Among those disbelievers who claim that HIV is harmless, some will at least acknowledge that there is indeed such a thing as AIDS. Their contention, originally formulated by Peter Duesberg, is that the massive immune destruction characterizing AIDS is actually caused by recreational drug use or by taking the anti-HIV therapies. (An interesting subtext, since abandoned by Duesberg, was the homophobic contention that the “unhealthful lifestyle” of gay men was the cause.)
This position exposes the denialists’ ignorance – or worse, their deliberate dismissal – of the epidemic’s history in the U.S. Some of us were already burying friends by 1982-83, men who had no background of drug use beyond occasionally smoking pot or having a drink before dinner. Over the years, multiple studies have clearly demonstrated that there is no link between illicit drug use, per se, and AIDS, other than a correlation between being high and the increased likelihood of engaging in risky sex.
And anti-viral therapies? They weren’t even available until 1987, by which time tens of thousands of people had already died.
Despite a mountain of scientific evidence that HIV is the etiologic agent of AIDS, the denialists repeat the same unsupported theories and allegations like a mantra, as if repeating it will make it true. Meanwhile, susceptible individuals are being led down the garden path to danger, failing to invest themselves in the continuum of care or to curb behaviors which may infect themselves or others.
This article appears in June 30 • 2000.