Negacionismo da VIH/SIDA

O movimento de reavaliação da AIDS (ou movimento dissidente da AIDS) é formado por ativistas, jornalistas, cidadãos, cientistas, pesiquisadores e doutros que negam, desafiam ou questionam, de várias formas, o consenso da corrente dominante da ciência segundo a qual a Síndrome da Imunodeficiência Adquirida (AIDS, ou SIDA) é causada pelo Vírus da Imunodeficiê ncia Humana (HIV).

Their challenges often take one or more of the following forms:

• HIV does not exist
• HIV is a harmless retrovirus
• HIV does exist, and might cause AIDS, but it hasn't been proven to cause AIDS
• HIV does exist, but does not cause AIDS: other infectious factors cause AIDS
• HIV does exist, but does not cause AIDS: AIDS is not a contagious disease
• HIV does exist, but does not cause AIDS: a combination of other infectious and non-infectious factors causes AIDS
• HIV does exist, and may cause AIDS, but only in combination with other factors

These claims are met with resistance by, and often evoke frustration and hostility from, the mainstream scientific community who accuse the dissidents of ignoring evidence in favor of HIV's role in AIDS and irresponsibly posing a dangerous threat to public health by their continued activities.

Dissidents assert that the current mainstream approach to AIDS, based on HIV causation, has resulted in inaccurate diagnoses, psychological terror, toxic treatments, and a squandering of public funds. The debate and controversy regarding this issue from the early 1980s to the present has provoked heated emotions and passions from both sides.

Terminology

One component of the debate centers around semantic issues related to labeling supporters of various perspectives, or in referring to various theories and ideas. While the disagreement over the cause of AIDS is ultimately a conflict between scientific theories, and the terminology used in that conflict has no bearing on the evaluation of those theories, a mention of this semantic disagreement must be made.

For example, some HIV researchers and activists have used the term "denialist" in referring to those who question HIV's role in AIDS, perhaps in analogy to Holocaust denial. Some dissenters have reacted by referring to themselves as "realists", implying that their perspective is more realistic than the mainstream view. In this article, the term dissident is used for those who question HIV's role in AIDS in accordance with the definition of the term: one who disagrees with the popular view.

Similarly, the two camps are often in conflict over terminology with regard to the notion that HIV causes AIDS. This notion is variously called the "HIV hypothesis" or "HIV theory". To dissidents, the notion that HIV causes AIDS is, and remains, merely a hypothesis, while to mainstream scientists, it is an established fact. In this article, the term HIV theory is used; here, "theory" is meant in its most general scientific sense, and is not synonymous with "hypothesis." The phrase "the HIV theory of AIDS" means "the model for understanding AIDS in which HIV is the cause".

Arguments by dissidents

Although dissidents disagree on many aspects concerning HIV and AIDS, there are some claims that a majority of dissidents support, and these claims form the heart of their arguments. This section describes some of the arguments that are frequently made by dissidents, along with the counter-arguments that are made in response. The following are summarised from some major papers of Peter Duesberg and others.

Claim: AIDS is not infectious

Unusually-long latency period

Dissidents claim that AIDS has not behaved like a typical infectious disease. Typically, they claim, infectious diseases spread rapidly, even exponentially, and that the latency period of many infectious diseases is usually measured in weeks whereas AIDS progresses slowly in comparison, with some cases of latency periods up to 11 years; this is taken by dissidents to be evidence against AIDS being caused by an infectious agent.

Mainstream scientists say that the relatively slow spread of AIDS is due to HIV's long latency period and to new treatments and prevention campaigns which have slowed the spread of AIDS. They counter that there are many well-known infectious diseases which develop slowly and spread slowly, such as the prion-induced Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease whose latency period can be as long as 30 years; the mainstream view is that the slow rate of development of AIDS does not imply that it is not infectious. Transmission of the HIV retrovirus via body fluid contact has been well demonstrated and is typical of infectious disease: HIV behaves exactly like other retroviruses in terms of its transmission through blood and breast milk. Mainstream scientists argue that prevalence and incidence rates enable accurate predictions based on the established notion that AIDS is infectious; the epidemiology is not in any way incompatible with infectious causation.

