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By Paul Philpott
Reappraising AIDS July 1997

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CDC Releases HIV/AIDS Data For 1995: Low Totals and Downward Trends Continue for Both HIV and AIDS; Case Load Remains Confined to Drug Users, Blood Recipients, AZT Victims

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But each of these claims is false. The fraction of Americans who are HIV-positive has never increased since testing began in 1985. And since 1993, the number of new AIDS diagnoses reported each year as been fewer than the year before, for all groups, including women, blacks, heterosexuals, and young adults.

Tiny Number of Risk-Free Americans are HIV-positive

The CDC's most recent HIV serosurveillance report (1) presents graphs showing HIV seropositivity for each year from 1985 through 1993 for blood donors, military recruits, and Job Corps applicants. They show that HIV seropositivity is low and shrinking among each of these groups.

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Could increased condom use be playing a role in suppressing an HIV epidemic? No. Since HIV is barely even transmissible via vaginal intercourse, there could be no chance of a heterosexual epidemic even if nobody ever used condoms. Furthermore, there is no reason to think that condom use has increased significantly during the AIDS era. The real epidemics of teen pregnancies and true STDs have not declined, and according to a Knight-Ridder article, "industry reports say condom sales remain flat and have even declined among consumers under age 25". One study found that even among couples with one partner known to be HIV-positive, only half used condoms.

Even If HIV Did Cause AIDS...

These data directly support two important conclusions:

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The available evidence demonstrates that positivity for all germs--not just HIV--jumped among individuals who adopted unsanitary practices that prior to the 1970s were relatively uncommon: drug-driven "fast lane" gay sex, drug injecting, and therapy with hemophilia clotting factor.(9) Meanwhile, incidence of HIV has remained constant and low in the surrounding general population.(1) This strongly suggests that HIV is a virus that has resided in the American population as long as any other.

How to Call a 7% Drop a 16% Increase

The number of total new cases reported in 1995 was less than the number of new cases reported in 1994, and the number for 1994 was less than for 1993, the year when AIDS hit its peak.(2) The same is true for women, blacks, heterosexuals, babies, teenagers, young adults...everybody!6

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The same phenomenon attends the other "heterosexual" groups, which the alarmists interpret as evidence of various AIDS "explosions." Consider the "explosions" of AIDS in children and teens. There were only 800 cases of infant-AIDS reported in 1995, down from only 1,034 in 1994.(2) As for teenagers, only 405 developed AIDS in 1995, slightly less than the 412 reported in 1994.(2) And these cases are as confined to the risk groups (with the babies consuming their street drugs in utero)(11) as are the adult cases, including 99% of the teenaged boys.2 Yet most Americans are under the impression that AIDS is overrunning maternity wards and high schools. Any health professional, biology professor, or physician will likely tell you that each year thousands of babies and teens develop AIDS--and that the numbers are growing!

Lack of AIDS Outside Specific Risk Groups

If "everyone" was really at risk for AIDS, then there would be large numbers of AIDS cases found outside of the original risk groups identified over ten years ago. Yet since 1981, when the CDC began to document AIDS, 95% of the 473,141 identified American cases have been diagnosed in patients describing themselves as gay men who do not inject drugs (55%), drug injectors (34%), heterosexuals who knowingly have sex with drug injectors (4%), women who knowingly have sex with bisexual men (0.5%), and recipients of blood products (2.5%).(2) The remaining 5% represents 19,119 total identified AIDS patients who have not reported such status to health professionals. (These numbers do not include the "unidentified" cases for which risk status information is not available.)

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These figures conclusively refute claims that "everybody is at risk," and also falsify any contagious theory of AIDS.

The Unofficial Risks

The official AIDS risks are those practices (sex, needle sharing, transfusions) believed to facilitate the transmission of HIV, the official cause of AIDS. AIDS diagnosed in gay men is assumed to result from the sexual transmission of HIV from another gay man, in drug injectors from shared needles contaminated with HIV, and in transfusion recipients from blood contaminated with HIV.

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According to this non-contagious view, some risk group members with multiple exposures to non-contagious risk factors will never acquire HIV; thus this theory predicts (correctly)(9,10) a small number of risk group members who are HIV-negative but have AIDS symptoms. Also, some clinically healthy people with limited or no exposure to non-contagious factors will acquire HIV; thus this theory also predicts (correctly) (9,10) some healthy people who are HIV-positive but never develop AIDS.

Prevalence of Unofficial Risks in AIDS

How prevalent are unofficial risks (street drugs, repeated infections with--and toxic treatments for--a variety of toxic microbes, and toxic treatments for the non-toxic HIV) in Americans diagnosed with AIDS?

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Whether you subscribe to the HIV theory of AIDS or to the alternative view outlined here, the data are clear: for heterosexuals who do not consume street drugs, do not knowingly have sex with drug injectors or gay men, or who have not been injected with blood products, there is virtually no chance of either contracting HIV or of developing AIDS. This observation undermines the contagious (HIV) view of AIDS, and supports a non-contagious explanation. *

References:

(1) Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), National HIV Serosurveillance Summary Results Through 1993, Update for Volume 3.

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