Doug,
Excellent "alternative" research has been done by the Perth Group out of Australia. You can find their work (and interviews with the members of the group) at www.virusmyth.com. There is a lot of other good stuff there, too.
Discounting the wacky conspiracy theorist, it is important to note that the AIDS-Dissent world is divided into three camps. The first camp is led by Peter Duesberg, the world famous retrovirologist and cancer researcher, who argues that the HIV has indeed been isolated but that it is harmless and could not possibly do the things claimed for it. The second camp, represented by the Perth Group, argues that the HIV has NEVER even been isolated. The third camp, headed-up by German molecular-biologist Stefan Lanka, argues that retroviruses are non-existent--a by- product of the mainstream cancer establishments' habit of looking for a virus to explain every disease (In fact, I think that the Perth Group has moved closer to Lanka's position of late but I'm not totally sure). I find Lanka's argument to be not just compelling but quite convincing. All of these dissidents agree that the anti-AIDS drugs are more or less deadly and that nutritional approaches to "AIDS" are much more promi! sing.
Re: Peter's concerns, I would say that AIDS deaths in vulnerable populations around the world could largely (and roughly) be explained as follows:
Gay Men: large scale use of highly toxic illegal substances, prescription of highly toxic anti-AIDS drugs, especially AZT (iatrogenesis), mal-nutrition, dehydration, stress from the "certainty" of death from AIDS, numerous bio-chemical complications that follow from any combination of the above.
African-Americans (and other marginalized populations in the US): crack, iatrogenesis, mal-nutrition, dehydration, poverty, stress, comlications that follow from any combination of the above.
Africans: poverty, mal-nutrition, dehydration, occasional prescription of "experimental AIDS drugs", iatrogenesis, isolation of those "infected" with HIV, stress, comlications from all the above.
Asia: Much of the same as in Africa without the experimental drugs.
Chris