Hi, my name is Holly and I'm a student at Cabrillo College in Aptos California. I am doing a research paper on AIDS and I am getting a little confused about what is a proven fact and what is assumed to be true. What is your stand on Peter Duesburg's hypothesis that being HIV positive doesn't correlate with having the AIDS virus? His stance is that the HIV and AIDS viruses are two separate viruses. His hypothesis states that AIDS is caused mainly by drug use. But his book seems so abstract that it is hard to get specifics. Any help with clarification would be helpful! thanks

Dear Holly,

No responsible medical professional working with, or on a cure for, AIDS agrees with Mr. Duesburg's "interesting" theory anymore. When he first proposed it, most scientists with an open mind considered it, but now, as years of overwhelming evidence to the contrary continue to pile up, his contention that AIDS and HIV are not related is generally dismissed as the curious, if stubborn, belief of a man who seems to need a great deal of attention, whether it is warranted or not.

Today AIDS is the thought of as the later stage of HIV spectrum disease, the phase where the virus has inflicted sufficient damage on the body to become life-threatening.