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Top Scientists Ask Medical Journal Science To Retract Original
AIDS Papers
Free
Republic
Friday, Dec 12, 2008
The international nonprofit scientific organization Rethinking
AIDS gave its full support today to 37 senior researchers, medical
doctors and legal professionals who are requesting that the medical
journal Science withdraw four seminal papers on HIV authored by
Dr. Robert Gallo—papers widely touted as proof that HIV
is the "probable cause of AIDS." An online posting of
the letter can be found here.
"With new findings that undermine the scientific integrity
and veracity of Gallo's four papers, the entire basis of the theory
that HIV causes AIDS may now be questioned," says Rethinking
AIDS president David Crowe.
The letter to the journal comes at a time when the microbiology
world is abuzz about Gallo's omission from the 2008 Nobel Prize
in medicine for the discovery of HIV, contrary to an international
agreement that the two teams should share credit. French scientists
Drs. Luc Montagnier and Francoise Barré-Sinoussi are instead
to be given the award, a decision that also implicitly questions
the scientific integrity of Gallo's claim of the discovery. Montagnier,
however, admitted on camera more than a decade ago that his experiments
did not purify any virus.
(ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW)
The four papers were originally published on May 4, 1984, a few
days after a press conference by Gallo announcing he had discovered
the "probable cause of AIDS." Now, a British investigative
journalist has shown that Gallo's claim was based on last-minute
alterations to documents that make false claims about the results
of his lab work and research experiments. The letter to Science
sent by the 37 experts on Monday, Dec. 1, 2008, includes a copy
of Gallo’s handwritten changes to the article, a letter
from an electron microscopy expert indicating that Gallo’s
samples did not contain any virus, and a letter from Gallo to
a researcher verifying that HIV could not be purified directly
from human materials.
The investigative conclusion prompting the letter to Science
was made by journalist Janine Roberts, author of Fear of the Invisible,
a book that examines the origin of several disease theories. "I
was shocked when I read the original draft of the key scientific
paper now widely cited as proving HIV causes AIDS," says
Roberts. "Gallo's handwritten last-minute changes had reversed
what the scientists in his lab had originally concluded. This
demonstrates a stunning disregard for the scientific process and
a very disturbing breach of public trust."
It is clear that the seminal research published on HIV contained
unjustified claims and alterations. In 1993, governmental investigators
determined Gallo had so poorly recorded his key and much-cited
experiment that it was impossible to repeat and verify it.
In the early 1990s, several highly critical reports on the research
underlying Gallo's papers were produced as a result of governmental
inquiries working under the supervision of scientists nominated
by the National Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Medicine.
The Office of Research Integrity (ORI) of the U.S. Department
of Health and Human Services concluded that the lead paper of
the four was "fraught with false and erroneous statements"
and that the “ORI believes that the careless and unacceptable
keeping of research records . . . reflects irresponsible laboratory
management that has permanently impaired the ability to retrace
the important steps taken." Further, a Congressional Subcommittee
on Oversight and Investigations produced a staff report on the
papers, containing scathing criticisms of their integrity.
Rethinking AIDS — an international group of more than 2,600
scientists, doctors, journalists, health advocates and others
— offers several eminent medical and scientific experts
to comment on this and other AIDS issues currently in the news:
Etienne de Harven, M.D.* Professor Emeritus, University of Toronto
Saint Cézaire, France Member and professor in cell biology,
Sloan Kettering Institute, New York, 1956-1981. Isolated and obtained
the first electron microscopic studies of the murine Friend leukemia
virus, and retroviral budding. Frequent critic of the "isolation"
of HIV, and past president of Rethinking AIDS. Dr. de Harven can
comment on the science of retrovirus isolation.
Janine Roberts Investigative Reporter Bristol, U.K. jan@fearoftheinvisible.com
Author, Fear of the Invisible, a recent book exposing the fraud
in the drafting of one of the original 1984 Science articles by
Robert Gallo. Web site: www.fearoftheinvisible.com
Media Contacts:
David Crowe* President, Rethinking AIDS Calgary, Alberta, Canada
(Mountain time zone) 1-403-289-6609 (office) 1-403-861-2225 (mobile)
david.crowe@aras.ab.ca
Elizabeth Ely Public Relations Chairperson Rethinking AIDS Brooklyn,
N.Y., U.S. (Eastern time zone) 1-718-704-9672 (mobile) publicrelations@rethinkingaids.com
*Rethinking AIDS board member.
Rethinking AIDS: The Group for the Scientific Reappraisal of
the HIV/AIDS Hypothesis ("RA" or "the Group")
was formed in 1991 to express the concerns of a growing number
of renowned scientists and medical doctors about HIV research
and the resulting human rights abuses. In 1995, by a letter published
in Science, the Group called for a thorough reappraisal of the
existing evidence for and against the HIV/AIDS hypothesis and
recommended that critical epidemiological studies be undertaken.
Among RA's founders and key members are University of Toronto
professor emeritus and former cancer researcher Dr. Etienne de
Harven; Harvard microbiologist Dr. Charles Thomas; 1993 Nobel
laureate for chemistry Dr. Kary Mullis; Nature/Biotechnology co-founder
Dr. Harvey Bialy; University of California at Berkeley molecular
biologist Dr. Peter Duesberg and the late Yale mathematician Dr.
Serge Lang, both members of the National Academy of Sciences;
physicist Eleni Papadopulos-Eleopulos of the Royal Perth Hospital
in Australia; and Glasgow University professor emeritus of public
health and World Health Organization consultant Dr. Gordon Stewart.
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