6 Jan 2012 10:45 AM EST

-by Molly C. Braswell, Staff Writer; Image: Bryan Fischer (Image Source: Queerty)

The Focal Point host, Director of Issues Analysis for the American Family Association and conservative extremist Bryan Fischer said on his show that the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) is not the source of causing the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS).

“The reason that HIV was invented as the cause of AIDS was a way to get research money,” Fischer said. “That’s how you get big bucks. That’s how you get research grants to fund your laboratories and your research. if AIDS is caused by behavior, then there’s no money in that because you just tell people, ‘Hey, stop doing the behavior.’”

Fischer interviewed (via telephone) Peter H. Duesberg, Ph. D., of the University of California, Berkley, on his show Tuesday. Duesberg is the author of the book Inventing the AIDS Virus. He claims that recreational drug use by the homosexual male population is the cause of most AIDS symptoms.

“what I know as AIDS is what, like, abnormal diseases pneumonia, diarrhea and dementia in 20 to 30-year-old men and women in the U.S., in Europe, in Asia and even a few that fit that definition in Africa use recreational drugs like cocaine, heroin, amphetamines,” Duesberg said. “in the U.S., the CDC (Center for Disease Control and Prevention) even reports that intravenous drug use is half of all AIDS patients. The rest of the other half is male homosexuals… but it’s the ones who have… hundreds, thousands of sexual contacts in a short period of time.”

Fischer cited basketball star Magic Johnson as a prime example that HIV does not cause AIDS. He noted that Johnson has been living with the syndrome for more than 20 years after his diagnosis was “confirmed.”

Duesberg also mentioned on the program that he wasn’t talking about “you’re all-American male homosexuals from next door.”

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