Fails to fulfill Koch's postulates

Another claim made by dissidents is that HIV does not fulfill Koch's postulates for infectious disease. In order for HIV to satisfy Koch's postulates as the cause of AIDS,

• It must be found in all individuals with AIDS (and not in those without AIDS)
• It must be possible to isolate HIV from someone with AIDS
• The isolated HIV should cause AIDS when introduced into a healthy person
• It should be possible to isolate HIV from the newly infected individual

Ideally, and within the constraints of ethical experimentation (which effectively rules out testing the third postulate above), proof of the fulfillment of these postulates is considered a sufficient demonstration of the causality of a disease. According to dissidents, failure to satisfy these postulates may cast doubt on HIV as the cause of AIDS.

Not all individuals diagnosed with AIDS have detectable amounts of HIV in their blood. Dissidents claim that Koch's postulates are not adequately fulfilled, because there are individual cases in which the virus cannot be found or reisolated.

Respondents claim that HIV does fulfill these postulates, and that the exceptions are due to the imperfect sensitivity of HIV testing, or imperfect isolation techniques, rather than the absence of the virus.

Non-random infection pattern

Dissidents note that in North America and Western Europe, AIDS spreads non-randomly, affecting specific groups of people, and moreover, that it is fragmented into distinct sub-epidemics with exclusive AIDS-defining diseases. According to the definition from WHO and the US health authority CDC, AIDS in Africa looks completely different from the corresponding syndrome in North America and Western Europe; one example that has been cited is that in Africa AIDS affects roughly equal numbers of men and women, while in North America and Western Europe it affects more men than women. Another statistic that is sometimes cited is that AIDS is highly correlated with drug use in Western countries, while it is associated with malnutrition and poor living conditions in Africa. According to dissidents, these are indicators of a non-infectious cause of AIDS.

Respondents counter that AIDS cases cluster in biologically isolated groups such as injection drug users and gay men because HIV is infectious and is effectively transmitted by sex and shared needles. Blood-borne viral diseases such as hepatitis B were already known to be transmitted in the same ways prior to the advent of AIDS, and have their highest infection rates in the same subgroups as AIDS in North America and Western Europe. Also, HIV is said to cause the condition of immune suppression, which in turn causes specific diseases, and thus it should be expected that AIDS manifests itself differently among different groups of people. They note that there could be many explanations for AIDS' appearance in different groups on different continents, including the simple coincidence of first being introduced into different groups on different continents; educational campaigns may have had a beneficial effect in Western countries, while those in Africa have not received such educational benefits. They also note that sexual practices in the U.S. may be different from those in Africa. In particular, they note that in Africa anal sex is commonly practiced in lieu of vaginal sex, as a form of birth control. According to the mainstream perspective, none of this changes the fact that HIV is the underlying cause among all these groups.

Claim: HIV is harmless

In addition to the claims regarding the variations in AIDS definition between North America, Western Europe, and Africa, another fact dissidents cite as supporting evidence that HIV is harmless is the fact that there are many people who are HIV-positive and remain healthy 15 or 20 years after testing positive for HIV. Conversely, some HIV-seronegative people develop what would have been considered AIDS-defining diseases had they tested positive.

According to the mainstream perspective, the long period of HIV infection preceding AIDS manifestations is to be expected; they claim that HIV can take years to cause the immunosuppression necessary to permit opportunistic disease to occur. Before treatment was available, the mean duration between HIV infection and the development of AIDS was thought to be eleven years. This long period before the development of severe consequences does not, according to mainstream scientists, mean that the virus is harmless.

Regarding the individuals who have developed AIDS-defining diseases in the absence of HIV, mainstream scientists state that such individuals have had their immune system compromised in other ways (such as hairy cell leukemia, a few rare genetic disorders, or high doses of immunosuppressive drugs like prednisone or chemotherapy), and that this fact has no bearing on the ability of HIV to cause immunosuppression.

