The hypothesis that human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is a new, sexually transmitted virus that causes
AIDS has been entirely unproductive in terms of public health benefits. Moreover, it fails to predict the epidemiology of
AIDS, the annual
AIDS risk and the very heterogeneous
AIDS diseases of infected persons. The correct hypothesis must explain why: (1)
AIDS includes 25 previously known diseases and two clinically and epidemiologically very different epidemics, one in America and Europe, the other in Africa; (2) almost all American (90%) and European (86%)
AIDS patients are males over the age of 20, while African
AIDS affects both sexes equally; (3) the annual
AIDS risks of infected babies, intravenous drug users, homosexuals who use
aphrodisiacs, hemophiliacs and Africans vary over 100-fold; (4) many
AIDS patients have diseases that do not depend on immunodeficiency, such as
Kaposi's sarcoma,
lymphoma,
dementia and wasting; (5) the
AIDS diseases of Americans (97%) and Europeans (87%) are predetermined by prior health risks, including long-term consumption of illicit
recreational drugs, the
antiviral drug AZT and congenital deficiencies like
hemophilia, and those of Africans are Africa-specific. Both negative and positive evidence shows that
AIDS is not infectious: (1) the virus hypothesis fails all conventional criteria of causation; (2) over 100-fold different
AIDS risks in different risk groups show that HIV is not sufficient for
AIDS; (3)
AIDS is only 'acquired,' if at all, years after HIV is neutralized by
antibodies; (4)
AIDS is new but HIV is a long-established, perinatally transmitted retrovirus; (5) alternative explanations disprove all assumptions and anecdotal cases cited in support of the virus hypothesis; (6) all
AIDS-defining diseases occur in matched risk groups, at the same rate, in the absence of HIV; (7) there is no common, active microbe in all
AIDS patients; (8)
AIDS manifests in unpredictable and unrelated diseases; and (9) it does not spread randomly between the sexes in America and Europe. Based on numerous data documenting that drugs are necessary for HIV-positives and sufficient for HIV-negatives to develop
AIDS diseases, it is proposed that all American/European
AIDS diseases, that exceed their normal background, result from recreational and
anti-HIV drugs. African
AIDS is proposed to result from
protein malnutrition, poor sanitation and subsequent
parasitic infections. This hypothesis resolves all paradoxes of the virus-AIDS hypothesis. It is epidemiologically and experimentally testable and provides a rational basis for
AIDS control.