[Letter to Colleagues from Peter Duesberg]

4
Line 4 of Table 4 reads "Hemophilia/coagulation
disorder.......%."
Line 6 reads "Recipients of blood transfusion, etc.........2%.
1% + 2% = 3%, not 7%
The reason that this is important (if this is a correct
reading of ref 15) is that a casual reader might misread the
7% that belongs to line 3 as belonging to line 4 - thereby
leaving the author open to the possible criticism of "casual
reading."
p3 112 "(ii) Different risk groups develop unrelated AIDS
diseases, e.g. homosexuals are 20 times more likely to
develop Kaposi's sarcoma than (intravenous drug users or)
hemophiliacs (16)."
I recommend deleting the bracketed words. The reason
is that a close reading of ref 16 shows that the reported
transmission rates by "HIV transmission group and sex" are
indeed 21% for homosexual or bisexual males, and 1% for
haemophiliacs (the ratio-being 20), but for male IV drug
users, the percentage is 2% (also confirmed in their fig 2)
making the ratio 10 for this group. As it stands the word
"or" indicates that the ratio of 20 applies to either group
independently. Rather than be excessively tedious, the
citation could be made perfectly correct by dropping the
bracketed words.
p3 121 "Therefore, the role of non-infectious pathogens
in the generation of AIDS diseases are investigated."
I criticize this sentence on stylistic grounds: it is
passive voice and very weak. In its position, it could be
the most important sentence in the paper. It's the vamp,
the take-off point that separates the introduction from the
exposition. The author might consider the following:
"Since the epidemiology of AIDS is not compatible with
that of an infectious agent, I consider below the possible
role of non-infectious pathogens in the generation of AIDS
Idiseases, in particular the consumption of drugs."
p3 124 At this point the introduction changes scale and
the exposition begins. We hear the "vamp" in the sentence
above, the author should signal the contents of the text
below. I would suggest:

The Drug Epidemic
The appearance of AIDS in America..... etc