THE futility of arguing that HIV does not cause AIDS, a theory that the South
African government is controversially flirting with, has been underlined by new
research in the US. American scientists have gone back to first principles to
show that a related virus definitively causes AIDS symptoms in monkeys.
Despite the overwhelming epidemiological and laboratory evidence to the
contrary, Peter Duesberg, a molecular biologist at the University of California
at Berkeley, says it’s impossible to confirm that HIV causes AIDS. South African
politicians caused an uproar with their recent tacit support of his theory
(New Scientist, 29 April, p…
