Replies

HIV is thought to cause immunodeficiency by killing T-cells, but paradoxically only after the virus has been neutralized by antiviral immunity, and only on average 10 years after infection (Institute of Medicine, 1988; Duesberg, 1992a; Weiss, 1993).

However, HIV, like all other retroviruses, does not kill T-cells or any other cells in vitro; in fact, it is mass-produced for the HIV antibody test in immortal T-cell lines (Duesberg, 1992a). Moreover, the basis for the 10-year latent period of the virus, which has a generation time of only 24-48 h, is entirely unknown (Duesberg, 1992a; Weiss, 1993; Fields, 1994). It is particularly paradoxical that the loss of T-cells in hemophiliacs over time does not correspond to viral activity and abundance.

No T-cells are lost prior to antiviral immunity, when the virus is most active (Duesberg, 1993a; Piatak et al., 1993). Instead, most T-cells are lost when the virus is least active or latent in hemophiliacs (Phillips et al., 1994a) and other risk groups (Duesberg, 1992a; 1993a, 1994; Piatak et al., 1993; Sheppard, Ascher & Krowka, 1993), namely after it is neutralized by antiviral immunity (a positive HIV-antibody test).

Indeed, there are healthy, HIV-antibody positive persons in which 33 to 43 times more cells are infected by latent HIV than in AIDS patients (Simmonds et al., 1990; Bagasra et al., 1992; Duesberg, 1994). Even Gallo, who claims credit for the HIV-AIDS hypothesis (Gallo etal., 1984), has recently acknowledged: "I think that if HIV is not being expressed and not reforming virus and replicating, the virus is a dud, and won't be causing the disease ... nobody is saying that indirect control of the virus is not important ...." (Jones, 1994).