# How does HIV cause AIDS?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-hiv-cause-aids/188487>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [July 14, 2003, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-hiv-cause-aids/188487 "2003-07-14T21:51:17Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![EasyPhil](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e47c2d/32.png) [@EasyPhil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EasyPhil)\
**Post date:** [July 19, 2003, 6:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-hiv-cause-aids/188487/21 "2003-07-19T06:18:05Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by paperbackwriter \*  
> \*\*  
> The biological reality, however, is that the person is still infected with HIV. Magic Johnson, for example, has had blood tests that fail to show any HIV virus particles or antibodies. He is still infected and is not “cured”. There is, as of yet, no cure for HIV infection. Various combination drug regimens can cause the mitigation of symptoms and prevent the neurological effects and opportunistic infections. They cannot, so far as we know, completely eliminate the virus from the patient. \*\*

Let’s assume for a moment the above scenario is true. This would mean that the current testing methods cannot accurately determine if you’re HIV infected or not, since you can possibly be in the non-detectable state that Magic Johnson is(as described above) and “appear” to be not infected, but in reality still be infected though undetected. Am I drawing the correct conclusions from your statement **paperbackwriter**?

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**Author:** ![NoCoolUserName](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/5fc32e/32.png) [@NoCoolUserName](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NoCoolUserName)\
**Post date:** [July 19, 2003, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-hiv-cause-aids/188487/22 "2003-07-19T15:51:18Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by TaxGuy \*  
> \*\*Duesberg says that African AIDS and US AIDS are two totally different things and that his belief that HIV does not cause AIDS is limited to US AIDS. I don’t remember why. \*\*

I’ve seen articles that say that a diagnosis of AIDS in Africa is given whenever anyone has an “opportunistic” infection. This is “verified” with a dubious study of some high-risk population from a while back. (Sorry for the lack of cite and detail.)

I’m not saying this stuff is true, but I have long wondered how they tested all those folks in Africa. When you don’t have enough food it’s hard to a) be healty and b) get what we consider to be reasonable medical care.

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