HIV and AIDS: Questions of Scientific and Journalistic Responsibility

HIV AND AIDS:
QUESTIONS OF SCIENTIFIC AND
JOURNALISTIC RESPONSIBILITY
by Serge Lang
15 October 1994
For a decade, there has been increasing concern about "AIDS", and a
virus called "HIV" which is said to cause "AIDS". Having named this
virus "HIV" -- Human Immunodeficiency Virus - contributes to making
people accept that "HIV is the cause of AIDS". However, to an extent
which undermines classical standards of science, some purported
scientific results concerning "HIV" and "AIDS" have been handled by
press releases, by disinformation, by low quality studies, and by some
suppression of information, manipulating the media and people at
large. I am not here concerned with intent, but with scientific
standards, especially the ability to tell the difference between a fact,
an opinion, a hypothesis, and a hole in the ground. As we shall see
shortly, there does not even exist a single proper definition of "AIDS"
on which discourse can reliably be based. One difficulty, of which most
people are not aware, lies in faulty terminology and different
impressions by different people of what "AIDS" means. Thus a morass
about HIV and AIDS has been created. I find it difficult to write
systematically about this morass without becoming part of the morass.
A number of scientists have questioned the established view that
"HIV is the cause of AIDS", and they have given evidence that this
view -- I call it dogma -- may be invalid. Of course, there are diseases
of which people die. Questions have arisen about which diseases,
under what circumstances, and what causes them. I shall give
examples of the objections which have been raised about the
establishment view, including alternative causes for some diseases
lumped under the name "AIDS". I shall give examples of the way
alternative hypotheses for the causes of some of these diseases may not
have occurred to some researchers, or have been suppressed.
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