THE DRUG-AIDS HYPOTHESIS

Peter Duesberg and David Rasnick

8. A possible solution at last

It is concluded that the HIV hypothesis has been unproductive and nonpredictive because AIDS is neither an infectious epidemic nor caused by HIV. Thus, far from solving AIDS, the HIV hypothesis has actually escalated the epidemic by monopolizing AIDS reasearch and therapy, and by delivering harmful medications. As the theoretical basis of all anti-AIDS treatments the HIV hypothesis is solely responsible for over 1 million year-long prescriptions of AZT and all other toxic antiviral drugs that have never cured an AIDS patient. On the contrary, AZT and other anti-HIV/AIDS drugs have been shown to accelerate death.

The HIV hypothesis is also responsible for the promotion of recreational drug use. By ignoring, obscuring and even directly refuting in the professional literature, the possibility that nitrites, cocaine and heroin could cause diseases, the medical orthodoxy misinforms a vulnerable and trusting public about the medical consequences of recreational drug use (16, 80, 339). The long arm of the international AIDS establishment even reaches out specifically to the public with targeted press releases to convince everybody that drugs are harmless as long as they are taken with clean needles and condoms to protect against HIV infection (333, 334, 348). This misinformation campaign and the campaign that clean needles for unsterile street drugs (!) and condoms protect against all medical consequences of drug use encourage rather than discourage recreational drug use by the unsuspecting public (7, 11, 97).

By contrast, our independent analysis of the AIDS epidemic reveals that AIDS is simply the clinical consequence of the American/European drug epidemic. The drug hypothesis resolves all long-standing paradoxes and contradictions of the HIV-hypothesis and predicts AIDS exactly, the hallmark of a good hypothesis. Therefore, it should have a very high priority in AIDS research. Drug toxicity could be tested experimentally in animals, and in human cells in tissue culture. In addition, drug toxicity could be tested epidemiologically in humans who are addicted to recreational drugs or are prescribed AZT. Such tests could be conducted at a microscopic fraction of the cost that is now invested in the HIV hypothesis.

According to the drug hypothesis AIDS would be entirely preventable and at least partially curable, if:

1) AZT and all other anti-HIV drugs were banned,

2) illicit recreational drug use was terminated,

3) AIDS patients were treated for their specific diseases with proved medications, e.g. tuberculosis with antibiotics, Kaposi’s sarcoma with conventional cancer therapy, and weight loss with good nutrition.

In addition to saving about 50,000 to 75,000 lives per year from AIDS, the drug hypothesis could save the American tax payer up to $23 billion annually. Eight of the $23 billion are spent on AIDS treatment, research and education based on the unproductive HIV hypotheasis (349, 350), and $15 billion are spent on the War on Drugs (51, 53, 62, 349, 350). The War on Drugs is "primarily focused on supply control efforts" (51, 53), but has failed completely to stop the American drug epidemic.

But if the wars on AIDS and drugs were based on the health consequences of long-term drug use, they could be just as successful as the federal anti-smoking program. Based on education that smoking causes lung cancer, emphysema and heart disease, smoking has dropped in the US from 42% of the adult population in 1965 to 25% in 1995 (247). And only 15.5% of Californians smoked regularly in 1995, down from 26% in 1984. In view of this the CDC’s director of the Office of Smoking and Health proudly announced, "Not only are these states [California and others] doing something right, but other states are looking at them and seeing that this works" (351). Thus by adopting the drug-AIDS hypothesis the CDC could also win the war on AIDS.

However, there are a number of monumental obstacles, 15 years in the making, that block the possible solution of AIDS based on the drug hypothesis:

1) The HIV/AIDS orthodoxy’s annual budget of $8 billion from the US taxpayer alone,

2) The thousands of AIDS organizations, including countless public health and activist careers and the tens of thousands of scientific reputations that are exclusively built on HIV (7, 11),

3) The numerous medical and social benefits available to HIV-positive activists and patients (352),

4) The staggering commercial interests in HIV-tests, over 20 million tests per year at $ 50 or more in the US alone, HIV-vaccines and anti-HIV drugs,

5) The prospects of numerous complaints and malpratice suits against the HIV/AIDS orthodoxy from those who were told they are destined to die based on HIV tests or were helped to die with AZT,

6) The prospect of a profound loss of confidence of the American public in its medical and scientific elite (7, 11).

Thus the current HIV/AIDS orthodoxy cannot afford the drug hypothesis, and must do everything in its power to keep it from being presented to the American people.

Likewise, the $15 billion federal establishment that conducts the War on Drugs would risk its large budget and thousands of career positions if the War on Drugs were won in the name of the hypothesis that drugs cause AIDS.

In sum, the drug hypothesis is testable and predicts that AIDS is entirely preventable and treatable by controling drug use. The solution of AIDS and significant progress in the War on Drugs are as close as a very testable and affordable non-HIV/AIDS hypothesis.

REFERENCES