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AIDS experts feel the need to declare HIV causes 

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July 15, 2000 

DURBAN (AP) - David Ho, one of the world's leading AIDS researchers, stood in front of thousands of experts at the International AIDS Conference and made a statement few would have thought necessary a few months ago: "HIV is the cause of AIDS."

At previous AIDS gatherings, that statement would have been so obvious as to appear bizarre.

But many AIDS researchers and activists feel impelled to take a stand on what had long been considered a closed issue, fearing that President Thabo Mbeki's recent flirtation with fringe AIDS theories has given "AIDS dissidents" unprecedented clout.

In the run-up to the conference, 5,000 scientists and doctors signed the "Durban Declaration," published in the journal Nature, which stated the link between HIV and AIDS is "clear-cut, exhaustive and unambiguous."

At a news conference Thursday, the declaration's organizers explained that their extraordinary letter, widely seen as a rebuke to Mbeki, was necessary because the very fundamentals of anti-AIDS efforts are based on the premise that HIV causes the disease.

"It's important for really all our interventions that the record is set straight that HIV causes AIDS," said Stefano Ella, president of the International AIDS Society.

Few people here would argue that point, though a handful of AIDS dissidents have held a few forums, many proudly declaring that they are part of Mbeki's presidential advisory panel on AIDS.

In May, Mbeki convened that panel, which included many controversial AIDS theorists, to educate himself on the disease. After their first meeting, representatives of the panel said the scientists were designing an experiment to prove whether HIV caused AIDS.

After the panel's second meeting last week, however, they said they had been misunderstood and were actually searching for more affordable ways to test for the virus.

Critics have accused Mbeki of wasting time, energy and resources on debating a long-settled issue while the epidemic cuts deeper through the country.

Mbeki has insisted the government is continuing to fight the disease while the panel meets, though critics have charged that the government is not doing nearly enough to prevent the disease from spreading or to treat those already infected.

"Actions always speak louder than words," said Charles van der Horst, a professor of medicine at the University of North Carolina and one of the main coordinators of the Durban Declaration.