HIV and AIDS: Questions of Scientific and Journalistic Responsibility

HIV AND AIDS

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Winkelstein, of the University of California at Berkeley, have written
to the AAAS journal Science questioning the AAAS sponsorship because
'some of the views to be expressed...have potentially serious adverse
public health consequences."' (For more on Ascher and Winkelstein, see
the next section.)
Subsequently, the AAAS meeting itself was not covered by Nature. A
fortiori, Nature did not report the reasons some scientists gave for
questioning that "HIV is the cause of AIDS", so Nature's readers are
not given evidence on which to base an informed or independent
judgment. Thus does Nature manipulate its readers.
Criticisms similar to those in Nature were made in the San Francisco
Chronicle under the tendentious headline "AIDS Rebels Try to Steal
Show: But Scientists Stymie Plan By Mavericks Who Deny HIV Link"
by David Perlman, 26 May 1994. No one was trying to "steal" anything.
Furthermore, calling "rebels" scientists who raise questions and have
gone through the proper AAAS channels to organize their meeting,
documents how the S.F. Chronicle manipulates its readers. Perlman's
article started: "Blindsided by a small band of AIDS gadflies,
America's largest scientific organization moved yesterday to avoid
sponsoring a one-sided spate of oratory over the causes of the global
AIDS epidemic." Among other things, Perlman reproduced the criticism
from Ascher and Winkelstein.
The AAAS symposium was subsequently covered by Perlman in the
San Francisco Chronicle.10 It also received a 500 word notice
"Uncertain for sure" by Susan Gerhard in the San Francisco Bay
Guardian (6 July 1994, p. 32), which I found perceptive and sharp. She
had been alerted to the meeting via Celia Farber's interview with
Kary Mullis in SPIN. Gerhard wrote: "While it may be OK for me and
most of my friends to believe in science -- we have to, as we're not
equipped with our own labs and sets of petri dishes -- we expect more
than blind devotion from the men and women of Reason. It was truly
frightening to watch how, with a few pointed questions, they [the HIV
critics, Duesberg and Mullis in particular] made that religion -- my
religion for many of the last 10 years -- look as arcane as the
10"AIDS Rebels Try to Steal Show", 26 May p. A14; "AIDS Symposium Changes
Line Up", 7 June p. A15; "S.F. Science Conference to Debate Cause of AIDS",
18 June p. A6; "Controversial AIDS Theories Debated at Forum in S.F.", 22 June
p. A7.