ALTERNATIVE HISTORIES OF AIDS

ALTERNATIVE THEORIES

ABOUT THE CAUSE OF AIDS

The CDC says HIV is the sole cause of AIDS (see cards 58 and 92), but others cite from 68 to 3,000 AIDS-like cases worldwide in which neither HIV nor HIV antibodies can be found. Called "nonHIV AIDS" by some, this syndrome is officially known as Idiopathic CD4 Lymphopenia (ICL) and is said to be non-infectious. Critics say the name ICL is an attempt to save the flawed HIV theory, for "CD4" refers to the same T-cells that HIV disables, and many ICL patients have symptoms similar to people with HIV and die of similar opportunistic infections (Ols). Until we know how ICL differs from AIDS -and how HIV causes AIDS-alternative theories will persist.

Perhaps the most vocal dissenter from the HIV theory is Dr. Peter Duesberg of the University of California at Berkeley. He says AIDS is, as its name indicates, a "syndrome," not a specific disease. Calling the Ols that kill people with AIDS "a bank of old symptoms" long known to science, he notes that "acquired' doesn't mean it [must be] biologically transmitted" and theorizes that multiple environmental co-factors, not a virus, are the true cause of AIDS.

Another researcher who disputes the primacy of HIV is the virologist Dr. Joseph Sonnabend. As early as 1983, Sonnabendthe pioneer proponent of safer sex (see cards 64 and 65)-speculated that AIDS is an auto-immune disease, like lupus. By 1992 he had postulated that HIV, an otherwise "benign" virus, is only lethal in people whose health has previously been compromised by environmental factors, including STDs (see cards 75, 76, and 77), that work together to destroy the immune system. He also believes that the drug AZT (see card 71) is too toxic to use against AIDS. Next Card 60: WHO GETS AIDS: We Are All at Risk