ANyone who thinks is bad

Before the more potent antivirals were developed in 1997 there were around 32,000 people dying in the U.S. from AIDS every year, but with the new treatments those numbers have fallen around 50% (using 2008 figures). Now AIDS denialists claim that people die from the drugs, but if that were the case then why did deaths decrease with the new treatments? The same has occurred in Africa; some AIDS patients who were near death and looked skeletal recovered and now live normal lives after they were put on Anti-HIV drugs.

Now this is what Avert has to say; http://www.avert.org/hiv-causes-aids.htm

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) defines a condition called idiopathic CD4+ T-lymphocytopenia, or ICL for short. Someone is diagnosed with ICL if they have a CD4+ cell count below 300 cells per cubic millimeter, or 20% of all T lymphocytes, on at least two occasions, but have no detectable HIV infection, nor any other known cause of immune deficiency (such as cancer therapy). As many dissidents have pointed out, this is essentially a definition of HIV-free AIDS. So just how common is this condition?

In 1993, a CDC task force published the results of an exhaustive survey of ICL in the USA. They had reviewed 230,179 AIDS-like cases reported since 1983 and identified 47 patients with ICL (plus 127 uncertain cases). All of the other people with AIDS who had received an HIV test produced a positive result. What's more, the team closely investigated the ICL cases and discovered that they didn't fit the usual AIDS profile. There were 29 male and 18 female patients, and 39 of them were white (4 others were of Asian descent). In 29 cases, the researchers couldn't fit the people into conventional risk groups for AIDS (homosexual men, haemophiliacs, injecting drug users, and the sexual partners of such groups). Whatever these 47 cases represent, they don't seem to be typical of the massive epidemic that we're interested in.17

The findings of the ICL survey are backed up by large-scale monitoring studies, including the Multicenter AIDS Cohort Study (MACS). During the MACS, scientists monitored the health of 2,713 gay and bisexual men who tested negative for HIV antibodies. Over several years, only one of these men had persistently low CD4+ cell counts, and he was undergoing cancer therapy designed to weaken his immune system. Similar results have been found among blood donors, recipients of blood and blood products, injecting drug users and other groups: severe immune deficiency is virtually non-existent among those who test HIV-negative.18

As Dr Duesberg has pointed out, quite a lot of people (mostly in the early 1980s) have been diagnosed with AIDS in the USA despite never taking an HIV test, and nobody knows whether these people were HIV-positive or not. However, based on the much larger sample of people who have been tested, Koch's first postulate has certainly been satisfied. The only way by which dissidents have been able to come up with significant numbers of HIV-free "AIDS" cases is by using much looser definitions of AIDS. Such definitions include many people with milder immune deficiency, which is generally not fatal.

It is true that no test is perfect. However, what the dissidents usually don't mention is how rare the reports of false positive results have been, especially in recent years. Nor do they mention that every person who uses a test kit is trained to spot the telltale signs of a suspicious result, and to keep testing by various methods until no doubt remains. The conditions that cause false positive results are not only very uncommon, but are also typically short-lived, whereas HIV infection does not go away.24 25

The dissident theory cannot satisfactorily explain why scientists have been able to use various techniques to detect the virus itself in virtually everyone with AIDS, as well as in most people with positive antibody test results, as explained in the next section. These methods (including DNA PCR, RNA PCR and viral culture) are not affected by any of the factors said to produce false positive results in antibody testing.

Nor can the alternative theory fully explain why the association between AIDS and antibody test results is so exceptionally strong: virtually everyone with AIDS tests positive, while more than 99% of the US public tests negative. And it cannot explain why the proportion of people testing HIV positive should have increased so dramatically over time. For example, the proportion of South African women testing HIV positive in annual antenatal surveys rose from 0.8% in 1990 to 10.4% in 1995, 24.5% in 2000 and 29.5% in 2004. The age distribution of these data is similar to that of other sexually transmitted infections.26

....Researchers have been able to isolate and culture HIV from most AIDS patients whom they have examined (as well as from many other people with HIV antibodies).28 They have isolated the virus from blood cells, blood plasma, lymph nodes, semen, vaginal fluids, amniotic fluids, bone marrow, brain, cerebrospinal fluid, intestines, breast milk, saliva and urine, and cultured it in various cell types.29 Images taken using electron microscopy and other techniques have shown virus-like particles that have the size, shape, structure, density, proteins and behaviour expected of retroviruses.30 31 32

Techniques developed in the mid-1990s have made it much easier to extract and sequence the complete genetic material (genome) of an isolated virus.33 34 The Los Alamos database now contains hundreds of full-length HIV genomes from around the world, each containing the same nine genes.35 Based on genetic similarities and differences, these sequences have been used to define family trees of HIV types, groups and subtypes as well as hybrids called recombinant forms.36

Whole or partial HIV genomes have been detected in numerous AIDS patients, using a technique called PCR (the same technology is used to find DNA evidence with which to convict murderers or to settle paternity suits, as well as to detect the germs that cause hepatitis, tuberculosis and other diseases). Almost everyone who tests positive for HIV genetic material also tests positive for HIV antibodies, and vice versa, while those who test negative for one thing also lack the other.37 People who have been exposed to the same source of infection contain genetically very similar HIV strains – similar enough for court convictions.38

Scientists have used a standard technique of genetic science called molecular cloning to obtain highly purified HIV. Genetic material extracted using PCR or other techniques has been introduced into bacteria or other cells (usually using phages or plasmids), which then produce many exact copies (clones) of the viral genes. If cloned viral genomes are inserted (transfected) into human cells then they produce a new generation of infectious HIV particles, which are free from contamination.39

Virtually all experts agree that HIV has been isolated according to the most rigorous standards of modern virology, meaning that Koch's second postulate has without doubt been satisfied.