Robert Root-Bernstein's article (The Scientist, April 4, 1994, page 1) is part of an effort to undermine what is known about HIV. Many of the questions raised are valid, most have been asked before, and many are currently under investigation.
A great deal of the information he presents as fact is distorted or untrue. For example, Anthony Fauci, former director of the National Institutes of Health's Office of AIDS Research, has not gone on record saying that he believes HIV is not the sole cause of AIDS. Heterosexual spread of HIV from infected to (previously) uninfected individuals is a reality. What scientists are researching relative to HIV as the "cause" of AIDS are cofactors that affect the rate of HIV disease progression.
What Root-Bernstein and his pals neglect to address is that AIDS is an epidemiologic definition having virtually nothing to do with HIV disease other than to count the ...
