Scientific Response To The Duesberg Hypothesis
The consensus in the scientific community is that the Duesberg hypothesis has been refuted by a large and growing mass of evidence showing that HIV causes AIDS, that the amount of virus in the blood correlates with disease progression, that a plausible mechanism for HIV's action has been proposed, and that anti-HIV medication decreases mortality and opportunistic infection in people with AIDS.
In the 9 December 1994 issue of Science (Vol. 266, No. 5191), Duesberg's methods and claims were evaluated in a group of articles. The authors concluded that:
- it is abundantly evident that HIV causes disease and death in hemophiliacs, a group generally lacking Duesberg's proposed risk factors.
- HIV fulfills Koch's postulates, which are one set of criteria for demonstrating a causal relationship between a microbe and a disease. (Subsequently, additional data further demonstrated the fulfillment of Koch's postulates.)
- the AIDS epidemic in Thailand cited by Duesberg as confirmation of his hypothesis is in fact evidence of the role of HIV in AIDS.
- According to researchers who conducted large-scale studies of AZT, the drug does not cause AIDS. Furthermore, researchers acknowledged that recreational drugs do cause immune abnormalities, though not the type of immunodeficiency seen in AIDS.
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