Is There Evidence AIDS is Sexually Transmitted?

According to Dr. David Rasnick, the facts don't support the hypothesis. Check out his letter from the British Medical

Journal online:

Sex Has Nothing to Do With AIDS

David Rasnick, Visiting Scientist, UC Berkeley

rasnick@mindspring.com

January 20, 2003

I challenge [doctors] to come up with the names, even one will do, of the persons documented to have shown that

AIDS or HIV is sexually transmitted. I know of no such study.

In fact, the scientific, medical literature is full of evidence that neither AIDS nor HIV is sexually transmitted. It is only

assumed that they are.

The results of the world's best scientific study that attempted to measure the efficiency of heterosexual transmission of

antibodies to HIV was conducted by Nancy Padian and her colleagues (Padian NS, et al. 1997:

Heterosexual transmission of human immunodeficiency virus in northern California: results from a ten-year study.

Am J Epidemiol 146: 350-7).

The most striking result of the ten-year study is that Padian et al. did not observe any HIV-negative sex partners

becoming HIV-positive from years of

unprotected sexual intercourse with their HIV-positive partners. I repeat?NOT ONE HIV-negative sex partner became

positive during the 10- year study. Therefore, the observed transmission efficiency was ZERO.

However, to avoid reporting a zero efficiency for the sexual transmission of HIV, Padian and colleagues assumed that

the HIV-positive sex partners in their study must have become positive through sexual intercourse before

entering the study. Using that assumption, they estimated that an HIV-negative woman would have to have sexual

intercourse 1,000 times with HIV-positive men before becoming HIV-positive herself. Even more astounding,

HIV-negative men would have to have 8000 sexual contacts before becoming HIV-positive.

Virtually identical figures have been reported by others (Gisselquist, D., et al., HIV infections in sub- Saharan Africa

not explained by sexual or vertical transmission. Int J STD AIDS, 2002. 13: p. 657-666; Jacquez, J.A.,

et al., Role of the primary infection in epidemics of HIV infection in gay cohorts. J Acquir Immune Defic Syndr,

1994. 7: p. 1169-1184).

Given these figures and that the US Centers for Disease Control estimates that one million Americans have antibodies

to HIV raises an enormous problem for sexually transmitted HIV. Since there are around 280 million men and women

in the USA, that means that on average an HIV-negative woman would have to have random sexual intercourse

140,000 times?and a man eight times

that number?in order to become HIV-positive (assuming equal distribution of HIV between the sexes).

Below are additional examples in the literature that neither AIDS nor HIV is sexually transmitted.

- None of the husbands of HIV positive women became antibody positive to HIV over a three-year period. (Lancet ii:

581 (1985), Stewart et al.}

- No transmission of HIV was observed between couples in which all of the women were HIV positive and in which at

least 100 sexual contacts occurred. (JAMA 259: 3037 (1988), Padian et al.)

- After a mean of 3-1/2 years of unprotected intercourse, with an average of 50 sexual encounters per year, only one

hemophiliac wife became HIV positive. (American Journal of Medicine 85: 472 (1988), Kim et al.)

- No transmission of T-cell abnormalities from hemophiliacs with AIDS to their spouses. (JAMA 251: 1450 (1984),

Kreiss et al.)

- "The number of American and European heterosexuals who have had sexual relations with a prostitute, who have no

other admitted risk factors (such as drug abuse), and who have subsequently developed antibody to HIV can be

counted on the fingers of one hand. Sex with a prostitute is not even listed as a risk category by the American CDC."

(Rethinking AIDS, Root-Bernstein, 1993)

- "Non-drug abusing prostitutes have no higher risk of AIDS than other women." (AIDS: the second decade, report

from the National Academy of Sciences USA, 1990)

The same is true for prostitutes in Germany, Zurich, Vienna, London, Paris, Pardenone (Italy), and Athens. (Klinische

Wochenschrift 65: 287 (1987), Luthy et al.; Wiener Klinische Wochenschrift 98: 697 (1986), Kopp &

Dangl-Erlach; Lancet ii: 1424 (1985), Brenky-Fandeux & Fribourg-Blanc; British Medical Journal 297: 1585 (1988),

Day et al.; Scand J Infect Dis 21: 353 (1988), Hyams et al.)