AIDS Causation

In your issue highlighting the Peter Duesberg theories of AIDS causation [B. Goodman, The Scientist, March 20, 1995, page 1; P. Duesberg, The Scientist,March 20, 1995, page 12], neither he nor his supporters ever discuss the example of maternal-infant transmission of HIV/AIDS. If the HIV agent is not the cause of AIDS, how does he explain the infants of infected mothers who demonstrate HIV infection with viremia, dropping CD4 counts and eventual AIDS? Have they been exposed to recreational drug

Written bySamuel Katz

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The continuing debate about HIV's responsibility for AIDS constantly ignores this very significant population, in whom the date of virus acquisition, its titer in plasma, and its effect on CD4 cells can be studied in a sequence and chronology unlike that of any of the adult cases. Undoubtedly, other "cofactors" can accelerate the course of HIV infection, but without HIV there is no AIDS. Duesberg's statement that "the drug AIDS hypothesis correctly predicts all aspects of American/European AIDS" in no way explains maternal-infant transmission.

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