Hello all,
So I just spent the last two hours reading all about this idea that HIV is not the cause of AIDS. Has anyone else heard this or read about this? The main proponent of the theory is Peter Duesberg, a professor at Berkley. Additionally, there are many supporters (nobel prize winners included) all over the world who agree with him. Here are some interesting links:

http://www.duesberg.com/
http://www.virusmyth.net/aids/

You will also be able to find a whole slew of responses to his argument. The following being quite good:

http://www3.niaid.nih.gov/news/focuson/hiv/default.htm

I don't have time to read all that work, but this is my .02 cents from what I read.

He seems to be pointing out the fact that the AIDS epidemic is lingering, unlike usual epidemics that rise exponentially and then fall off. So he hypothesises that the epidemic really stems from factors other than a highly specialized virus (he seems to be going with recreational drugs). I see one reason why this might not be plausible. First HIV takes sometimes years to activate within a person to cause AIDS. These diseases cause mass deaths undoubtedly, but how often has the person that contracted the disease already had kids? I am pretty sure that females get pregnant earlier in Africa than in the US. If the person already had kids, they have served their biological purpose, and their genes no longer care if they live or die. So in this scenario not enough people are dieing before reproductive ages to warrant a rise of a population that is immune to the virus. Beyond this I haven't read much, but I'll try to get back to it later. It seems like a really interesting topic.