AIDS cure inventor continues promotion despite waning military support

General Ibrahim Abdel Aty, the head of the military research team that announced in February the creation of a device to cure HIV/AIDS and Hepatitis C, made another television appearance on Saturday night, in which he further promoted the invention without recognizing criticism from the scientific community.

When the device was announced by Abdel Aty in February, a barrage of scepticism and ridicule ensued. Doctors and scientists challenged the proposal, highlighting several scientific inaccuracies in his description of what the device does.

The general public also mocked the device after it was alleged to cure AIDS and a number of other diseases, including cancer.

Although the military fully supported the device when it was first announced, putting the announcement on the military spokesperson’s official Facebook page, several recent statements suggest that, following the wave of criticism, the military is looking to disassociate itself from the invention.

In his appearance on MBC Misr, hosted by Sherif Amer with three other members of the research team, Abdel Aty insisted on the scope of the invention, hailing it “equivalent to the pyramids.”

Abdel Aty revealed that he had been treating relatives with the device for the past 12 years and said he could provide evidence they were all cured from AIDS.

In another hard-to-believe demonstration of the device’s capabilities, Abdel Aty said that if he were to pass in front of the device with tissue from a carrier of the virus, “the device would chase me.”

When Amer asked for a scientific explanation of how the device worked, Abdel Aty responded, “I have orders not to elaborate on the theory.” When asked about when he started working on the achievement, he was vague: “It was in the nineties, 92…91…90,” he said.

Earlier in March, several newspapers reported, based on anonymous military sources, that Field Marshal Abdel Fattah al-Sisi convened a medical board to investigate the device.

Al-Watan newspaper reported that members of the medical board critiqued the research team for a device not based on science.