Human Endogenous Retroviruses and AIDS Research: Confusion, Consensus, Or Science‪?‬

The HIV Consensus The hypothesis that the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) is caused by an exogenous retrovirus, the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), initially proposed in the early 1980s, (1-3) has exclusively dominated AIDS research for the past 25 years, although many investigators have repeatedly stressed the lack of scientifically acceptable verification of this hypothesis. Alerted to the numerous shortcomings of the official retroviral hypothesis by eminent retrovirologist Peter Duesberg, (4,5) a group of AIDS "Rethinkers," founded by molecular biologist Charles Thomas in 1991, called for the "Scientific Reappraisal of the HIV/AIDS Hypothesis" in 1996.