In this hypothesis, it follows that all patients with AIDS must be infected with HIV. However, an investigation into the AIDS literature reveals an astonishing finding: the majority of AIDS patients who participated in the four major zidovudine (AZT) treatment clinical trials in the US during 1987-1992 were HIV-negative prior to AZT treatment. Of 2349 patients, at least 77 per cent were had no HIV infection before treatment (N Engl J Med, 1987; 317: 185-91; N Engl J Med, 1990; 323: 1009-14; N Engl J Med, 1990; 322: 941-9; N Engl J Med, 1992; 326: 437-43).

This is a clear indication that the AIDS present in more than three-quarters of the study patients was due to something other than HIV.

Dr Peter Duesberg has found that, on average, HIV infects only 0.1 per cent (one in 1000) of T cells in AIDS patients, and at least 3 per cent of all T cells regenerate in the two days it takes a retrovirus to infect a cell (Pharmacol Ther, 1992; 55: 201-77). Thus, HIV could never kill enough T cells to cause the widespread and total destruction of the immune system seen in AIDS. Even if HIV killed every infected T cell, it can only do so very slowly - at 1/30 the rate of T-cell regeneration.

Drugs among gay men The worldwide AIDS medical literature shows that 90 per cent of AIDS cases in the US and Europe occur among homosexual men and drug abusers. Regular use of alcohol, heroin, cocaine, amphetamines and alkyl nitrite in a majority of these patients causes chronic health problems of the nervous, respiratory and cardiovascular systems as well as of the kidneys and other tissues.

Doctors now tend to diagnose the majority of these health problems as ‘idiopathic’ (of unknown cause) and treat them with high doses of glucocorticoids and/or cytotoxic drugs. Gay men are also heavy users of rectal glucocorticoids (Fauci AS et al., Harrison’s Principles of Internal Medicine, 14th edn, NY: McGraw-Hill, 1998).

The appearance of AIDS in the US and Europe among drug abusers and homosexuals in the late 1970s and early 1980s coincided with several events. This was a time when illicit drug use, especially smoking crack, cocaine and heroin, became widespread along with the use of alkyl nitrites (such as amyl nitrate) by gay men to facilitate anal sex.

At the same time, glucocorticoids in an aerosol form were approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 1976. These inhalers are widely used to treat the chronic respiratory illnesses caused by inhaling cocaine and heroin. Corticosteroids are also often used to treat chronic gastrointestinal tract illness in homosexuals.

In addition, some gay men are heavy users of alkyl nitrites, which relax the anal muscle and facilitate anal sex. In one study, 86.4 per cent of 420 gay men attending clinics for sexually transmitted diseases in New York, Atlanta and San Francisco reported frequently using amyl and butyl nitrites as sexual stimulants. The frequency of nitrite use was proportional to the number of sexual partners.

Many of the studies cited by Peter Duesberg show heavy use among homosexuals of alkyl nitrites and illicit drugs. A survey of 170 gay men attending sexual disease clinics found that 50-60 per cent had used cocaine, 50-70 per cent amphetamines, 40 per cent marijuana and 10 per cent heroin. Over half had also used prescription drugs, 80 per cent had past or current gonorrhoea, 40-70 per cent had syphilis, 15 per cent mononucleosis, 50 per cent hepatitis and 30 per cent parasitic diarrhoea.