Another statistic cited by skeptics is the level of HIV infection over time. HIV has remained prevalent at a relatively constant rate in the United States population the past 20 years, suggesting to dissidents that it has existed long before the outbreak of AIDS there in the early 1980s. Mainstream scientists reply that this suggests only that the number of new infections are approximately equal to the number of deaths; thus, the level of infection remains consistent.

Claim: AIDS is inconsistently defined

Of substantial concern to AIDS dissidents is the use of HIV antibody or viral testing as part of the definition of AIDS. Some of the approximately 30 AIDS-defining diseases, including Kaposi's Sarcoma and Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia (PCP), are considered diagnostic of AIDS only when serologic evidence of HIV is present. In the absence of such evidence, these diseases are thought to be related to other immune problems, and are not diagnosed as AIDS. In other words, according to dissidents, the definition of AIDS is an example of circular logic: because diagnosis with AIDS requires the presence of HIV antibodies, there can be no AIDS without HIV, by definition. Moreover, say dissidents, many of the AIDS-defining diseases, such as cervical cancer, have nothing to do with immune deficiency, and should not be considered part of the definition of AIDS.

AIDS was originally defined without reference to HIV---by necessity, since AIDS was defined as a syndrome before HIV was discovered. The first definition of AIDS by the CDC in September 1982 listed 13 diseases, "at least moderately predictive of a defect in cell-mediated immunity, occurring in a person with no known cause for diminished resistance to that disease." Supporters of the HIV theory claim that it is not uncommon in medical science for a disease to first be described in terms of its physical manifestations, and to later have its definition altered as its causes become more evident. For example, the syndrome of acute pericarditis was originally described in terms of its symptoms of chest pain, pericardial friction rub, and pericardial effusion; as its etiology was determined, it became possible to classify the syndrome according to etiology---infectious (viral, tubercuarl, fungal), rheumatic, and other non-infectious causes---and a diagnosis of "acute pericarditis" without etiology is now considered incomplete. As with any new syndrome, scientists' understanding of AIDS evolved gradually, with the most obvious and severe manifestations noticed first and rarer or subtler ones recognized later.

HIV was discovered in 1984, and a year later, after discussion with epidemiologists, the CDC changed its operational definition of AIDS to add a small additional number of conditions which would be considered AIDS-defining if (and only if) they occurred in conjunction with a positive HIV test. The original list of conditions continued to trigger an AIDS diagnosis with or without a positive HIV test. Once the idea that HIV causes AIDS had become widely accepted, it was added to the definition of the syndrome.

As experience with the disease continued, it became clear that it was associated with a broader array of illnesses than those initially identified. In 1987 the CDC added some of these to the case definition, including encephalopathy and wasting syndrome. These had not been in the initial definition because they are not conditions that are recorded during epidemiological surveillance.

It became apparent, however, that the operational case definition did not adequately reflect clinical experience. There were patients who were HIV infected but who did not have AIDS-defining illnesses who were doing poorly, and others who had AIDS-defining illnesses (such as one Kaposi's sarcoma lesion) yet were doing well. In January, 1993, the definition was again changed, to trigger an AIDS diagnosis on the basis of a CD4 cell count below 200 or a CD4 percentage below 14, and adding additional indicator diseases based on epidemiological observation: invasive cervical cancer, pulmonary tuberculosis and recurrent pneumonia. The core list of diseases identified in the original definition of the disease in 1982 continue to be AIDS-defining, even if an HIV test is not performed.

It is for these reasons that the changing AIDS definition is seen by mainstream scientists as merely a reflection of a broadened understanding of the disease, rather than a "circular" definition requiring a specific etiology. They claim that there is, and always has been, a strong correlation between HIV and AIDS, and thus it is perfectly natural for the presence of HIV antibodies to be a defining characteristic of AIDS.

