for an AIDS cure is that the thing most needed?open debate and scientific exchange?is the thing most feared by the AIDS establishment.? Amazon.com ? Bob Guccione Jr. , Editor and publisher, Gear Magazine ?As a prison medical officer in South Africa, I partly agree with President Mbeki?s sceptical view of current statistical research into HIV infection and AIDS. The research data tend to be formulated from actuarial models and short trials in pregnant women attending antenatal clinics. Pregnancy is known to cause a raised rate of false positive results on testing for HIV infection with ELISA. The results of such research lead to frightening statistics, giving the impression that the whole of southern Africa will be depopulated within the next 24 months.? ?In South Africa?s prisons there is a vast overcrowded (often 30 people per cell) population in which homosexuality is widespread and condom use practically non-existent. This is the perfect breeding ground for the rapid spread of HIV. This prison, which holds 550 inmates and is always full or overfull, has an HIV infection rate of 2 to 4% and has had only two deaths from AIDS in the seven years I have been working there. ?The HIV infection rate for all South Africa?s prisons is currently 2.3%. The rate in the prison population should be higher than that in the general population, or at least the same. But the figures for prisons in South Africa are way below those generated by actuarial models and antenatal data, which purportedly