specialized in electron microscopy at the "Institut du Cancer" in Paris. In 1956, he joined Charlotte Friend's team at the Sloan Kettering Institute in New York, the largest cancer research center in the United States, where he was in charge of electron microscopy research. It was there that he produced the world's first description of a retrovirus budding on the surface of infected cells. He served as President of the Electron Microscopy Society of America in 1976. In 1981, he was appointed Professor of pathology and director of the electron microscopy laboratory at the University of Toronto, Canada, where he researched the marking of antigens on the surface of lymphocytes. He is former President of Rethinking Aids (2005-2008), a group comprising over 2600 scientists and other re-thinkers who refute the viral origin of AIDS. He recently published Ten Lies About AIDS http://books.trafford.com/07-2938

Charles Geshekter

chollygee@earthlink.net

Charles Geshekter is Emeritus Professor of African history at California State University, Chico. After earning his Ph.D. in History from UCLA, Geshekter has held three Fulbright Awards and his African field research was supported by grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Ford Foundation and Social Science Research Council. His publications examine various aspects of modern Somali history, techniques of documentary film making, and reappraising the AIDS epidemic in Africa. Geshekter helped to establish the Somali Studies International Association, coordinated its first conference in Mogadishu in 1980, and co-edited the Proceedings of the 1st Congress of Somali Studies. During the United Nations intervention in Somalia, Geshekter was news analyst for CBS National Radio Network, KRON-TV/San Francisco, PBS, and numerous radio stations. In 1985, he produced a PBS documentary, "The Parching Winds of Somalia" for WQED-TV. Portions of the film were included in a McNeil-Lehrer NewsHour special program, "Somalia: Anatomy of a Tragedy" that was nominated for a 1993 Emmy Award. Geshekter was Program Coordinator for the 1989 Meeting of the American Association for Advancement of Science/Pacific Division. From 1991-95, he served as Chairman for its History of Science Section and was on its Executive Council. In 1996, he was Chief Policy Advisor on Education Finance for the California State Assembly. He has worked for the Department of Justice as a consultant and researcher on African immigration issues. From 2000 to 2003, Geshekter was a member of the South African Presidential AIDS Advisory Panel.

Christian Fiala

christian.fiala@aon.at

Dr. Christian Fiala is a gynaecologist and obstetrician and currently working in Vienna, but has extensive experience in Thailand and Africa. April, 2007, he established the Museum of Contraception and Abortion. For almost 20 years he has been following critically the scientific and political discussion on the epidemiological aspects of AIDS and contributed actively. He was a member of the Presidential AIDS Advisory Panel in South Africa. Dr. Fiala has published many papers focused on the problems of AIDS in Africa and the definition of AIDS. is the author of the book "Do We Love Dangerously? - A Doctor in Search of the Facts and Background to AIDS" (Lieben wir gefaehrlich? - Ein Arzt auf der Suche nach den Fakten und Hintergruenden von AIDS) (1997); and the article in English, Aids: are we being deceived?

Roberto Giraldo

robgiraldo@aol.com

Roberto Giraldo MD, Specialist in internal medicine, infectious, immunological and tropical diseases from Universities of Antioquia (Colombia), Kansas and London. Independent AIDS researcher since 1981. Worked with the so-called HIV tests for 13 years at New York Hospital, Cornell Medical Center. Author of several critical articles and books on AIDS. Former President of rethinking AIDS. Currently is Director of the Department of Psychosomatic Medicine of the International Society of Analytical Trilogy in São Paulo, Brazil. www.robertogiraldo.com and www.trilogia.ws.

David Rasnick

drasnick@mac.com

David Rasnick received a PhD in chemistry (organic and biochemistry) from the Georgia Institute of Technology, a BS in Biology and a BS in chemistry. He has over 20 years experience in the pharmaceutical/biotech industry working on cancer, emphysema, arthritis, and parasitic diseases. He is former President of Rethinking AIDS: the group for the scientific reappraisal of the HIV hypothesis and former President of the International Coalition for Medical Justice. He was a member of the Presidential AIDS Advisory Panel of South Africa. He published Germ of Lies, a scientifically accurate but reader-friendly novel depicting of the AIDS blunder. Since 1996 he has been working closely with Peter Duesberg at University of California at Berkeley on the aneuploidy (or chromosomal imbalance) theory of cancer. http://www.davidrasnick.com

