Professor Peter Duesberg, the maverick professor who has claimed HIV does not lead to AIDS, is sticking to his guns in the face of evidence that seems to knock down his thesis.

Researchers from the Royal Free Hospital in London gave 17 HIV-positive and HIV-negative hemophiliacs the anticlotting agent factor VIII, which Prof. Duesberg maintains is the cause of AIDS. Between 1980 and 1990, 16 of the 17 HIV-positive patients went on to develop AIDS while none did who were HIV-negative, reported the Royal Free group.

Prof. Duesberg says the research was inadequate and feels that the anti-HIV arguments need further examination (BMJ, January 27,1996)

* The belief that AIDS first appeared in 1959 when a man from Manchester, England, died from a syndrome resembling AIDS has been discounted by scientists. Researchers from the Manchester Royal Infirmary carried out tissue testing and said there was no evidence to suggest the man had the AIDS virus (The Lancet, January 20,1996).

* The other AIDS maverick, Eleni Papadopoulos-Eleopoulos, has been questioning a piece of landmark research, from 1985, which showed that four women had been infected with AIDS after receiving sperm from a bisexual donor. She argues that, using the more rigorous Western blot testing carried out in Australia, none of the women would have tested positive (The Lancet, January 20, 1996).