Oh well, back to the drawing board.

[Julian2]

 

HIV claims a tragedy, says expert

 

 

 

CLAIMS by a group of self-professed AIDS "experts" that the HIV virus does not exist have been dismissed in the Supreme Court as "absolutely wrong".

One of the world's top 10 clinical experts on AIDS, Professor David Cooper, yesterday told Justice John Sulan the claims were harmful, with the potential to jeopardise decades of education about the need to practise safe sex.

 

He was giving evidence during an appeal by former Port Pirie man Andre Parenzee, 35, over his conviction for knowingly having sex with three South Australian women when he had the HIV virus.

 

Professor Cooper, of the University of New South Wales, yesterday was the first of several international experts expected to rebut the claims, based on the ideas of West Australian organisation The Perth Group, that the HIV virus cannot be sexually transmitted.

 

Professor Cooper said the claims - widely reported internationally over the past three months - had been a "tragedy".

 

"This group is not regarded as having any scientific credibility," he said.

 

"I can't say anything in the points they are raising has any scientific validity or are even worth testing by scientific hypothesis."

 

Asked by prosecutor Sandi McDonald if there was any justification to suggest HIV did not exist, Professor Cooper said that would be "absolutely wrong".

 

"Its genetic sequence is extensively known. It probably is one of the most studied viral micro-organisms that has ever existed," he said. "This (the claims made in the Supreme Court) is a tragedy for all the work we have achieved in trying to stop people from becoming infected.

 

"We have a generalised epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa where up to 30 to 40 per cent of some populations are infected."

 

Professor Cooper also refuted claims by the Perth Group that testing for HIV was unreliable, saying two tests used to detect the virus produced results which were "99.9 per cent accurate".

 

The hearing continues.

 

[Flashermac]

Trink will not be amused.