This letter is in response to the article "AIDS Investigators Cautiously Applauding Recent Advances" (S. Benowitz, The Scientist, Sept. 30, 1996, page 1). We have shown that HIV-specific transfer factor (TF) produces a far more rapid decrease in viral load as measured by the "old" polymerase chain reaction-HIV-RNA than do the currently recommended protease inhibitors or reverse transcriptase inhibitors such as AZT. Viral loads dropped from 80,000/mm³ or higher to 0 in three to four months, and clinical symptoms disappeared, regardless of how the AIDS was acquired.
These data have been presented by our group at three different symposia in 1996 (Keystone International Symposium on AIDS in March, the annual meeting of the Association of American Physicians in May, and the XI International Conference on AIDS in June). Similar results were obtained by my two collaborators (Dimitri Viza, a professor of immunology at the University of Paris,...