The Durban declaration states:

The evidence that AIDS is caused by HIV-1 or HIV-2 is clear-cut, exhaustive and unambiguous, meeting the highest standards of science. ... HIV causes AIDS. It is unfortunate that a few vocal people continue to deny the evidence. This position will cost countless lives.

What bona fide AIDS researchers and activists will and will not do when countering AIDS denialists

We will:

• Expose the lies and the factual misrepresentations made by the denialists, particularly when these appear in the mainstream media.
• Expose individual cases of avoidable illness or death caused by the actions of denialists.
• Make supervising authorities or professional organizations aware of conduct by AIDS denialists, particularly scientists, journalists and civil servants, which breaches the normal standards of professional ethics or competence.
• Assist investigative journalists in uncovering the financial links between AIDS profiteers and the AIDS denialists who provide mutual support to each other.
• Provide factual information on HIV/AIDS to legitimate, mainstream journalists and bona fide members of the public (i.e. not AIDS denialists or agent provocateurs).

We will not:

Engage in any public or private debate with AIDS denialists or respond to requests from journalists who overtly support AIDS denialist causes. The reasons are:

• The debate has been settled: HIV causes AIDS, AIDS kills, and AIDS can be treated with significant success by the use of antiretroviral therapy. These are the facts.
• The information proving the above is already in the peer-reviewed science literature. The scientific facts are ignored, misunderstood or willfully misrepresented by the AIDS denialists. However, it is not our role to enlighten denialists as to their inability to understand the available information.
• Debating denialists dignifies their position in a way that is unjustified by the facts about HIV/AIDS. The appropriate way for dissenting scientists to try to persuade other scientists of their views on any scientific subject is by publishing research in the peer-reviewed scientific literature. For many years now, AIDS denialists have been unsuccessful in persuading credible peer-reviewed journals to accept their views on HIV/AIDS, because of their scientific implausibility and factual inaccuracies. That failure does not entitle those who disagree with the scientific consensus on a life-and-death public health issue to then attempt to confuse the general public by creating the impression that scientific controversy exists when it does not.
• Our time is better spent conducting research into HIV/AIDS and/or educating the general public about the facts about this virus and the deadly disease it causes.

This November 2003 Nature article shows why debating denialists is a waste of time.

Resources for countering AIDS denialists

This site was created to help prevent lives from being lost due to ignorance or misunderstanding. The items below address some of the most common assertions made by AIDS denialists.

• HIV, AIDS, and the Distortion of Science – Martin Delaney
• Does drug use cause AIDS?
• The Consequences of HIV Denialism – Dr. Robert Voigt
• Joseph Sonnabend, M.D., makes it clear that denialists are including inappropriate references to him in their literature
• AIDS Truth member criticizes AIDS denialists
• Several denialist websites proclaim that two - even three - Nobel Prize winners question HIV as the cause of AIDS. Is this true? AIDS Truth investigates.
• What our work means: Predictive value of plasma HIV RNA level on rate of CD4 T-cell decline in untreated HIV infection
• HIV causes AIDS: An independent review of the evidence
• Debunking the Myths of the AIDS Denialists
• Response to the Seven Deadly Deceptions
• CD4 Counts and Viral Load
• Drugs, Disease, Denial
• HIV, AIDS, and the Distortion of Science
• AIDS denialism: still crazy after all these years - and still killing people in South Africa
• Price of Denial by Mark Heywood
• Bad Science: Former Denialists Wake Up
• *Lies, Damned Lies and Dr. Rath
• *Nature Medicine Editorial: Denying Science
• The Curious Case of AIDS Denialist Roberto Giraldo
• Echoes of Lysenko: State-sponsored Pseudoscience in South Africa
• Correcting the AIDS Lies
• HIV denialists ignore large gap in the study they cite
• Denying AIDS and the Rwandan Genocide?
• Misrepresentation of the Concorde trial perpetuated by AIDS denialists, particularly Anthony Brink
• Words of Dr. Harvey Bialy