The Drug-AIDS
Hypothesis
by Peter Duesberg and David Rasnick
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educational purposes and
is not a substitute for the advice of and treatment by a qualified professional.
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This document was provided by
Continuum Magazine Vol. 4 No. 5
2. WHY HIV-AIDS SCIENCE CANNOT SUCCEED
2.1. The American/European AIDS epidemic.
The AIDS epidemic in America and Europe is defined as a significant increase, since
1981, of 30 previously known diseases (Table 1) affecting mostly 25 to 44 year old men and
some (10%) women 3-7 . In America these cases have shot up from negligible numbers in this
age group in the 1970s to annually about 50,000 to 75,000 patients now 3
(Fig. 1). Because Kaposis sarcoma rose from an almost non-existent
background of about 50 cases per year in 1981 8, 9 to thousands of almost exclusively male
homosexual cases annually now, it has become the signal disease of AIDS 3 . It is for this
reason that the new epidemic has been accepted as a new disease, "HIV disease",
in numerous publications 5. In fact, AIDS in America and
Europe is a new epidemic of old diseases that primarily affects 25 to 44 year old males.
2.2. The war on AIDS.
By any measure the war on AIDS has been a complete failure. Since 1981, over 500,000
Americans and over 150,000 Europeans have developed AIDS, and the US taxpayer alone has
paid over $45 billion for AIDS research and treatment, but no vaccine, no cure, and no
effective prevention has been developed, and not a single AIDS patient has been saved 7, 10, 11 . This war has been fought in the name of the hypothesis
that the Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) is infectious, caused by the Human
Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), and that this virus (i.e. AIDS) is sexually transmitted 5, 12, 13 .
The HIV-AIDS hypothesis was announced in April 1984 at an international press
conference in Washington by the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the
National Institues of Health (NIH) researcher Robert Gallo even before it had
appeared in any American scientific publication 10, 14 . For
the last twelve years the HIV hypothesis has been international dogma and the basis of all
AIDS research and therapy 4, 5, 8, 9, 11, 13, 15 .
According to the HIV-AIDS hypothesis 30 previously known diseases, including microbial
or immunodeficiency diseases such as pneumonia, tuberculosis, candidiasis (yeast
infection), diarrhea, and classical non-immunodeficiency diseases such as Kaposis
sarcoma, dementia, weight loss and lymphoma, are all consequences of viral
immunodeficiency and called AIDS when antibody against HIV is present 5,
16 (Table 1). For example, tuberculosis is now diagnosed as AIDS in the
presence of antibody against HIV; in the absence of the antibody, it is still diagnosed as
tuberculosis.
2.3. AIDS facts incompatible with the HIV-AIDS hypothesis.
Even a brief survey of the facts of AIDS shows that the proponents of the HIV
hypothesis have not followed Feynmans advice to " put down all the facts that
disagree with it":
1) Although AIDS is postulated to be a new infectious epidemic, it fails all
epidemiological standards of infectious disease 17 :
(a) Infectious diseases spread equally between the sexes but AIDS does not. Nine
out of 10 American AIDS patients are males 3 .
(b) The recipient has the same disease as the donor but not in AIDS. After a
contact with a Kaposis sarcoma patient a person may develop dementia or diarrhea or
pneumonia or no disease at all 18 .
(c) According to Farrs law of epidemiology, a new infectious disease spreads
exponentially in an uninfected population 19 , like a
seasonal flu but American and European AIDS lingers in fringe groups, spreading
slowly, but non-exponentially, over years 20 (see Fig 1).
Numerous facts confirm that AIDS is not infectious. Although there is no anti-HIV
vaccine nor any effective anti-viral drug, the professional literature has yet to describe
the first doctor (except for a few undocumented, anecdotal claims 15 ) who has contracted
AIDS from the over 500,000 American 3 and over 150,000 European AIDS patients 350 . The wives of 15,000 American HIV-positive hemophiliacs have
also not developed AIDS, although HIV is said to be sexually transmitted 21-23
. And since 1984 not even one of tens of thousands of HIV scientists has developed AIDS
from exposure to HIV 10, 22, 24.
Chimpanzees are as susceptible to HIV as humans, but none of over 200 animals
inoculated with HIV since 1983 has developed AIDS 25, 354 .
Even the CDC now admits that it "may be difficult to identify [AIDS from contact
infection] because most persons with AIDS have had contact with many different people. In
particular, drug users and homosexual and bisexual men may have had contact with hundreds
of partners that they did not know very well."26 .
