obtained from non-homosexual patients with ITP or non-immune thrombocytopenic purpura;(48) 5. Conversely, the p24 antigen is not found in all HIV positive or even AIDS patients. In one study, the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and p24 were used to detect HIV in patients at various CDC stages from asymptomatic to AIDS. p24 was detected in 24% patients and HIV RNA in 50%;(53) 6. In another study, "In half of the cases in which a subject had a positive p24 test, the subject later had a negative test without taking any medications that would be expected to affect p24 antigen levels...the test is clinically erratic and should be interpreted very cautiously".(54) Thus the finding of viral particles in the AIDS cultures/co- cultures, RT and proteins which react with AIDS related sera in the material from the supernatant or cell lysates which in sucrose density gradients bands at 1.16 gm/ml, cannot be considered synonymous with the isolation or even the detection of a retrovirus. Even if a retrovirus is isolated from in vitro cultures/co-cultures from tissues from AIDS patients, this does not, by itself, constitute proof of the existence of the virus in vivo, (in AIDS patients), and even less that the retrovirus has been exogenously acquired. This is because: 1. At present, it is generally accepted that "one of the most striking features that distinguish retroviruses from all other animal retroviruses is the presence, in the chromosomes of normal uninfected cells, of genomes [proviruses] closely related to, or identical with those of infectious viruses". The human genome, in addition to other proviral sequences, is known to contain both HTLV-I (55,56) and HIV (57) sequences. Depending on conditions, the proviral genome remains unexpressed or part or all of it may be expressed. The latter may or may not lead to the assembly of viral particles (endogenous retrovirus).(17) In animal cultures, healthy non-virus producing cells sooner or later spo...
