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1. HIV is a retrovirus. Few, if any, retroviruses are shown to cause disease in humans, in fact, the healthy human body normally has hundreds in its system. Retroviruses are not cytotoxic. So how does HIV kill T-cells?
It is true HIV is a retrovirus, but the remainder of your extrapolations are faulty logic. There are only a few KNOWN retroviruses in humans, HTLV 1 and 2, both of which cause leukemias and lymphomas. The mechanism of cytotoxicity is known, and it has been shown in lab tests that specific molecules of the HIV virus bind to specific molecules on the surface of T cells.
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2. AIDS is not a new illness, it is a category of old illnesses, all with their own specific, scientific causes that do not require the virus HIV. The way AIDS is defined, however, makes it seem there is a one-to-one correlation between HIV and AIDS:
Pneumonia + negative HIV test = pneumonia
Pneumonia + positive HIV test = AIDS
You are partially correct. What you are describing are immunodeficiency diseases, which have been around a long time. What you fail to mention is the mechanism by which the immunodeficiency is caused. As opposed to a genetic immunodeficiency, AIDS is caused by a virus killing T cells resulting in ID. Furthermore, the TYPE of pneumonia caused by HIV is particularly important. Pneumocystis carinii doesnt cause penumonia in non-immunocompromised patients, but it DOES in immunocompromised patients such as those with AIDS or another ID disease.
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3. Most healthy people have had infections with cell-killing viruses like those that cause herpes and mononucleosis. These viruses infect millions of T cells-- up to half of all immune cells?without causing T cell depletion and without causing AIDS.
Herpes and mono are different classes of viruses that replicate using a different mechanism that doesnt generally involve T cell depletion.
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4. The AIDS test is not specific and there are many factors causing a false positive, including pregnancy, the flu, flu vaccination, herpes, and about 60 others.
This is a problem with the test, not with the theory behind it. Sometimes your fire alarm will go off randomly, but that doesnt mean that the fires wont cause damage and death if they were allowed to spread.
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5. HIV virus has not been isolated from fresh plasma.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/...st_uids=1708933
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6. In order for the ELISA to work in testing for HIV (which only tests for antibodies that react with HIV, not virus), the blood has to be diluted 400 times. Otherwise, everyone tests positive.
Yet again, this is a problem with the ELISA. In labs however, they have done ELISA and Western Blots, which combined have shown the presence of HIV. The dilution helps to mitigate the cross reactivity.
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7. There are demonstrated ways of sufficiently impairing one?s immune system that can invite AIDS defining illnesses and that do not rely on the HIV virus, like malnutrition and lack of sleep (think Africa), drugs including AZT, crack, cocaine, heroin, and nitrites, exposure to chronic infections with venereal disease and others like TB, malaria, hepatitis, chronic anxiety, panic, stress, and depression. A profound fear of AIDS is enough to cause people who repeatedly test HIV negative to develop physical symptoms of AIDS.
Yes, the things you speak of are immunodeficiency diseases, as is AIDS. But as a I said above its the MECHANISM by which the immunodeficiency is generated that makes HIV unique among those factors you listed. And yes you mention the placebo effect and intern's syndrome, but you can cause that for ANY disease.
