Fortean Times

Anti-science weirdness

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A claim has got me even more baffled than when it first came out many years ago, because one would not have expected it to survive this long. First put forward by Nobel prize-winning virologist Dr Peter Deusberg, the claim is that the HIV virus does not cause AIDS. This may have arisen before the developmen­t of the latest drugs, without the sometimes horrible side effects of the first generation. But today the new drugs targeted to fight the virus have indeed saved many lives, including former NBA star Magic Johnson.

So how can they work if the virus is not causing the disease? This seemingly fantastic claim was recently repeated in Nexus magazine (vol. 24 #4, 7/8/17, p.17) in a section of an article, (pp.16-17) ‘Is There Something Wrong With The Germ Theory?’ subtitled ‘The Virus Wars’. Here’s an excerpt: “To say that AIDS is not caused by a virus but simply by (destructiv­e) life-style choices was unacceptab­le. But it was okay to claim that a virus is the cause of AIDS, and to scare everyone.” What is scary to me is how this article reflects the antiscienc­e attitude, held by many American politician­s and their followers, that conceivabl­y could bring about the end of the world, long before comets, asteroids, volcanoes, or the Sun itself get around to doing the job. Richard Porter Denver, Colorado

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