continued from above response

== 2 == "This guy (Mohammed Ali Al-Bayati) has more credentials than you do"

First of all, personal attacks do not add anything to a debate; John Cullison does not know who I am, or what my credentials are.

Dr. Al-Bayati says that starvation causes AIDS in Africa. Starvation is hardly limited to Africa. AIDS began to appear in the early 1980s; did starvation start in the early 1980s? Also, when AIDS began to emerge in the early 1980s, drugs like AZT or other types (like amyl nitrate; Grog stated that this contributes to AIDS) didn't exist, or they were not available to the millions of Africans in need (today, antiretroviral drugs are still not widely available to Africans).

Dr. Al-Bayati cites his own book and five papers in his letter.

The first and second references report work done on malnourished children. These papers show that immunity was improved when diet was improved. Of course immunity would improve when a starving person's diet is improved! This does not support his statement that the AIDS epidemic is caused by malnutrition. The paper on the effects of vitamin supplements on HIV shows that "multivitamin supplements [B,C,E] delay the progression of HIV disease" (abstract; Fawzi WW, Msamanga GI, Spiegelman D, et al. Randomized trial effects of vitamin supplements on pregnancy outcomes and T cell counts in HIV-1-infected women in Tanzania. The Lancet 1998; 351:1447-1482). This does not provide evidence that a balanced diet prevents AIDS.

Dr. Al-Bayati says the "reversal of the reduction in CD4+T cells counts in HIV- positive pregnant women who suffered from malnutrition was also accomplished by feeding these women a balanced diet." They were given multivitamin supplements, not a balanced diet; there was only a temporary reversal of the reduction in CD4+T cells (apparent, because the supplements only delayed progression).

He says that zidovudine is toxic. I doubt that there is a drug in existence that is not toxic in certain dosages.

==3, 4, 5 ==
As for your other links, "Go here for more links than you could possibly want," refers to testimony by Peter Duesberg. I don't have room to contradict all of his claims, so I'll refer the reader here: http://www.hivnewsline.com/issues/Vol3Issue1/editorial.html#1

I also don't have room to contradict "Another website with the story from the other side," because it "contains more than 1200 web pages with over 850 articles." In regards to the "Controversy" section of the site, respected scientists would not speculate about the colour of their socks before looking at their ankles, if they are being questioned; they have too much to lose if they are wrong about something as "controversial" as the cause of AIDS. Also, the majority of quotes are 10 or more years old; significant research has been done in the past decade.

I will not discuss "Some info on AIDS as a cover for drug manufacturers," because that is speculation at best.

The readers of this debate would most likely appreciate it if you countered some of my arguments, with some specific citations and logic.
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