Is There Evidence AIDS is Sexually Transmitted?

According to Dr. David Rasnick, the facts don't support the hypothesis.
Check out his letter from the British Medical Journal online:

Sex Has Nothing to Do With AIDS

David Rasnick, Visiting Scientist, UC Berkeley
rasnick@mindspring.com

January 20, 2003

I challenge [doctors] to come up with the names, even one will do, of the
persons documented to have shown that AIDS or HIV is sexually transmitted.
I know of no such study.

In fact, the scientific, medical literature is full of evidence that
neither AIDS nor HIV is sexually transmitted. It is only assumed that they
are.
The results of the world's best scientific study that attempted to measure
the efficiency of heterosexual transmission of antibodies to HIV was
conducted by Nancy Padian and her colleagues (Padian NS, et al. 1997:
Heterosexual transmission of human immunodeficiency virus in northern
California: results from a ten-year study. Am J Epidemiol 146: 350-7).

The most striking result of the ten-year study is that Padian et al. did
not observe any HIV-negative sex partners becoming

HIV-positive from years of unprotected sexual intercourse with their
HIV-positive partners. I repeat?NOT ONE HIV-negative sex partner became
positive during the 10- year study. Therefore, the observed transmission
efficiency was ZERO.

However, to avoid reporting a zero efficiency for the sexual transmission
of HIV, Padian and colleagues assumed that the HIV-positive sex partners
in their study must have become positive through sexual intercourse before
entering the study.

Using that assumption, they estimated that an HIV-negative woman would
have to have sexual intercourse 1,000 times with HIV-positive men before
becoming HIV-positive herself. Even more astounding, HIV-negative men
would have to have 8000 sexual contacts before becoming HIV-positive.

Virtually identical figures have been reported by others (Gisselquist, D.,
et al., HIV infections in sub- Saharan Africa not explained by sexual or
vertical transmission. Int J STD AIDS, 2002. 13: p. 657-666; Jacquez,
J.A., et al., Role of the primary infection in epidemics of HIV infection
in gay cohorts. J Acquir Immune Defic Syndr, 1994. 7: p.1169-1184).

Given these figures and that the US Centers for Disease Control estimates
that one million Americans have antibodies to HIV raises an enormous
problem for sexually transmitted HIV. Since there are around 280 million
men and women in the USA, that means that on average an HIV-negative woman
would have to have random sexual intercourse 140,000 times?and a man eight
times that number?in order to become HIV-positive (assuming equal
distribution of HIV between the sexes).

Below are additional examples in the literature that neither AIDS nor HIV
is sexually transmitted.

- None of the husbands of HIV positive women became antibody positive to
HIV over a three-year period. (Lancet ii: 581 (1985), Stewart et al.}

- No transmission of HIV was observed between couples in which all of the
women were HIV positive and in which at least 100 sexual contacts
occurred. (JAMA 259: 3037 (1988), Padian et al.)

- After a mean of 3-1/2 years of unprotected intercourse, with an average
of 50 sexual encounters per year, only one hemophiliac wife became HIV
positive. (American Journal of Medicine 85: 472 (1988), Kim et al.)

- No transmission of T-cell abnormalities from hemophiliacs with AIDS to
their spouses. (JAMA 251: 1450 (1984), Kreiss et al.)

- "The number of American and European heterosexuals who have had sexual
relations with a prostitute, who have no other
admitted risk factors (such as drug abuse), and who have subsequently
developed antibody to HIV can be
counted on the fingers of one hand. Sex with a prostitute is not even
listed as a risk category by the American CDC." (Rethinking AIDS,
Root-Bernstein, 1993)

- "Non-drug abusing prostitutes have no higher risk of AIDS than other
women." (AIDS: the second decade, report from the
National Academy of Sciences USA, 1990)
The same is true for prostitutes in Germany, Zurich, Vienna, London,
Paris, Pardenone (Italy), and Athens. (Klinische
Wochenschrift 65: 287 (1987), Luthy et al.; Wiener
Klinische Wochenschrift 98: 697 (1986), Kopp & Dangl-Erlach; Lancet ii:
1424 (1985), Brenky-Fandeux & Fribourg-Blanc; British Medical Journal 297:
1585 (1988), Day et al.; Scand J Infect Dis 21: 353 (1988), Hyams et al.)