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First, one must realize that the official definition of AIDS in the United States is not scientifically neutral. It is circular. Since 1992, for instance, the CDC has an official list of 29 diseases. Among these, about 60% have to do with immuno deficiency but 40% do not (for instance diseases of cancer type, such as cervical cancer and Kaposi’s sarcoma). A low T-cell count is mentioned explicitly as only one of the 29 diseases. A person is then defined to have AIDS for surveillance reporting purposes if and only if this person has at least one of these diseases, and simultaneously tests HIV positive. With this definition, the correlation between HIV and AIDS is 100% because the definition assumes the correlation.
Thus when two people have the same symptoms of sickness, if one is HIV positive the sickness is called AIDS, and if the other is not, then the sickness is given its ordinary name. In this way, the definition obstructs dealing with the question whether the virus HIV is a cause of any disease. Some medical practitioners or scientists follow the CDC definition and some do not. Usually articles on HIV and AIDS do not specify which definition is used. Under such circumstances, statistics purportedly showing that HIV is the cause of certain diseases are worthless, and misleading.