Dissidents claim there is no consistent definition of AIDS across political or international boundaries. One example they give is that in Africa, a laboratory test is not required for a diagnosis of AIDS---this is because impoverished nations consider the test too expensive for routine use. This leaves global AIDS epidemiology without clear standards or norms.

Consensus scientists counter by saying that the inconsistencies among the various definitions of AIDS do not detract from the fact that HIV causes AIDS, and that while these inconsistencies represent difficulties in comparing the prevalence and incidence of the disease, they are unrelated to the causation of the disease.

Claim: HIV testing is unreliable

Tests are inaccurate

Some dissidents also claim that the process of testing individuals for the presence of HIV is flawed. One commonly cited example is the possibility of encountering a false positive, which would falsely identify someone as HIV positive when in fact they were HIV negative. The most commonly-cited case of this is a study where 83% of all initially-positive HIV antibody tests (10,000 out of 12,000 tests) were false-positives (New Eng. J. Med. 319, 961-964, 1988). Dissidents also claim that the presence of antibodies to HIV (the most common method of testing for HIV) should be taken as an indicator that the HIV within the body are being neutralized by the body's immune system, rather than as an indicator of active HIV.

Mainstream scientists recognize that all tests have false positives and false negatives, and strive to develop tests with lower rates of each. As such, the accuracy of HIV antibody tests has increased dramatically since its isolation. They also state that scientists work with aggregate data, not individual data, so that a few false results do not unduly skew aggregate results. According to supporters of the HIV theory, current HIV antibody tests have a sensitivity (ability to give a positive result when HIV is present) and specificity (ability to give a negative result when no HIV is present) accuracy in excess of 98%. They claim that this level is comparable to any other medical test. With technology such as the polymerase chain reaction or branched DNA assays, now routinely used in all AIDS patients in developed nations, HIV is detectable in nearly all symptomatic AIDS patients. Testing for actual viral RNA in the blood is far more sensitive and reliable than testing for HIV antibodies. They also state that not all antibodies are neutralizing antibodies, and that they have elucidated many different antibodies that are elicited by HIV infection.

HIV does not exist

A small minority of dissidents question the existence of HIV altogether, thus for them all HIV tests are meaningless because they consider the tests to be testing for the presence of something which has not yet been proven to exist. However, mainstream scientists, and even a majority of dissidents, regard the isolation of HIV as a fact which has been demonstrated repeatedly.

Orthodox arguments

Those who defend the HIV theory have many claims to counter the dissidents. [The following are summarised from the official NIH/NIAID fact sheet and other publications.]

Claim: HIV fulfills Koch's postulates

Mainstream scientists conclude that HIV fulfills Koch's postulates in humans and in non-human (e.g. chimpanzee) models of AIDS. See reference section ( "HIV causes AIDS: Koch's postulates fulfilled", O'Brien SJ, Goedert JJ.) Dissidents claim that HIV has not fulfilled Koch's postulates as described previously.

Claim: HIV and AIDS linked in time and place

HIV researchers point out that HIV and AIDS have a strong correlation with each other. AIDS and HIV infection are invariably linked in time, place and population group. Dissidents counter that correlation is not the same as causation. They believe there may very well be a biological or biochemical reason for the correlation between HIV positive test results and the progression of AIDS diseases, but this does not prove causation -- each may be the result of another, unrelated biochemical cause or factor.

In cohort studies, severe immunosuppression and AIDS-defining illnesses occur almost exclusively in individuals who are HIV-infected. Dissidents counter AIDS-defining illnesses do occur in the absence of HIV infection. Consensus scientists explain this as a result of the fact that things other than HIV also cause immunosuppression.

Although immune deficiency has long existed in humans, the current epidemic of immune deficiency is a new phenomenon that has only existed since the onset of the AIDS epidemic -- both dissidents and mainstream scientists agree on this fact. Dissidents, however, believe that HIV is not a plausible cause. They posit many other possible causes (e.g., drug use) which temporally fit the onset of the AIDS epidemic and have a more immediate biological mechanism. Consensus scientists reply that drug use existed long before AIDS, and didn't cause the diseases found in AIDS. Dissidents maintain that the recent drug epidemic has been quantitatively different from previous human drug use, and they point to a particular class of nitrite drugs ("poppers") that became popular just before the initial outbreak, also claiming many cases of AIDS closely resemble chronic nitrite poisoning.

