[Letter to Colleagues from Peter Duesberg]

NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
L9e ~Q.k Sz10412101 Constitution Avenue Washington, D.C 20418
PROCEEDINGS OFFICE LAWRENCS BOGORAD
TELEPHONE [phone] CHAIRMAN, EDITORIAL BOARD
TELEFAX [phone] HARVARD UNIVERSITY
16 Divinity Avenue
/;:)- Cambridge, MA 02138
FAX: [phone]
March 31, 1992
Dr. Harry Rubin
Department of Molecular and Cell Biology
102 Donner Laboratory
University of California, Berkeley
Berkeley, CA 94720
Dear Dr. Rubin:
I am responding to your last letter regarding the manuscript by Peter Duesberg
that you communicated to the PROCEEDINGS on his behalf.
I should like to point out that,.at the time I took over as Chairman of-the
Editorial Board, Igor Dawid, the previous Chairman, _hagd~rcently declined a
version of.the paper which you have communicated. Dr. Dawid' s decision was based r
on advice that he had received from three consultants. A somewhat modified
version was then contributed to the PROCEEDINGS by Dr. Duesberg in the spring of
1991. I consulted with four other knowledgeable scientists. They advised me to
decline the paper. I provided their comments to Dr. Duesberg to enable him to
understand the basis for the decision.
I understand that Dr. Duesberg incorporated some changes based on those
comments in the version which ygu communicated for him. As you know, after
receiving the paper from you I sought additional advice and it was on the basis
of this advice that the paper you communicated was declined. As Dr. Duesberg
points out ir his letter to you, I am indeed neither a retrovirologist nor an
AIDS expert and consequently I again consulted three people who are
knowledgeable. In requesting advice of this sort the consultants are being asked
what they would do with a paper if they were responsible for the journal,
consequently they are provided with all the information we have available. I can
assure you that all of this was handled confidentially and that the names of your
reviewers will not be provided to Dr. Duesberg or to anyone else. I am dismayed
that you should suggest that we would violate confidentiality and that sending.
this information to valued advisors on a confidential basis shows that I have a
bias against this paper and the ideas it advances.
Let me add that each decision by Dr. Dawid and by me as to whethir or not to
publish the paper was made after serious consideration and that the personal

attacks that you and Dr. Duesberg have made against me are totally out of place.
I am affronted by your view and that of Dr. Duesberg that because you disagree
with me on whether or not the pkper should be published in the PROCEEDINGS the