I am not a scientist, and certainly not a medical doctor or epidemiologist. But I am not aware that there are "thousands" of respectable dissenting scientific views; Mbeke could produce only handful of skeptics with any qualifications at his AIDS conference. The overwhelming weight of scientific opinion is that the standard view is right. The consensus is muschs tronger than the (string) consensus about global warming. It is regarded as so obvious that the only questions are about how to beat HIV, not whether HIV is the cause of AIDS. Moreover, treatments targeting HIV (like the cocktail) seem to work--I have friends who are alive because of this, as I am sure so do we all. So I conclude that HIV skepticism is like creationism, a wacko position. That is why Mbeke should not accept it and promulgate it. As far as we know, the standard view is true, and we should act accordingly. This is especially important for someone in charge of public health policy where AIDS is epidemic. _____________________________________________________________________________________ Get more from the Web. FREE MSN Explorer download : http://explorer.msn.com