Claim: Infectious HIV and viral load support HIV theory

HIV researchers cite numerous studies of HIV-infected people have shown that high levels of infectious HIV, viral antigens, and HIV nucleic acids (DNA and RNA) in the body predict immune system deterioration and an increased risk for developing AIDS. Conversely, patients with low levels of virus have a much lower risk of developing AIDS. Dissidents counter even if this is true, this does not prove causation. They believe that high levels of infectious HIV and nucleic acids may be correlated with increased risk of developing AIDS, but this does not establish a causative relationship in the absence of plausible biological mechanisms.

Also, consensus scientists believe there is significant correlation between the level of viral production and viral load and disease prognosis. The onset of AIDS is greatly delayed in individuals who have low levels of viral replication, while patients with high amounts of the virus in the blood and lymph nodes have a much worse prognosis. Dissidents counter that viral load does not have a high correlation with onset of AIDS illnesses. Consensus scientists believe this is to be expected, as viral load varies markedly during the day. [Ironically, dissidents take this as evidence that the viral load markers should not be trusted.] They note that viral load correlates imperfectly with t-cell level, but t-cell level correlates well with AIDS illnesses. They point out that viral load at time of HIV infection correlates well with time to onset of AIDS, and worsening of viral load correlates with progression to AIDS.

Claim: HIV causes death of T-cells

Mainstream scientists assert that HIV has been proven responsible for the death and dysfunction of CD4+ T lymphocytes in vitro and in vivo. However, dissidents counter that this death of cells by HIV in vitro or in vivo has never been demonstrated, and in fact, they point out that the direct viral cytolysis (killing of cells by the destructive process of infecting them) of more than a few percent of T cells is no longer maintained to be true even by mainstream scientists. Mainstream scientists counter with models showing that HIV exploits several different mechanisms in its attack, not solely direct viral cytolysis. For example, one HIV protein is known to unbalance the immune system; another one binds to the outside of healthy T4 cells so that the rest of the immune system confuses the healthy cells with viral particles. These mechanisms are not unique to HIV; for example, some proteins in the influenza virus slow the immune system's response time.

Claim: Drugs based on HIV theory have helped patients

HIV researchers point out that the availability of potent combinations of drugs that specifically block HIV replication has dramatically improved the prognosis for HIV-infected individuals. They contend that such an effect would not be seen if HIV did not have a central role in causing AIDS. Dissidents counter that AIDS drugs are not specific to HIV, and that even if AIDS drugs were effective against HIV, this is not proof that HIV causes AIDS.

Consensus scientists reply that in the past, AIDS dissidents have predicted that there would be "mass die offs" of patients who took AIDS medications. Instead, there has been a significant improvement of survival since the introduction of highly active anti-retroviral therapy (HAART) in 1997. Cohort studies (which follow patients already diagnosed with AIDS, and so are unaffected by issues about transmission, prevalence, or etiology) consistently show that when HAART is introduced, opportunistic infections and deaths drop. Patients on anti-HIV therapy do better than those on no therapy.

Finally, HIV transmission from mother to child can be reduced by treating the mother and child with antiretroviral medication. Dissidents reply that most children surviving born with HIV infection have never taken AVR therapies.

Claim: HIV theory proved repeatedly and supported by consensus

HIV researchers point out that HIV's role as the etiological agent of AIDS has been verified repeatedly in thousands of studies. Dissidents contend that although there have been many studies on HIV and AIDS, no single paper or group of papers has ever established that HIV causes AIDS.

