During the early 1990s the media began to give considerable prominence to the views of Prof. Peter Duesberg, the prominent retrovirologist, who questions whether HIV is the cause of AIDS. Prof. Duesberg has provided the focus for a wide assortment of people who question various aspects of orthodox opinion on HIV infection and AIDS.

In the UK a number of television documentaries broadcast on Channel Four between 1989 and 1993 questioned the scientific basis for the belief that HIV causes AIDS, attacked the use of AZT in the treatment of HIV and AIDS as misconceived and possibly dangerous, and questioned whether an epidemic of AIDS caused by HIV was really taking place in Africa. All three programmes contained serious scientific inaccuracies.

For a while The Sunday Times gave increasingly prominent coverage to the views of Peter Duesberg, and was strongly identified as a promoter of dissident theories about AIDS. Unfortunately the paper's coverage of those dissident theories has been highly selective and sensationalised, and has served to polarise debate rather than opening it up.

Several studies have shown an overwhelming association between testing positive for HIV antibodies and the subsequent development of AIDS. A review of deaths amongst haemophiliacs in the UK showed a tenfold greater chance of death amongst HIV-positive haemophiliacs in the UK when compared with their HIV-negative counterparts over the period 1978-92, and deaths related to AIDS-defining illnesses occurred exclusively in the HIV-positive group (Darby).

A study in Uganda showed a 64-fold higher chance of death over a two-year period amongst HIV-positive individuals in Rakai province compared with HIV-negative individuals.

A study of babies born to HIV-positive mothers showed 21 AIDS-related deaths in HIV-positive children over 26 months of follow-up, compared with just one death (due to child abuse) in the HIV-negative children. Mothers of HIV-negative and HIV-positive children were equally likely to have a history of drug use and to have used similar levels of drugs.

A study in haemophiliacs showed that development of AIDS in haemophiliacs is not a function of the volume of Factor VIII to which an individual has been exposed, but of infection with HIV. Seventeen HIV-positive haemophiliacs were matched with HIV-negative haemophiliacs who had received similar quantities of clotting factor; there were 16 AIDS-related events in the HIV-positive group over a ten-year period, compared with none in the HIV-negative group (Phillips).

Arguments about the causes of AIDS are discussed in more detail in the HIV & AIDS Treatments Directory. The US National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases publishes a useful factsheet summarising the arguments – see below.

References

Darby S et al: Mortality in the complete population of UK haemophiliacs before and after HIV infection. Nature 377: 79-82, 1995.

NIAID (National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases). The Evidence That HIV Causes AIDS. Last updated February 27, 2003. Can be viewed at http://www.niaid.nih.gov/factsheets/evidhiv.htm