Bunkum.
NO causal link between HIV and AIDS has EVER been demonstrated.
None. Ever.
The association between HIV and AIDS is purely definitional, NOT causal.
Logicians are sorely needed in the press and maybe even in Medicine
Moreover, this is not a new phenomenon. Reputible scientists and physicians have been resisting the rush to judgement and the closing off of research into alternative views of this disease for over a decade.
The CDC has an excellent page called evidence that HIV causes AIDS. http://www.niaid.nih.gov/factsheets/evidhiv.htm
It is not a fact, since nothing in science is. But it is a good theory and it is more than correlational. There is also a causal element. Having one seems to cause the other. Plus, what we know as AIDS existed before the advent of antiretrovirals.
Please, before you discount the theory altogether, go look at the page.
What are the viable research options in your opinion?
Of course that isn't the case. Just another schmuck parroting the NYT play book.
If that doesn't turn your wheel, then you can go directly to the primary literature, and take your case up with them. For example:
HIV Causes AIDS
W. Blattner, R. C. Gallo, H. M. Temin
Science, New Series, Vol. 241, No. 4865 (Jul. 29, 1988), pp. 515-516
How HIV causes AIDS.
Spartalis MA
Journal Of The National Medical Association 1995 Mar; Vol. 87 (3), pp. 171, 173.
HIV causes AIDS: Koch's postulates fulfilled.
O'Brien SJ; Goedert JJ
Current Opinion In Immunology 1996 Oct; Vol. 8 (5), pp. 613-8.
For everybody but the fringe who have offered no alternatives, the debate is over.
Has he done it yet?