Updated: March 2025
Published: December 2020
What causes AIDS? Where does HIV come from? The following compendium presents scientific papers, articles and documentaries on the HIV/AIDS controversy.
A. The oral polio vaccine hypothesis
The oral polio vaccine hypothesis of AIDS, supported by British biology professor W.D. Hamilton and others, proposes that AIDS is caused by HIV, but that HIV emerged from SIV-contaminated live polio vaccines that were given to a million Africans in the late 1950s.
Papers/Articles
- Polio vaccines and the origin of AIDS (Overview, Brian Martin, 2021)
- The Origin of AIDS: An Act of God or an Act of Man? (Tom Curtis, Rolling Stone, 1992)
- The River: A Journey to the Source of HIV and AIDS (Edward Hooper, 1999/2021)
- Review: Oral polio vaccine hypothesis of AIDS (Wikipedia)
Documentary: The Origins of AIDS (CBC, 2004)
Summary: “Did scientists inadvertently cause the AIDS epidemic? More than 20 years after the AIDS epidemic started, we still do not know its origins. Many believe that the answer is hidden in the research undertaken to find a cure to the polio epidemic. As the scientific community’s ethical responsibilities are called into question, the debate over the origins of AIDS rages on.”
Year: 2004; Duration: 45 min.; Director: Peter Chappell; See also: Wikipedia article
B. The chemical hypothesis
The chemical hypothesis of AIDS, proposed by UC Berkeley professor Peter Duesberg and others, argues that AIDS is caused by recreational drugs (especially so-called “poppers”), by anti-viral chemotherapy (especially AZT), and by malnutrition (especially in Africa). Proponents of this hypothesis consider HIV a contributing factor, a harmless “passenger virus”, or an artifact.
Scientific Papers
- The chemical bases of AIDS epidemics (Duesberg et al; Journal of Biosciences, 2003)
- AIDS since 1984: No evidence for a new, viral epidemic (Duesberg et al., IJAE, 2011)
- HIV-AIDS Hypothesis: 30 Years of Dissent (P. Goodson, Frontiers, 2014, retracted)
Articles
- AIDS and the AZT Scandal: Sins of Omission (Celia Farber, Spin Magazine, 1989)
- Truth and Heresy About AIDS (Richard Horton, New York Review of Books, 1996)
- AIDS and the Corruption of Medical Science (C. Farber, Harper’s Magazine, 2006)
- Review: The Duesberg Hypothesis of AIDS (Wikipedia)
Documentary: House of Numbers: Anatomy of an Epidemic (2009)
Summary: “What is HIV? What is AIDS? What is being done to cure it? The HIV/AIDS story is being rewritten, and this is the first film to present the uncensored views of many of the major players.”
Year: 2009; Duration: 90 min.; Director: Brent Leung; See also: Official website
Criticism: A critical review of the documentary and its claims (Wikipedia)
C. The syphilis hypothesis
The syphilis hypothesis of AIDS, supported by American biology professor Lynn Margulis and others, proposes that AIDS is caused by repeated and latent syphilis infection. Proponents of the syphilis hypothesis note that most AIDS-related diseases were already known from syphilis.
Papers/Articles
- Syphilis in the AIDS era (John Scythes and Colman Jones; AMIH, 2013)
- Syphilis, Lyme disease & AIDS: Resurgence of “the great imitator”? (Margulis et al, 2009)
- Syphilis as AIDS? A Call for Research (R.B. Mitchell, Medical Hypotheses, 1993)
Documentary: AIDS and Syphilis: A Hidden Link? (1995)
Summary: “A documentary about the theory that latent syphilis may be an unrecognized cause of AIDS. Originally produced in 1990 by Colman Jones for the ‘Toronto: Living with AIDS Project’. The documentary won a MacLean-Hunter Lizzie Award in the Current Affairs category, received an Ontario Cable Television Association (OCTA) award.” (Original title: Lest We Forget: Syphilis in the AIDS Era).
Year: 1995; Duration: 60 min.; Director: Colman Jones; Website: Syphilis-AIDS theory
D. Positively False – Birth of a Heresy (2012)
A 2012 documentary that covers the history of the HIV/AIDS controversy.
Summary: “Positively False – Birth of a Heresy traces the challenge over the past 25 years to the scientific orthodoxy which maintains that HIV is the cause of AIDS. Joan Shenton reaches back to 1987 through her extensive archive of broadcast and non-broadcast video material and combines it with current footage. She shows how dissident scientists, journalists and activists have voiced their concerns about the way the infectious hypothesis for AIDS took over from the toxic one and highlights the impact the dogma surrounding a viral cause for AIDS has had on people’s lives.”
Year: 2012; Duration: 90 min.; Director: Joan Shenton; See also: Website/Book
E. The Maggiore Case
The deaths of contrarian AIDS activist Christine Maggiore in 2008 and of her daughter in 2005, although both still mired in controversy, were a major setback for HIV/AIDS skepticism.
- Official view: Christine Maggiore case (Wikipedia)
- Skeptical view: Christine Maggiore case (Whale)
F. Operation “Denver”: KGB and Stasi Disinformation
How the Soviet KGB tried to pin HIV/AIDS on US biomedical research.
- Operation “Denver”: KGB and Stasi Disinformation regarding AIDS (Selvage & Nehring, 2019)
- AIDS disinformation and “disinformation squared” after five years (Geissler & Sprinkle, 2019)
- Operation “Denver”: The East German Ministry of State Security and the KGB’s AIDS Disinformation Campaign, 1985–1986 (Douglas Selvage, JCWS, 2019)
G. Websites on HIV/AIDS Skepticism
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