Furthermore, since 1985, when HIV was first detected, the number of Americans infected has remained at a constant one million which tends to indicate a virus that has been long established in the population. And never in the history of man has infectious disease discriminated against most members of the population, as this one supposedly has, preferring only homosexual men, drug users, hemophiliacs, and Africans. Nor do we know of another virus that takes 10 years to incubate into disease.

Eleni Eleopulos notes that about a quarter of the population of southern Japan has antibodies against the HIV virus, compared with one per cent of the population of the US. Nevertheless, at the time of writing only 14 cases of AIDS had been reported in Japan a figure that has not significantly increased (Medical Hypotheses, 1988; 25: 151-62).

One study, performed at St Mary's Hospital in London in the mid Eighties, demonstrated that even HIV negative homosexual men had significantly reduced T-and B-cell activity, compared with heterosexual controls. In fact, their immune systems were just as suppressed as those of symptomless HIV positive homosexual men (Clin Exp Immunol, 1989; 75: 7-11). This finding would seem to support the argument that elements in the modern homosexual lifestyle, independent of HIV infection, are responsible for immune suppression (see box, p 3).

Studies have found that less than one third of patients with Kaposi's sarcoma, one of the main illnesses associated with AIDS among homosexuals, are HIV positive; researchers at the CDC now accept that KS, one of the original and most specific of AIDS defining illnesses, is not caused directly or indirectly by HIV (The Lancet, 1990, 1: 123-8).

Furthermore, for low risk groups such as the wives of hemophiliacs, inadequate proof exists of infection. Since 1985, only 94 wives of the 15,000 HIV positive hemophiliacs have supposedly developed AIDS defining diseases. However, given the small number, and the fact that most of these women have died of age related opportunistic infections such as pneumonia, Duesberg argues that an association between them and HIV infection has not been established. In another study, of 41 wives of immunodeficient hemophiliacs, all the T-cell ratios of the women were normal (JAMA, 1984:251: 1450-54).

The proof of HIV as the causation of AIDS entirely hinges on the idea that detection of an antibody response to the virus is proof of its actual presence. In other words, the assumption is that if your body has made antibodies specific to HIV, it must mean that a protein of the virus, and, hence, the virus itself is present. This is so because the so called AIDS tests cannot test for the presence of HIV, just the presence of antibodies to it the usual sign that the body has fought off infection.

The HIV tests are themselves known to be highly erratic and unreliable. The enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) test is most frequently used to test your HIV status, and the Western Blot is used as a confirmation. What happens with ELISA is that a sample of the patient's blood is added to a mixture of proteins. It is assumed that if HIV antibodies are present in the blood, they will react to the HIV proteins in the test. With the Western Blot, these HIV proteins are isolated in bands; when mixed with a blood sample, each protein band will show up if it has bound to an antibody.

The CDC considers a single ELISA test without any other confirmation proof positive that you have HIV infection hence, eventually AIDS.