Although many questions remain about the role of HIV in AIDS causation, supporters of the HIV theory believe there is a virtual unanimous consensus among researchers that HIV is the primary cause of AIDS. Dissidents counter that such unanimous consensus simply does not exist -- thousands of scientists, doctors, mathematicians, and health workers are known to disagree; many of these individuals have fled HIV research, so that agreement is somewhat self-selective. Also, they point out that consensus is not proof. Science and medicine have been completely wrong in the past over specific issues (SMON, malaria, etc.) There is no reason to believe such a situation could not repeat itself. See: Bandwagon fallacy.

Much of the debate between dissident and establishment concerns the very conceptualisation of the syndrome itself. Many dissidents contend that the concept of "AIDS" is itself artificial and a false construct. Mainstream researchers contend that the AIDS construct is a conceptual response to a natural phenomenon: the diseases included in the syndrome were selected by observation, not arbitrarily. The definition of AIDS was a description of a new syndrome and needed to be refined once the causative organism had been found. This resulted in the so-called "circular" definition that certain diseases marked progression to AIDS only in the presence of HIV infection: it had always been known that these diseases occurred outside the context of the syndrome. There are clearly great epistemological divides between the two camps, as has been pointed out by several sociologists of science and other observers (e.g. Steven Epstein).

Claim: Dissidents have not conducted proper experiments

Many scientists believe that scientific progress is primarily a matter of experimentation, not debate. They maintain that the techniques of AIDS dissidents are largely those of rhetoric: they have not conducted the experiments necessary to support their own theories. Dissidents maintain that it is difficult for them to conduct such experiments (to test alternative theories, for example) because they can't afford to: the overwhelming general acceptance that HIV causes AIDS means that mainstream funds are not usually made available to dissenting theories (although some, usually smaller, alternative sources are available exclusively to dissenting theories), and that experiments which deliberately expose humans to HIV are considered unethical. Further, they point out that scientific progress is not simply a matter of experimentation -- as recognized in the philosophy of science, it also involves thinking processes and logical deduction. Dissidents believe that the interpretation of available evidence is sufficient to disprove the HIV theory and that no new experiments are necessary.

History of the dissident movement

The dissident movement is often associated with one individual, Peter Duesberg, a professor of molecular and cell biology at the University of California, Berkeley. Duesberg has contributed more to the debate than any other dissident scientist. However, there were those who questioned the HIV theory before Duesberg. These include researchers in the NIH itself. Before 1984, many hypotheses were put forward to explain the new epidemic. Recreational and pharmaceutical drug abuse, multifactorial environmental models, infection with multiple STDs, behavioral models, and others were all posited by government researchers. However, after NIH virologist Robert Gallo's proclamation of HIV as the "probable cause of AIDS" at a government press conference on April 23, 1984, publicly funded research became almost exclusively focused on HIV.

One of the first people to publicly question this aim was John Lauritsen, a former survey researcher and freelance journalist. He began publishing articles in the New York Native critical of the HIV theory and direction of research. He also began to develop his own ideas about recreational drug use as a cause of AIDS. His articles attracted some attention in the gay community, but remained little known among the general public.

In 1987, Peter Duesberg wrote his first major scientific paper questioning HIV in the journal Cancer Research; its title was "Retroviruses as Carcinogens and Pathogens: Expectations and Reality" ( http://duesberg.com/papers/ch1.html ). It attacked not only the virus-AIDS research program, but also the virus-cancer program. Duesberg's paper caused an immediate furor. The paper was published at just about the same time that major public health campaigns were being launched and AZT was being promoted as a treatment. A major publication, "Confronting AIDS", had been published in 1986, and this book set out an agenda for the public health sector in dealing with new epidemic. Many accused Duesberg of jeopardising public health by raising questions. During the same year, Lauritsen interviewed Duesberg, and his interview was published in the New York Native.

