Something that's difficult to accept (for me anyway, and I suspect any number of intellectuals such as geeks) is that the scientific community could ever be held under the sway of personal agendas, money and politics.

I think it's safe to say that anyone who raises a hand in question of the AIDS community is likely to be vilified. An august publication such as Nature can't risk its reputation in such a crossfire.

Sad, I know. It's possible that Big Pharmacy wants the HIV=AIDS question unanswered so that a) they continue collecting serious revenues from the sale of AZT and the like, and b) they wouldn't be able to withstand the fallout if it was discovered that most AIDS deaths in the developed nations were caused by the toxicity of chemotherapy.

Also, Big Science likes getting enormous sums of grant money to research a "cure", not to mention the gazillion questions that would be raised about other conditions we know so little about. Could you imagine the lawsuits that would fill our court systems? Doctors would lose any semblance of authority, and no one would trust them any longer.

This whole thing is very disturbing. Again, I'm very much sitting on the fence in this, because I'm really not educated in the biosciences. I do, however, comprehend the staggering backlash that would occur if it was ever definitively proven that HIV was a sham, and what was killing people was the drug therapy.