Commentary: Questioning the HIV-AIDS Hypothesis: 30 Years of Dissent

A recent Opinion article by Dr. Goodson (1) expresses pseudoscientific views typical of HIV/AIDS denialism (2–13) and ignores the overwhelming evidence that HIV is a causative agent of AIDS, the evidence accumulated during more than 30 years of research.


Fulfilling the Koch's Postulate 3: Accidental HIV Transmission in Humans
Dr. Goodson ignores several tragic cases of accidental HIV transmission to laboratory workers who worked with purified HIV-1, became infected after a needle-stick or mucosal exposure and developed AIDS-like symptoms. HIV has been isolated from their blood, and DNA sequencing confirmed that the HIV variant isolated was identical to the one they were working with (15,(68)(69)(70). Other well-documented cases include HIV transmission from a dentist in the USA to several patients (15,71), and HIV transmission through blood transfusion to 11 children in the USA (72) and 75 children in the former Soviet Union (73).
In addition, the Koch's postulates for HIV and another lentivirus, Simian immunodeficiency virus, have been fulfilled in experiments with animal models (15,74).
Dr. Goodson misrepresents the study by Rodriguez et al. (81), which has never stated that PCR "is not sufficiently accurate" (1).

Antiretroviral Therapy
Contrary to Dr. Goodson's claims, antiretroviral therapy (ART) has profoundly improved the prognosis for HIV-1-infected patients, suppressing their viral load, restoring CD4 + Tlymphocyte count, and reducing the risk of developing AIDS or dying ( Figure 1A) . The success of ART has been determined by its high specificity for HIV-1-encoded proteins (105,106). Along with therapeutic agents for many other diseases, ART does have side effects, but these are far outweighed by its benefits (106). New anti-HIV agents should help to mitigate side effects, overcome drug resistance, and ultimately cure HIV infection, e.g., through excising HIV proviral DNA from the chromosome (107)(108)(109).
Dr. Goodson misrepresents the study by the ART Cohort Collaboration, which showed that ART is extremely beneficial for HIV-infected patients, but better clinical outcomes are observed when CD4 + T-lymphocyte counts at the start of ART are higher than 200 cells/µl (110). These conclusions have been corroborated by many other studies (111)(112)(113)(114)(115)(116)(117) and serve as a background to recommend starting ART early, when the HIV-triggered damage of the immune system is easier to restore (106).  Figure 1B) (9,12,118). The Opinion article by Dr. Goodson (1) [as well as earlier published or publicly expressed opinions of P. Duesberg, K. Mullis, and other denialists, none of whom has ever worked with HIV/AIDS (2)(3)(4)(5)(7)(8)(9)(10)(11)(12)] is similarly harmful for public health, as it disseminates dangerous misinformation about HIV/AIDS that can affect prevention decisions made by uninfected people and treatment decisions made by HIV-infected people. Therefore, the following recommendations should be given to public health workers: (1) to learn and disseminate up-to-date knowledge on HIV/AIDS based on the most recent scientific literature, and (2) to be aware of HIV/AIDS denialism and be able to effectively counteract its detrimental impact on public health.