Duesberg hypothesis

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The Duesberg hypothesis is the claim that AIDS is not caused by HIV, but instead that AIDS is caused by noninfectious factors such as recreational and pharmaceutical drug use and that HIV is merely a harmless passenger virus.[1] The hypothesis was popularized by Peter Duesberg, a professor of biology at University of California, Berkeley, from whom the hypothesis gets its name. The scientific consensus is that the Duesberg hypothesis is incorrect and that HIV is the cause of AIDS.[2][3] The most prominent supporters of the hypothesis are Duesberg himself, biochemist and vitamin proponent David Rasnick, and journalist Celia Farber. The scientific community generally contends that Duesberg's arguments in favor of the hypothesis are the result of cherry-picking predominantly outdated scientific data[4] and selectively ignoring evidence that demonstrates HIV's role in causing AIDS.[5]

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference DuesbergJBiosci was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ "National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Disease Fact Sheet: The Evidence that HIV Causes AIDS". Archived from the original on 24 September 2009. Retrieved 9 March 2007.
  3. ^ World Health Organization HIV and AIDS Programme, from the World Health Organization website. Retrieved 9 March 2007.
  4. ^ Galea P, Chermann JC (1998). "HIV as the cause of AIDS and associated diseases". Genetica. 104 (2): 133–142. doi:10.1023/A:1003432603348. PMID 10220906. S2CID 10793378.
  5. ^ Cohen, J. (1994). "The Duesberg phenomenon" (PDF). Science. 266 (5191): 1642–1644. Bibcode:1994Sci...266.1642C. doi:10.1126/science.7992043. PMID 7992043.