2) Although viruses are not selective, AIDS in America and Europe is restricted, over
95%, to fringe groups with life-threatening health risks other than the hypothetical risk,
HIV 3, 25 . These risks include the intravenous drugs taken
by a third of American AIDS patients, and the many illicit sexual and mental stimulants,
and the highly toxic anti-HIV drugs taken by male homosexuals who make up over 60% of the
American AIDS patients (see 3. and 4.). The remainder are typical diseases of hemophiliacs
and transfusion recipients, that fall into the AIDS definition but represent the normal
incidence of these diseases in these groups under the new name, AIDS 3,
7, 11, 13, 25-27 .
3) Although HIV is a long-established virus in the US because the number of
carriers has remained completely stable since its discovery 24, 25, 28
(Farrs law) AIDS is a new epidemic in America (see Fig 1).
4) Although only 1 in 1,000 T-cells is ever infected by HIV, and HIV like all other
retroviruses 25 does not kill infected cells, most AIDS patients lose T-cells 10, 25, 29-31. If HIV were responsible for immunodeficiency it
would act like a single bullet that kills 1000 soldiers.
5) Although dementia, weight loss and Kaposis sarcoma are not consequences of,
and frequently not even associated with immunodeficiency, they are blaimed on the
immunodeficiency virus, HIV 13, 24, 25 (Table 1).
6) AIDS appears, if at all, typically only 10 years after HIV infection 13,
32, 33 . But HIV, multiplying over 100-fold every 1-2 days, has the capacity to
produce 10 14 viruses in 2 weeks enough to infect every cell in the human body. If
HIV could cause AIDS, AIDS should appear within 2 weeks after infection 10,
17, 24, 30, 31, 34 .
7) Although pathogenic viruses cause the same disease in all people, Kaposis
sarcoma occurs almost exclusively in male homosexuals 10, 24, 35
. If HIV could cause Kaposis sarcoma, transfusion recipients, like the 15,000
HIV-positive American hemophiliacs or the 3 million Americans who annually receive blood
transfusions 25 , should have this cancer. But paradoxically,
no Kaposis sarcoma has ever been transmitted by transfusion 7, 22,
23, 36 .
8) Although HIV is widespread in American/European hemophiliacs the mortality of
hemophiliacs has decreased (until 1987, when most started receiving AZT)22,
23, 37 , that of male homosexuals has increased 3
, and that of intravenous drug users 38-40 and sub-Saharan
Africans 41 has stayed about the same since HIV has been
diagnosed in these groups. If HIV were the cause of AIDS the mortality of all infected
groups should have increased.
9) HIV is claimed to be sexually transmitted in spite of the fact it takes, on average,
1000 unprotected sexual contacts to contract the virus 42, 43
. Therefore, HIV depends for its survival on perinatal transmission, which is 25 to 50%
efficient 25, 44 just like all other animal and human
retro-viruses of its kind 25, 45 . It follows that HIV is
biologically not a sexually transmitted virus.
10) Although HIV is claimed to be fatal, it is not possible that either a perinatally
or even a sexually transmitted microbe could be fatally pathogenic. Such a microbe would
exterminate itself together with its host within a few generations.
11) Although HIV is postulated to cause 30 AIDS diseases, it meets all four classical
standards of a harmless passenger virus 17 :
(a) The time of infection by the passenger is irrelevant to the onset of a disease, if
one occurs. This applies exactly to HIV and AIDS; hence the arbitrary assertion that HIV
takes on average 10 years to cause AIDS (see 6.).
(b) The passenger virus can be either active or passive, either rare or abundant during
any disease. This also applies exactly to HIV and AIDS, although abundant HIV in AIDS is
extremely rare 30, 46 .
(c) The passenger virus can be entirely absent during any disease. This also applies
exactly to HIV and AIDS; hence HIV-free AIDS 47 (see 6.8.).
(d) If the passenger virus is activated by a failing immune system, but does not cause
opportunistic disease symptoms of its own, it is a harmless passenger. Indeed, there is no
report in the literature that AIDS patients are clinically distinguishable from each other
based on the presence of HIV or on its activity 30, 46 .
Likewise, all other conventional retroviruses (without non-essential genes) do not
contribute a disease symptom when they are activated in immunosuppressed or congenitally
infected animals 45 . By contrast, herpes virus HHV-6 48 or cytomegalovirus are passengers that may impart specific
pathogenic properties to an immunodeficient patient 49 .
Since HIV meets all these criteria with regard to AIDS to the letter, it is a harmless
passenger virus.
2.4. Conclusions.
Instead of explaining the "facts" about AIDS, the HIV hypothesis generates
numerous paradoxes and contradictions. Since there are no paradoxes in science, only bad
hypotheses, the HIV hypothesis must be flawed. A flawed hypothesis also explains the
failure of the war on AIDS. Even the best and most expensive science cannot produce
results in the name of a flawed hypothesis. Therefore, independent hypotheses must be
found to solve AIDS 34 .
The search for a plausible cause of AIDS quickly leads to the only new health risk
that has affected America and Europe since World War II, the drug epidemic.
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