Over the next several years, Duesberg continued to publish papers questioning HIV, and other scientists began to publicly voice their doubts. In 1991, several dozen scientists, researchers, and doctors submitted a short letter to the editor of several scientific journals. It read:

"It is widely believed by the general public that a retrovirus called HIV causes the group diseases called AIDS. Many biochemical scientists now question this hypothesis. We propose that a thorough reappraisal of the existing evidence for and against this hypothesis be conducted by a suitable independent group. We further propose that critical epidemiological studies be devised and undertaken. 6 June 1991"

All the journals refused to publish it. Out of this event, however, the group of signatories formed "The Group for the Scientific Reappraisal of the HIV-AIDS Hypothesis". The number of signatories and members of the group has since grown into the thousands since 1991. They currently maintain a periodical publication, "Rethinking AIDS". A partial list of the current signatories can be found at http://www.virusmyth.net/aids/group.htm

In 1990, Lauritsen published "Poison By Prescription: The AZT Story", a book that was highly critical of the studies demonstrating the efficacy and safety of AZT in the treatment of AIDS. In 1992, Duesberg published a lengthy paper promoting his own alternative causation theory of AIDS -- the "drug-AIDS hypothesis". He claimed that the majority of AIDS cases in North America and Western Europe were the result of recreational and pharmaceutical drug abuse. His arguments mirrored many that had been put forward by Lauritsen earlier. In 1993, Lauritsen published his own manifesto, "The AIDS War", a collection of his writings on AIDS from 1985 to 1992. Robert Root-Bernstein, an associate professor of physiology at Michigan State University and former MacArthur prize recipient, professed his own doubts about the HIV theory in his 1993 book "Rethinking AIDS: The Tragic Cost of Premature Consensus". In 1994, Neville Hodgikson and the London Sunday Times published a headline story on the dissidents, which attracted much media attention itself. A medical doctor, Robert Wilner, publicly injected himself with HIV on television the same year (he has since died of a heart attack).

In 1996, a flurry of publications came forward from many dissidents. Duesberg published his manifesto, "Inventing the AIDS Virus", in which he put forward his arguments and positions to the general reader. A collection of scientific papers by dissidents was published by the journal Genetica the same year ("AIDS: Virus or Drug Induced?"), including articles and papers by Duesberg, mathematician Mark Craddock, NIDA researcher Harry Haverkos, Lauritsen, Nobel prize winner Kary Mullis, Yale math professor Serge Lang, public health professor Gordon Stewart, and journalist Celia Farber. Neville Hodgkinson wrote his own book detailing his journalistic efforts, entitled "AIDS: The Failure of Contemporary Science". A major internet website was launched during this time, currently at http://www.virusmyth.net.

As dissident scientists continued their questioning, a patient/activist branch of the movement had also begun to develop. Heal Education AIDS Liaison (HEAL) was founded in New York in 1982 and it eventually became the most prominent activist organization in the dissident movement. Other groups have come into being since then, including Alive and Well. These groups have openly challenged the HIV theory.

In 1997, Lauritsen and Ian Young co-published a collection of articles on the psychological aspects of AIDS, entitled "The AIDS Cult: Essays on the Gay Health Crisis". In this book, they posit a sociopsychological aspect of the epidemic based on hysteria, fear, and forced conformity. One article which appears was written by the doctor Casper Schmidt in 1984 in the Journal of Psychohistory, entitled "The Group-Fantasy Origins of AIDS" ( http://www.virusmyth.net/aids/data/csfantasy.htm ). In this essay, Schmidt posits that AIDS is an example of "epidemic hysteria" in which groups of people are subconsciously acting out social conflicts, and he compares it to documented cases of epidemic hysteria in the past, which were mistakenly thought to be infectious. Other essays in the collection condemn the psychological aspects of AIDS education which equate sex and an HIV diagnosis with death.

Dissidents continue to campaign and publish. They have protested at recent World AIDS Conferences and other international meetings. Quite recently, dissidents attracted their first real endorsement from a major political figure, Thabo Mbeki, president of South Africa. Mbeki has openly questioned the HIV theory, and he has invited dissident scientists such as Duesberg and David Rasnick to South Africa to debate the nature of AIDS with mainstream scientists. Mbeki has suffered considerable political fallout over these actions.

