Some mathematical considerations on HIV and AIDS

Abstract

It is commonly accepted that HIV is both necessary and sufficient to cause the immunodeficiency and multiple diseases seen in patients diagnosed with AIDS. In other words it is accepted that HIV is the cause of AIDS. Upon this basis public health decisions in all Western countries regarding AIDS are made. However, many scientists now question the role of the virus (Root-Bernstein, 1993). Questions that have arisen about the virus include whether or not it is present in sufficient quantities to cause disease and whether or not AIDS is infectious. The former question has been applied to by new studies using the Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) technique that claim to detect very large quantities of virus in HIV+ patients at all stages of disease progression. I will examine these studies and show that they do not truly answer the criticisms that have been levelled. They in fact give rise to more questions than they answer. Predictions that one can make from them contradict the observed pattern of the disease. I will also argue that data based upon the so called Quantitative Competitive PCR need to be treated with caution.