Beginning of Essay
Professor Luc Montagnier, who discovered the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in 1983, and Professor Peter Duesberg, who first mapped the genetic structure of such viruses, are to challenge the orthodox view that HIV is the exclusive cause of AIDS at an "alterna ....

Middle of Essay
.... further. HIV is not a new virus, he says. It is perhaps "as old as America". It is carried by a small, fairly constant proportion of the population and is harmless. It is present in many AIDS patients because most of them have risk factors in their lives such as drug abuse, sexual behavior or other shocks to the system that expose them to many microbes. AIDS is therefore not infectious, Duesberg argues. He thinks the epidemic is the result of an explosion in the use of "recreational" drugs such as cocaine, which badly damage the immune system. He also claims the epidemic is being fuelled by use of the anti-AIDS drug AZT. It is so toxic, he says, that ....