Claus Koehnlein

koehnlein-kiel@t-online.de

Claus Kohnlein received his MD in 1982 from the University of Kiel, Germany. From 1983-92, he trained in internal medicine in the Department of Oncology at the University of Kiel. Since 1993, he has been practicing internal medicine in Kiel and treating HIV-positive patients who are critical of antiviral treatment. Co-author of Virus Mania: http://www.amazon.com/Virus-Mania-Continually-Epidemics-Billion-Dollar/dp/1425114679

Henry Bauer

hhbauer@vt.edu

Henry H. Bauer earned his Ph.D. in 1956 from the University of Sydney. He was trained as an electrochemist and reported his research in numerous publications. He is emeritus professor of chemistry and science studies, and emeritus dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. After his retirement in 1999, he was editor-in-chief of the Journal of Scientific Exploration from 2000 to 2007. You can find details about his book The Origin, Persistence and Failings of HIV/AIDS Theory at http://failingsofhivaidstheory.homestead.com; the book collates and analyzes, for the first time, the results of more than two decades of HIV testing, revealing that common assumptions about HIV and AIDS are incompatible with the published data. Links to his other books are at hivskeptic.wordpress.com. His home page is henryhbauer.homestead.com

Christopher Black

bar@idirect.com

Christopher Black is an international criminal lawyer and political activist based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He has been involved in high-profile human rights cases investigating alleged war crimes and defending those accused of these crimes in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia. Black is currently defending Augustin Ndindiliyimana, the former head of Rwanda's Gendarmerie or National Police Force, before the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in Arusha, Tanzania. He and other defense lawyers went on strike in early 2004, claiming that the tribunal was being used by the U.S. for political ends and that a fair hearing was impossible. He has been the subject of several death threats as a result of his work at the Rwanda tribunal and the subject of threats and intimidation from the current RPF Rwandan regime. Christopher Black is listed as a member by the Group for the Scientific Reappraisal of the HIV-AIDS Hypothesis. He was a signatory to a December 2008 letter which urged the journal Science to retract a number of scientific papers from the early 1980s in which Robert Gallo alleged HTLV-III (HIV) caused AIDS.

Universidad Libre Pereira Colombia Law Grouppe

joralogo@gmail.com

The "Free University of Pereira (Colombia) Law Group" is composed of three people. Jose Ramon Lopez Gomez is a university teacher of philosophy and law and has worked with people affected by HIV and AIDS for the past 5 years. Leon Dario Muñoz is a cancer specialist with more than 20 years experience. Rodrigo Andres Medina Diaz is a law student working on a thesis on AIDS and the law who has worked with people affected by HIV and AIDS for the past 3 years.

Joan Shenton

joanshenton@clara.co.uk

Joan Shenton is founder and administrator of Immunity Resource Foundation. The is the author of Positively False: Exposing the myths around HIV and AIDS. She is an award winning television producer whose company Meditel Productions has specialized in science and medical programmes. She has made over 150 programmes for network television. In 1987 she produced the first documentary challenging the science behind the HIV/ AIDS hypothesis: AIDS — The Unheard Voices (Dispatches Ch4) which won the Royal Television Society Award for Journalism. There followed three further Dispatches documentaries on the subject, The AIDS Catch, AZT — Cause for Concern and AIDS and Africa. Sky News has broadcast Diary of an AIDS Dissident, AIDS Dissidents in Europe and AZT Babies. In 2000, she was granted an interview by the South African president Thabo Mbeki broadcast by M-Net South Africa — Search for Solutions — The Great AIDS Debate. Joan Shenton is currently compiling 15 years of archive material on the AIDS debate for the Immunity Resource Foundation website. http://www.immunity.org.uk/index.html

