X-Message-Number: 7954
Date: 26 Mar 97 23:15:49 EST
From: "Stephen W. Bridge" <>
Subject: AIDS controversy

To CryoNet
From Steve Bridge
March 26, 1997
 
In reply to:  Message #7934
              From: "Jan Coetzee" <>
              Subject: Fw: HIV may not cause AIDS
              Date: Mon, 24 Mar 1997 14:30:05 -0500
 
>This is an incredible website - nearly 1000 scientists names are there!
>
>Many scientists don't agree that HIV causes AIDS:
>
>http://www.xs4all.nl/~raido/controversy.htm
 
 
     Mr. Coetzee should take these quotes with a large grain of salt.  I
am not a molecular biologist or AIDS specialist, but I believe the
evidence from researchers in Africa (and the reproducibility of AIDS in
some monkeys) is making the case more strongly every year that HIV *does*
cause AIDS.  But it could still be the wrong theory, I suppose.
 
     One especially silly quote, though, is emblematic of some completely
stupid and blindly prejudiced thinking that still persists with some
people -- even people with a lot of impressive letters behind their names:
 
 
>   Dr. Gordon Stewart, emeritus professor of epidemiology University of
>Glasgow:
>
>           "AIDS is a behavioural disease. It is multifactorial, brought
>           on by several simultaneous strains on the immune system -
>           drugs, pharmaceutical and recreational, sexually transmitted
>           diseases, multiple viral infections." (Spin June 1992)
 
     This suggestion that AIDS is not even a communicable disease (which I
have seen from other "researchers" in the past decade results in a lot of
nonsense.  Somewhere around 75% of the hemophiliacs in the United States
during the 1970's contracted AIDS.  All the evidence indicates they
contracted AIDS through transfusion with blood fractions.  Many other
early AIDS victims contracted their infections from blood transfusions
during surgery or even organ donations -- directly traceable to other
persons with AIDS or identified as HIV carriers.  In fact, the blood
transfusion evidence was the first to show conclusively the transmittable
character of the disease.
 
     It seems unlikely that all of the hemophiliacs in the United States
suddenly became drug users or wildly sexual in the late 1970's.  Whether
AIDS is strictly a result of HIV or something else, never doubt that it is
communicable directly through "bodily fluids" -- with or without the
presence of other factors.
 
Steve Bridge

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