Nexus - 0604 - New Times Magazine-pages

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US President Reagan and French Premier Chirac. Nevertheless, by antibodies shortly after infection and thus antibodies signal its the matter drew the attention of John Crewdson, an investigative containment. He also pointed to data proving that well, sick or journalist, and US Senator John Dingell. In November 1989, dying-from-AIDS, HIV-positive individuals contain insufficient Crewdson published a lengthy article in the Chicago Tribune amounts of HIV to do harm. Even if HIV were to kill all the T4 newspaper, which provoked an internal NIH enquiry into suspect cells it had infected every 1 to 2 days, the number of T4 cells data from Gallo's laboratory. needing replacement approximated the amount of blood shed by a A draft report of the formal investigation, written by the NIH man cutting himself shaving. Office of Scientific Integrity (OSI), was published in September For the protagonists, the low "viral burden"—that is, the 1991, in which the principal author, Mikulas Popovic, was amount of "HIV DNA" in cells—was a fact that no one, not even accused "of misconduct for misstatements and inaccuracies" that Gallo, could satisfactorily reconcile with an immunity-destroying appeared in the first Science paper, and suggesting that Gallo, as pathogen killing gay men within a year or two of diagnosis. laboratory chief, "created and fostered conditions that give rise to | However, rather than addressing this as a scientific problem war- falsified/fabricated data and falsified reports". ranting dialogue with someone known to have considerable The OSI's final draft report, completed in January 1992, was knowledge of the subject, Duesberg's questions antagonised Gallo immediately criticised, and was followed by a review of the OSI to the point where he refused to discuss the matter. Meetings con- report by the Office of Research Integrity vened to deal with the uncomfortable impli- (ORI) which found Gallo guilty of scientific cations of Duesberg's paper were suddenly misconduct. cancelled at the highest level. Nonetheless, even after this long investiga- In 1989, Duesberg presented further argu- tion and its conclusion, the US Government ment.‘ HIV does not fulfil the postulates withdrew its findings following Gallo's that 19th century bacteriologist Robert Koch announcement of an appeal. Despite this, in had developed to prove a microbe causes a 1994, US officials credited Montagnier and disease. These four postulates are: (a) the his colleagues as the discoverers of HIV and Gallo's data which still organism must be present in all cases of the yielded the French a greater share of royal- . Y . disease; (b) it must be grown and then isolat- ties from the HIV antibody tests. In taking remains the best of its ed in pure culture from the cells of individu- these unprecedented steps, Dr Harold . als with the disease; (c) it must reproduce Varmus, ihe Director of the NIH, acknowl- kind, does not prove the disease when ee doce into a suscepti edged that "scientists at the NIH used a virus the existence of HIV ble host or experimental animals, (d) from provided to them by Institut Pasteur to invent ag . where it must once again be recovered. the American test kit". This action and, even if it did, According to Duesberg: "From scarcely vindicated the Dingell report i every angle, HIV fails Koch's first pos- which had concluded that the settlement noe in me ay tulate.". The second postulate was ful- Is there proof tha HIV causes AIDS. "barely managed to paper-over the glar- filled but only by subjecting cells to ing, unresolved issues". Rather, it was drastic chemical manipulation that did the culmination of a cover-up where not approach conditions in vivo. "political and international reputational (Eleopulos has argued how basic retro- imperatives" at HHS "assumed pre- virology has long shown that oxidation eminence over scientific integrity", which prevails in HIV/AIDS patients while defending Gallo's claim became and their cell cultures creates internal "tantamount to defending the US [endogenous] retroviruses in cells Government itself".” whose DNA was not previously infect- According to Eleopulos and her col- ed from the outside.» *'\*75 One per- leagues, regardless of the material cent of human DNA, that is, an amount uncovered by the OSI, Gallo's data, 3,000 times larger than "HIV" DNA, is which still remains the best of its kind, made up of endogenous retroviral does not prove the existence of HIV and, even if it did, nowhere DNA.”) in the papers is there proof that HIV causes AIDS.'*”! The third postulate failed becau > as Duesberg points out: A the nd ATING kind, does not prove the existence of HIV and, even if it did, nowhere in the papers is there proof that - aIRA DNA.”) The third postulate failed because, as Duesberg points out: "During the past decade, more than four hundred thousand AIDS patients have been treated and investigated by a system of five million medical workers and AIDS researchers, none of whom [has] been vaccinated against HIV... But ten years later there is not even one case in the scientific literature of a health worker who ever contracted presumably infectious AIDS from a patient... AIDS is not infectious." Similarly, "nine years after the NIH first started infecting chimpanzees with HIV—over 150 so far at a cost of $40,000-50,000 apiece", all "are still healthy". In 1992, Duesberg shifted focus from HIV to argue that "AIDS [is] acquired by drug consumption and other noncontagious risk factors".> Apart from illicit and recreational drugs, Duesberg's list included the first "anti-retroviral" drug, zidovudine (AZT). In other words, a specific treatment for HIV infection was postulated to be a cause of AIDS. ENTER PETER DUESBERG In December 1987, three and a half years after the Washington press conference, Professor Peter Duesberg, virologist and molec- ular biologist at the University of California, Berkeley, published an invited paper entitled "Retroviruses as Pathogens: Expectations and Reality".* Duesberg was a much féted scientist, considered to be "the golden boy of virology" and "the greatest living retrovirologist". He had developed many of the laboratory techniques for studying retroviruses and their genetic make-up, had discovered cancer-causing genes, and was recipient of a $350,000 "outstanding investigator" award from the NIH. But Duesberg dropped a bombshell. He asserted that, apart from the relatively few cancer-causing retroviruses, the majority are virtually harmless. Duesberg argued that HIV is neutralised JUNE — JULY 1999 NEXUS - 31 HIV causes AIDS.