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 drugs? Additionally, his claim that AZT itself causes AIDS would once again be refuted by the results of AIDS Clinical Trials Group (ACTG) Protocol 076 that demonstrated AZT treatment of women during pregnancy and delivery reduced transmission from mother to infant from 25 percent in the placebo-treated mothers to 8 percent in those who received AZT (E.M. Connor et al., New England Journal of Medicine,:331:1173-80, 1222-5, 1994).
The...
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