ABSTRACT
Cases of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome * (AIDS) were probably present in low numbers in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) for decades or centuries before this disease syndrome was recognized as a distinct clinical entity in 1981 in several young homosexual males † in southern California. At the time, I was the State Epidemiologist responsible for the prevention and control of communicable diseases in California. Since then, I have been involved virtually full-time with the international response to the AIDS pandemic, which is without question one of the most severe infectious disease pandemics in modern times. During my public health career that began in the early 1960s, I have always been considered a part of conventional or mainstream medical science. However, since the mid-1990s, I have found myself swimming upstream against mainstream AIDS organizations. I have, during this period, gradually come to the realization that AIDS programs developed by international agencies and faith-based organizations have been and continue to be more socially, politically, and moralistically correct than epidemiologically accurate.
