[Letter to Colleagues from Peter Duesberg]

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY

7 BERKELEY * DAVIS * IRVINE * LOS ANCELES * RIVERSIDE * SAN DIECO * SAN FRANCISCO SANTA BARBARA * SANTA CRUZ
Via Fed Express May 2, 1991
Department of Molecular and Cell Biology
do StanleylDonner Administrative Services Unit
229 Stanley Hall
Berkeley, CA 94720
FAX: [phone]
Dr. Lawrence Bogorad, Chairman
Editorial Board
Proceedings Office
National Academy of Sciences
2139 Wisconsin Ave., N. W. Room 201
Washington, D. C. 20007
Dear Dr. Bogorad,
I am writing to ascertain whether my manuscript "The role of drugs in
the origin of AIDS" got lost in the stacks of paperwork that must have
welcomed you to your new position as editor of the Proceedings. My
manuscript was submitted to the PNAS on March 21, about six weeks ago,
and was received there on March 22. However, I have not as yet received any
kind of editorial acknowledgement on its status.
I would like to point out to you that the message of this manuscript
may provide enormous and immediate benefits to AIDS prevention, by
educating drug users about the AIDS risk of psychoactive and other drugs. In
addition, the thesis that drugs play a role in the origin of AIDS may help to
develop effective AIDS therapies. I would hope to impress on you that the
manuscript should be regarded as a sincere and constructive effort to solve
the AIDS crisis - rather than only a critique of the virus-AIDS hypothesis
which has not as yet produced any public health benefits.
Finally, I should like to point out that the manuscript had been
carefully scrutinized before it was submitted to the Proceedings in its present
form. A previous, less complete draft had been reviewed at my own
initiative by Drs. Walter Gilbert, Howard Green, R. Root-Bernstein, and H.
Rubin. These reviews far exceeded the requirements set for submission of
papers by members of the Academy. In addition, an earlier draft of it had
been subjected to anonymous reviews by the Proceedings. The comments
and suggestions of all those reviews have been addressed and answered in the
new paper that was submitted on March 22.