Marco Ruggiero

marco.ruggiero@unifi.it

Marco Ruggiero, MD, PhD, is a professor of Molecular Biology at the University of Firenze, Italy. He has a specialization in clinical radiology and served as Lieutenant Medical Officer in the Italian Army. In 1984-86 he worked on signal transduction and protease inhibitors as a post-doctoral fellow at Burroughs Wellcome Co. (Research Triangle Park, NC) with Drs. Cuatrecasas and Lapetina. One of his papers on protease inhibitors was presented to the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by Nobel laureate Sir John Vane. Subsequently he worked as visiting scientist at the Laboratory of Cellular and Molecular Biology (Chief: Dr. S. A. Aaronson) of the National Cancer Institute (NIH, Bethesda, Maryland); his research was focussed on oncogenes and signal transduction. In 1992, he moved back to Firenze, Italy, where now he teaches in the Faculties of Mathematical, Physical and Natural Sciences, Medicine and Surgery, and Engineering. He has been the tutor of many students preparing Bachelor or PhD. theses, several of which have been on AIDS with particular emphasis on the non-viral origin of the disease. He is the author of more than 100 scientific papers in journals such as Science, PNAS or Oncogene, and he has been recently appointed Author in Chief of the "Springer Reference Live: Cancer". His website is: marcoruggiero.org

Daniele Mandrioli

mandry83@libero.it

Daniele Mandrioli, M.D, 26 years old. He obtained his M.D. degree in 2009 from the University of Bologna, Italy, including a thesis on the Chemical-AIDS hypothesis. His thesis work was supervised by Prof. Giovanni Pierini, toxicologist, and realised thanks to his experiences at Dr. Koehnlein's practice in 2008. In 2007/2008 he was a Medical Student at Charité — Universitatsmedizin, Berlin. He is a member of the "Conflict of Interest Formation Program", a group where Medical Doctors and Medical Students discuss conflict of interest in medicine, which was created by the Center for International Health, Bologna with the help of NoGraziePagoIo (Italian branch of Nofreelunch). In the summer of 2009 he attended the BSRT International Summer School on Innovative Approaches in Regenerative Medicine in Berlin.

Karri Stokely

kstokely2@yahoo.com

Karri is a 43 year old mother of two children, ages 17 and 14. She and her husband, Joe, have been married for 19 years. Karri's background is in emergency medicine; she worked as a Paramedic, then in out-patient surgery until she had her children. As a stay-at-home mom, she has successfully home schooled both kids for the past 12 years. "It has been such a wonderful experience, quite a blessing and a privilege to build relationships with them while home-schooling" says Karri. In her spare time, Karri enjoys exercise, reading, and teaching classes on whole/living foods nutrition. Karri makes her own herbal tinctures and believes the key to good health is through natural remedies, sprouting, juicing and organic, living foods. One of Karri's favorite quotes is: "Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food." — Hippocrates

Diagnosed with AIDS after a positive HIV test in 1996, Karri followed the current orthodox paradigm of treating AIDS for 11 years until she and Joe discovered there was another side to the story — One they had never heard or been told. Karri has fully regained her health and has successfully been off pharmaceutical drugs for 2 and 1/2 years.

Karri and her family reside in Florida and you can find out more about them at: ww.myspace.com/rethinkaids

Noreen Martin

noreenelaine@hotmail.com

After having survived cancer, hepatitis, and having been diagnosed with full-blown AIDS, she knew that it was time to make major changes in her life, as she did not think that modern medicine holds out much hope for life-threatening diseases. Having to cope with these diseases in a lifetime would probably be enough to push most people over the edge. However, Noreen found that all the hurdles that one has to overcome in life only go to make one stronger. She has never accepted that these diseases, or any other for that matter, were incurable. She believes that the body and the mind have a great healing capacity if given time and the proper ingredients to work with. She has since rebuilt her health, is not on anti-retroviral medication, but takes an enhancer called low dose naltrexone. She has completed a nutritional course and a master herbalist program and soon will have a Bachelor of Science in Holistic Nutrition. She is also working on a naturopathy degree. Noreen's program of recovery started by getting educated about health issues, then she proceeded to detoxification, eliminated negative influences and added positive ones which included vitamins, supplements, and herbal products. She paid special attention to all of the food and drinks which went into her body, including products used on the body. Her health wasn't destroyed in a day, neither does she think it could be rebuilt in a day. She took one day at a time and pressed forward with good health habits and a positive attitude. Her latest book is Perfect Immunity Against Disease

Tony Lance

tonylance@mac.com

Tony Lance is a freelance writer and editor living near Nashville, TN. He's been active in the rethinking community since 1997 when he co-founded the HEAL-Atlanta chapter (now defunct). From 2004-2008 he ran an Alive and Well-affiliated peer support group in NYC. In 2008 he wrote an article exploring the connection between intestinal dysbiosis and immune dysfunction in gay men that was published on Dr. Henry Bauer's blog.