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The
AIDS Dilemma: drug diseases blamed on a passenger virus
by
Peter Duesberg & David Rasnick
Genetica 104: 85-132. 1998
For the complete article, see The
AIDS Dilemma, an Adobe Acrobat file (.pdf)
Abstract
Almost two
decades of unprecedented efforts in research costing US taxpayers
over $50 billion have failed to defeat Acquired Immune Deficiency
Syndrome (AIDS) and have failed to explain the chronology and epidemiology
of AIDS in America and Europe. The failure to cure AIDS is so complete
that the largest American AIDS foundation is even exploiting it
for fundraising: 'Latest AIDS statistics 0,000,000 cured. Support
a cure, support AMFAR.' The scientific basis of all these unsuccessful
efforts has been the hypothesis that AIDS is caused by a sexually
transmitted virus, termed Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), and
that this viral immunodeficiency manifests in 30 previously known
microbial and non-microbial AIDS diseases.
In order to
develop a hypothesis that explains AIDS we have considered ten relevant
facts that American and European AIDS patients have, and do not
have, in common:
(1)
|
AIDS
is not contagious. For example, not even one health care worker
has contracted AIDS from over 800,000 AIDS patients in America
and Europe. |
| (2)
|
AIDS
is highly non-random with regard to sex (86% male); sexual persuasion
(over 60% homosexual); and age (85% are 25-49 years old).
|
| (3)
|
From
its beginning in 1980, the AIDS epidemic progressed non-exponentially,
just like lifestyle diseases. |
| (4) |
The
epidemic is fragmented into distinct subepidemics with exclusive
AIDS-defining diseases. For example, only homosexual males have
Kaposi's sarcoma.
|
| (5) |
Patients
do not have any one of 30 AIDS-defining diseases, nor even immunodeficiency,
in common. For example, Kaposi's sarcoma, dementia, and weight
loss may occur without immunodeficiency. Thus, there is no AIDS-specific
disease. |
| (6) |
AIDS
patients have antibody against HIV in common only by definition-not
by natural coincidence. AIDS-defining diseases of HIV-free patients
are called by their old names. |
| (7) |
Recreational
drug use is a common denominator for over 95% of all American
and European AIDS patients, including male homosexuals.
|
| (8) |
Lifetime
prescriptions of inevitably toxic anti-HIV drugs, such as the
DNA chain-terminator AZT, are another common denominator of
AIDS patients. |
| (9) |
HIV
proves to be an ideal surrogate marker for recreational and
anti-HIV drug use. Since the virus is very rare (< 0.3%)
in the US/European population and very hard to transmit sexually,
only those who inject street drugs or, have over 1,000 typically
drug-mediated sexual contacts are likely to become positive.
|
| (10) |
The
huge AIDS literature cannot offer even one statistically significant
group of drug-free AIDS patients from America and Europe.
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In view of
this, we propose that the long-term consumption of recreational
drugs (such as cocaine, heroin, nitrite inhalants, and amphetamines)
and prescriptions of DNA chain-terminating and other anti-HIV drugs,
cause all AIDS diseases in America and Europe that exceed their
long-established, national backgrounds, i.e. >95%. Chemically
distinct drugs cause distinct AIDS-defining diseases; for example,
nitrite inhalants cause Kaposi's sarcoma, cocaine causes weight
loss, and AZT causes immunodeficiency, lymphoma, muscle atrophy,
and dementia. The drug hypothesis predicts that AIDS:
(1)
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is
non-contagious; |
| (2)
|
is
non-random, because 85% of AIDS causing drugs are used by males,
particularly sexually active homosexuals between 25 and 49 years
of age, and |
| (3)
|
would
follow the drug epidemics chronologically. |
Indeed, AIDS
has increased from negligible numbers in the early 1980s to about
80,000 annual cases in the early '90s and has since declined to
about 50,000 cases (US figures). In the same period, recreational
drug users have increased from negligible numbers to millions by
the late 1980s, and have since decreased possibly twofold. However,
AIDS has declined less because since 1987 increasing numbers of
mostly healthy, HIV-positive people, currently about 200,000, use
anti-HIV drugs that cause AIDS and other diseases. At least 64 scientific
studies, government legislation, and non-scientific reports document
that recreational drugs cause AIDS and other diseases. Likewise,
the AIDS literature, the drug manufacturers, and non-scientific
reports confirm that anti-HIV drugs cause AIDS and other diseases
in humans and animals. In sum, the AIDS dilemma could be solved
by banning anti-HIV drugs, and by pointing out that drugs cause
AIDS –modeled on the successful anti-smoking campaign.
An unflinching
determination to take the whole evidence into account is the only
method
of preservation against
the fluctuating extremes of fashionable opinion.
Alfred
North Whitehead (1861-1947)
(Whitehead, 1967).
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