Duesberg Responds

Samuel Katz (Letters, The Scientist, Aug. 21, 1995, page 11) criticizes my proposal that AIDS is caused by recreational drugs, AZT, and other noncontagious risk factors for not discussing ~maternal-infant transmission of HIV/AIDS.~ However, I have pointed out explicitly in The Scientist that about 80 percent of pediatric AIDS in the United States and Europe is the consequence of intravenous drugs received by newborns from their mothers prior to birth (P. Duesberg, The Scientist, March 20, 1995,

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According to a retrospective study on the toxicity of AZT to 104 fetuses, eight had to be aborted therapeutically, eight aborted spontaneously, and eight were born with serious birth defects (R.M. Kumar et al., Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes, 7:1034-9, 1994).

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