Andre Chad Parenzee - Court Proceedings

Court Proceedings

Parenzee's request to try the cases separately was denied. He was tried and convicted on 3 counts of endangering human life on 31 January 2006. His lawyers appealed the case to the Supreme Court of South Australia, claiming a miscarriage of justice, on the basis that there was no proof that HIV existed, could be sexually transmitted, caused AIDS, or could be tested for. At the hearing, the lawyers tried to present two members of the Perth Group, Eleni Papadopulos-Eleopulos and Valendar Francis Turner, as expert witnesses in support of their claims. David Albert Cooper, Martyn Andrew Haydon French, Elizabeth Mara Dax, Dominic Edmund Dwyer, David Llewellyn Gordon, John Martin Kaldor, Robert Gallo, and Peter James McDonald were expert witnesses testifying against the claims.

The presiding Justice John Sulan found that Papadopulos-Eleopulos lacked training and expertise in the field of biology, and had misrepresented the positions of others in her testimony. His finding was that:

Ms Papadopulos-Eleopulos has no formal qualifications in medicine, biology, virology, immunology, epidemiology or any other medical disciplines. She has never treated or been directly involved in clinical trials of any kind relating to any disease. Her duties at the Royal Perth Hospital are to test people for sensitivity to ultraviolet radiation.

She has not read or she has chosen to ignore an enormous volume of recently published material on the diagnosis and treatment of HIV/AIDS. She has been selective in the material upon which she relies.

Justice Sulan also found that "her qualifications do not provide her with the academic study required to give opinions on medical and scientific matters unrelated to nuclear physics." He further noted that she had no practical experience or formal qualifications in virology, epidemiology, electron microscopy, biology or immunology. The judge found that:

...she is not qualified to express opinions about the existence of HIV, or whether it has been established that it causes AIDS. Nor has she expertise to express opinions about whether the virus is transmissible. Nor is she qualified to express opinions about the tests that have been developed to diagnose the virus.

Regarding the Perth Group, the judge found that the Perth Group will use whatever means available to promote debate, including encouragement of persons such as the applicant, to promote their theories in courts of law.

Regarding Dr. Turner, the judge found that his knowledge of the subject matter is limited to reading. "He has no formal qualifications to give expert opinions about the virus. He has no practical experience in the treatment of viral diseases. He has no practical experience in the disciplines of virology, immunology or epidemiology."

Despite the inadmissibility of Turner & Papadopulos-Eleopulos's testimony, the Judge chose to consider the claims of the defence that HIV did not exist, that it was not sexually transmissible, that it did not cause AIDS, and that tests for HIV were unreliable.