The increased visibility has lead to increased response from mainstream scientists and from physicians. For many years most AIDS doctors and scientists had considered the dissidents to be a fringe movement that would disappear if ignored. They are now concerned that refusal to answer is a mistake, as they believe the theories put forth by dissidents have real-world life-and-death patient-care consequences. They believe that the dissident's notions that HIV is harmless or doesn't exist, and that AIDS is not contagious suggests that no sexual or body fluid precautions are necessary, although many dissidents are quick to point out that this does not follow from their conclusions, and they stress that safe sexual practices are important to follow in any case. Consensus medical authorities also deplore the fact that dissidents advocate that individuals not take HIV tests or HIV drugs. They believe the proper response to this behavior is to step up their public educational efforts and thereby prevent the AIDS dissident movement from doing serious damage to worldwide efforts to control the pandemic.

Gay porn star Jeff Palmer, who has been HIV-positive since 1997, is a prominent supporter of the AIDS dissidents. He has since given up the use of condoms in his videos.

Quotations

"If there is evidence that HIV causes AIDS, there should be scientific documents which either singly or collectively demonstrate that fact, at least with a high probability. There is no such document." -- Kary Mullis, inventor of PCR, 1993 Nobel Prize in Chemistry (Sunday Times (London) 28 Nov 1993)

"Epidemiology is like a bikini: what is revealed is interesting; what is concealed is crucial." -- Peter Duesberg (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Feb 1991)

"If ever there was a rush to judgment with its predictable disastrous results, it has been the HIV-AIDS hypothesis and its aftermath." -- Dr. Richard Strohman, emeritus professor of molecular and cell biology, UC Berkeley (preface to Inventing the AIDS Virus, 1995)

"If I saw a man get hit by a truck and run over, and you asked, "Did you get the proof? Did the truck do it?" OK, it comes to something like that. Silly." -- Robert Gallo (Spin, Feb 1988)

"Last century there was a sharp difference of opinion between those, such as Koch and Pasteur, who proposed that disease could be caused by invisible microbes, and others who held that epidemics are the result of evil vapours (malaria). Arguments that AIDS does not have an infectious basis are as quaint as those of the miasmalists." -- Weiss and Jaffe (Nature, June 1990)

See also:

• Duesberg hypothesis

References:

• Current Opinions in Immunology 1996 Oct;8(5):613-8. "HIV causes AIDS: Koch's postulates fulfilled", O'Brien SJ, Goedert JJ.
• "Duesberg, HIV and AIDS", Nature 1990 Jun 21;345(6277):659-60, Weiss RA, Jaffe HW. Erratum in: Nature 1990 Jul 5;346(6279):22.
• "The AIDS dilemma", "Genetica" 1998 Jul 6;104;85-132, Peter Duesberg, David Rasnick

External links

Dissident:

• Virusmyth
• Peter Duesberg website
• Déja Vu: AIDS in Historical Perspective 2-hour 1996 radio documentary prepared by Colman Jones, aired on CBC Radio's IDEAS
• HEAL Toronto
• "Investigating AIDS science: Is syphilis the missing link?" An ongoing journey by Colman Jones
• Celia Farber article
• "What Causes AIDS? A Second Look" (Transcript of 2-hour radio documentary broadcast on IDEAS on CBC Radio, November 6 & 7, 1991)
• ‘The AIDS dilemma’
• The Memory Hole > HIV=AIDS controversy
• Alive & Well incl ‘Whatever Happened to Valerie Emerson?’
• The House That AIDS Built
• ACT-UP San Francisco (although some deny it's still a real ACT-UP because of this)

Consensus:

• National Institute of Health: The Evidence that HIV causes AIDS
• "NIAID How HIV Causes AIDS"
• National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases factsheet
• AIDS treatment news: answering denialists
• Maia Szalavitz' reply to Farber article

General Reference:

• HIV-AIDS 2001 Surveillance Report
• HIV DNA sequence database

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