* AIDS in haemophiliacs is clearly related to the use of corticosteroids and other immunosuppressive agents used to prevent the development of antibodies to factors VIII and IX, and to treat chronic illnesses. In his textbook, Dr Fauci and his co-authors note that haemophiliac patients routinely receive immunosuppressive drugs as part of their treatment. Patients with severe haemophilia have serious chronic joint problems resulting from bleeding inside the joints. This is invariably treated with steroids. Many haemophiliacs with AIDS are HIV-negative. Dr Peter Duesberg discovered 17 studies showing that, among a total of 717 patients with AIDS, 46 per cent were HIV-negative (Pharmacol Ther, 1992; 55: 201-77).

* AIDS in people receiving blood and/or tissue is related to the use of glucocorticoids to prevent the adverse reactions caused by transfusion and tissue rejection. Again, it is standard treatment to give such patients steroids.

* AIDS in infants and children is probably a result of their exposure to street drugs or steroids in utero and, after birth, to steroids used to treat their chronic illnesses. For instance, mothers expected to have a premature birth are routinely treated with steroids - a standard procedure since the 1970s. In premature babies, steroids are used to help develop the lungs and to reduce the incidence of necrotising enterocolitis (inflammation and ulceration of the bowel associated with shock, impaired blood flow or antibiotic therapy). In addition, the natural cortisol levels in the plasma and urine of preterm babies exposed to cocaine is significantly higher than that of unexposed infants (Al-Bayati MA, Get All The Facts: HIV Does Not Cause AIDS, Dixon, CA: Toxi-Health International, 1999).

Infants and children with AIDS are dying from opportunistic infections as a result of malnutrition and the excessive use of therapeutic steroids to treat the wide range of illnesses usually seen in these children - in other words, the cure is causing the disease and, ultimately, the death.

* AIDS in Africa is caused by malnutrition which, in turn, leads to overproduction of natural cortisol, which results in effects similar to that of therapeutic steroids and will eventually lead to the immune-system failure. Atrophy of the lymphoid tissue has been observed in HIV-negative people suffering from malnutrition (Lancet, 1972; i: 92-3), an association first noted as early as 1925. Furthermore, copious studies of malnourished children show that the thymus, a key organ in proper immune function, is wasted away by up to 90 per cent of its normal volume, and the numbers of T cells and other lymphocytes also plummet (Am J Clin Nutr, 1994; 60: 274-8; Hua His I Ko Ta Hsueh Pao, 1991; 22: 337-9; J Trop Pediatr Environ Child Health, 1972; 18: 217-24; Trop Pediatr, 1998; 44: 304-7).

Damage to the immune system is rapidly reversible once you remove the causal agent or treat the true causes in both HIV-positive and HIV-negative AIDS patients. One study showed that the decreased T-cell counts in HIV-positive pregnant women can be reversed once they are fed a nutritional diet. In one study of more than 1000 women, T-cell counts improved by one-third in women given a multivitamin and a proper diet for six months (Lancet, 1998; 351: 1447-82).