AIDS denialism paper retracted after Jeffrey Beall draws attention to it

A paper arguing that HIV does not cause AIDS has been retracted a few weeks after Jeffrey Beall, who tracks predatory publishers, called attention to it on his blog.

Here’s what Beall wrote about the paper on December 16:

The article is entitled “Basic Principles Underlying Human Physiology” ^[1], and you don’t have to be a scientist to know that it’s junk, for it is a manifestation of AIDS denialism. The conclusion’s first paragraph says,

HIV is not etiologically involved in AIDS. It is just a common retrovirus found in AIDS conjuncturally. There is only AIDS that may not be strictly associated neither to a primary immune deficiency nor to an acquired immune deficiency. Actually, heart failure represents the causal factor of AIDS and many other “primary” immune deficiencies (p. 1821).

Now, in that article’s place, this retraction, dated December 19, appears:

This is to declare that the article entitled “Basic Principles Underlying Human Physiology” [Health 6 (2014) 1816-1821] published in Health has been withdrawn due to the fact that the contents of this paper need further research and study. The article content (HTML and PDF) is removed and replaced with this announcement. The approval has been obtained from the author of this paper regarding the withdrawal of the article. In making this decision, the editorial office of Health is guided by the policies of the journal’s editorial board and constrained by such legal requirements regarding libel, copyright infringement and plagiarism. In this context, Health strives to promote the circulation of scientific research, offering an ideal research publication platform to the world with specific regard to the ethical, moral and legal concerns involved. We would like to extend our sincere apologies for any inconvenience it may cause.

The paper was written by Dumitru Pavel, of Bucharest Medical University in Romania.

Beall, who has prompted at least one other retraction, provides some context on SCIRP:

China-based Scientific Research Publishing is a growing empire with four publishing imprints (brands) that I know of, plus one mega-journal that emulates PLOS ONE, publishing in both English and Chinese and with claimed offices in the United States, Canada, and China. The imprints include:

Scientific Research Publishing

Hans Publishers, Inc. (HansPub, 汉斯)

The mega-journal is OA Lib (Open Access Library).

There is also a possible connection between SCIRP and Sophia Publishing Group, based in British Columbia, but this connection is unclear:

Sophia Publishing Group (This is a meta-publisher, or platform, with the following two journal imprints):

BioPublisher

The 5th Publisher

I realize there may be some strong and honest articles published in SCIRP journals. However, these articles are devalued and stigmatized by association with all the junk science that SCIRP publishes. The authors of the good articles are being victimized by the publisher’s policy of publishing pseudoscientific articles like “Basic Principles Underlying Human Physiology.”

This is the second AIDS denialism paper we’ve covered recently.