Sir, - On successive Saturdays you have editorialised against President Thabo Mbeki's questioning of the HIV-AIDS hypothesis. In "Africa's Aids Holocaust" (July 8th), you stated that "in South Africa itself, the President, Mr Mbeki, has been courting the opinions of those who dispute the very existence of AIDS and how it is to be treated." In "The African Apocalypse" (July 15th), you argued that Mbeki was "dangerously wrong in listening to so-called AIDS dissidents who dispute the scientifically established facts" about AIDS and HIV.
Actually, the dispute is not about the existence of AIDS but about what causes it. Is it the HIV virus or are there alternative explanations for the breakdown of the immune system? In the case of Africa the dissident argument is that the various AIDS conditions are caused by poverty, malnutrition, poor sanitation, inadequate health care and endemic parasitic infections. This view of the cause of African AIDS is supported by many hundreds of scientific and other expert commentators.
Rather than being chided by you for an "ill-informed dalliance" with the dissidents, President Mbeki should be applauded for speaking out in favour of an open and rational debate about the causes of AIDS.
I am a historian, not a scientist. But I can testify that the past is littered with dogmatic assertions of scientific truth which have subsequently proved to be fallacious. The view that HIV causes AIDS is not scientifically established fact but just one hypothesis among many. At the present time it has majority scientific and medical opinion on its side, but that doesn't make it true. Let it be tested and debated side by side with alternative hypotheses. President Mbeki has established an international scientific panel to do just that. Let us support him in that endeavour. Yours, etc.,
Dr Geoffrey Roberts, Department of History, University College, Cork.