Fact check: Research proves HIV is the cause of AIDS, contrary to viral claim

Molly Stellino, USA TODAY
·5 min read

The claim: There is no proof HIV is the cause of AIDS

A Dec. 15 Facebook video shows Kary Mullis, a scientist known for denying the link between HIV and AIDS, claiming again there is no proof HIV is the cause of AIDS.

A narrator says Mullis found no proof when he searched for evidence HIV caused AIDS.

“What is that paper? Who do I go to for that?” Mullis says. “And I looked around, I asked a couple of virologists that come in. They said, ‘I have to reference that because I don’t know where that came from. How do I know that?’ And it turned out that nobody knew it.”

The post was shared more than 1,000 times in a week. The clip comes from a 2009 documentary that promoted AIDS denialism, which has more than 300,000 views on YouTube.

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Our rating: False

Health agencies agree that HIV causes AIDS, and there is ample scientific evidence to prove it. Experts say a long list of experiments and studies have shown a causal link between the two.

Medical community agrees HIV causes AIDS

Human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV, is a virus that attacks the body’s immune system by attaching to and killing immune system cells called CD4 lymphocyte cells. This causes the immune system to eventually stop working.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health and the Federal HIV/AIDS Web Council are just a few of the many national health agencies that agree HIV causes AIDS.

“HIV ... is a virus that attacks the body’s immune system. If HIV is not treated, it can lead to AIDS,” the CDC’s website states.

The National Institute of Health’s website reads, “The loss of CD4 cells makes it difficult for the body to fight off infections and certain cancers. Without treatment, HIV can gradually destroy the immune system and HIV infection advances to AIDS.”

How scientists know HIV is the cause of AIDS

Key evidence proving HIV is the cause of AIDS includes studies where everyone who received AIDS therapy targeting HIV experienced a reduction of the virus, the development of blood tests that accurately identified the virus in people with AIDS and incidents of accidental lab exposures to HIV, said Dr. Robert Gallo, the virologist who co-discovered HIV.

“There is no infectious disease in the history of medicine with anywhere near this amount of evidence. It is conclusive," said Gallo, the director of the Institute of Human Virology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. "Anyone saying differently is ignorant.”

In the early 1980s, Scientists observed that even though people with AIDS exhibit a variety of symptoms, people with the disease experienced a decrease in a type of T cells “that harbored the CD4 surface antigen,” reads a New England Journal of Medicine article on the history of the discovery of HIV.

This matched the behavior of previously discovered retroviruses, leading scientists to hypothesize that one could be the cause of AIDS. Earlier research used animal models to show that the viruses caused “an AIDS-like wasting syndrome,” reads the journal.

Stephanie Laster works on quilts honoring Black and brown lives lost to HIV/AIDS during the Change the Pattern event held on the Alabama State University campus in Montgomery, Ala., on Friday, Nov. 4, 2022.
Stephanie Laster works on quilts honoring Black and brown lives lost to HIV/AIDS during the Change the Pattern event held on the Alabama State University campus in Montgomery, Ala., on Friday, Nov. 4, 2022.

Next, scientists attempted to isolate the virus and, once it was isolated and identified as HIV, repeated these findings to confirm “an exceptional linkage of agent to disease,” according to the journal. This was made possible through the development of reproducible blood tests for HIV.

Other evidence is found in Koch’s postulates, a benchmark used in infectious disease research to determine causality, said Dennis Burton, chair of Scripps Research Institute’s Department of Immunology and Microbiology. There are three types of evidence that fulfill Koch’s postulates and show that HIV causes AIDS, he explained in an email::

“1) Epidemiology. The presence of virus and anti-HIV antibodies is associated with progression to AIDS in different cohorts of people in different locations around the world.

2) HIV can be isolated from AIDS patients or its presence shown by sensitive techniques.

3) Transmission of HIV in humans and monkeys leads to AIDS. This has been shown in humans in accidental lab exposures to the virus and in the Florida dentist who transmitted a particular strain to his patients who subsequently developed AIDS. And in monkeys, AIDS can be reproducibly induced by infection with SIV, simian immunodeficiency virus, a close cousin of HIV.”

USA TODAY previously debunked a claim from Mullis, the AIDS denialist, that PCR tests can detect "anything in anybody" and can't tell you if you're sick.

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USA TODAY reached out to the social media user who shared the claim for comment.

Health Feedback and Lead Stories also debunked the claim that HIV does not cause AIDS.

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Fact check: Abundant scientific research shows HIV causes AIDS