David Rasnick

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David Rasnick is a biochemist, AIDS dissident, and former president of the Group for the Scientific Reappraisal of the HIV/AIDS Hypothesis.

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[edit] Education and views

Dr. Rasnick received his Ph.D. in chemistry from Georgia Tech in 1978 and has over 20 years experience with proteases and their inhibitors.

He is best known for his views regarding HIV/AIDS, shared with a small group of other scientists. Their claim – that HIV is not the main cause of AIDS – puts them at odds with the rest of the scientific community. According to an AIDS dissident website, Rasnick accepted a challenge by Phillip Machanick, a computer science professor at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, to inject himself with HIV.[1] For his part of the challenge, Mechanick would take anti-retrovirals (HAART), and the one who lived the longest would be declared the winner. It is not clear if the duel ever actually took place. However, Rasnick has added stipulations to the challenge which some consider unrealistic.[1]

[edit] Work with Rath Foundation

Rasnick is now an employee of the Rath Foundation Africa, which advocates that people with HIV should not receive treatment with antiretrovirals but, instead, should buy Matthias Rath's proprietary high-dose vitamin formula. Rasnick and the Rath Foundation are the subject of a lawsuit by the Treatment Action Campaign in South Africa. The lawsuit was brought as a result of clinical trials conducted by Rasnick and the Rath Foundation that were not approved by the appropriate authorities in South Africa and did not undergo any ethical review. The trials involved recruiting people with HIV, instructing them not to take antiretrovirals, and providing them instead with Rath's supplements.[2] Court documents regarding TAC's lawsuit are online at: http://www.tac.org.za/rath.html.

[edit] Allegations of false claims about credentials

David Rasnick has claimed to be a visiting scholar at the University of California, Berkeley.[3] However, in response to a 2006 editorial in which Rasnick claimed affiliation with the university, the chairman of Molecular and Cell Biology at the University of California, Berkeley wrote:

I understand David Rasnick claimed an affiliation with our department in an article. David Rasnick has no affiliation with the University of California, Department of Molecular and Cell Biology. One should obviously be concerned that someone who misrepresents his own affiliation might also misrepresent data and arguments in other areas.[4]

Rasnick responded that his visiting scholar status had been terminated by the University "without my knowledge".[4]

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b Virusmyth website on Dr. Machanick's challenge, accessed 15 Sept 2006.
  2. ^ Court documents on legal action against Rasnick and Rath, accessed 15 Sept 2006.
  3. ^ Treatment Action Campaign electronic newsletter, containing description of dispute over Rasnick's affiliation with U.C. Berkeley.
  4. ^ a b "Rasnick sets the record straight", letters to the editor from The Citizen, April 2006. Accessed 26 Feb 2007.
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