AIDS is usually characterized by a number of "opportunistic" diseases, which can become active in a body whose immune system has been severely compromised. These include Pheumocystic carinii pneumonia (PCP) and candidiasis, both fungal parasites present in all humans, tuberculosis, toxoplasmosis, cytomegalovirus and herpes virus disease. In addition, AIDS patients can suffer from other illnesses not caused by immune deficiency, including lymphoma and Kaposi's sarcoma (two forms of cancer), dementia or wasting disease.

If AIDS were caused by a virus, it has a strange proclivity for giving certain groups certain types of diseases. For instance, Duesberg points out:American homosexuals have Kaposi's sarcoma 20 times more often than all other American AIDS patients. Less than one per cent of hemophiliacs and about the same percentage of Africans get KS. Studies have linked KS with anal intercourse and "poppers-amyl nitrite.

Intravenous drug users tend to get tuberculosis.

Crack users get pneumonia, in addition to tuberculosis.

Hemophiliacs favour opportunistic infections, three-quarters of which are fungal, plus viral pneumonia.

Blood transfusion recipients get pneumonia.

AIDS babies tend to get bacterial diseases and dementia.

90 per cent of African AIDS patients, who are evenly divided among males and females (unlike the West) get fever, diarrhea, tuberculosis and "slim" disease all long-established diseases of the continent. Africans do not get PCP and candidiasis, even though both parasites exist in all humans, including Africans.