HIV and AIDS: Questions of Scientific and Journalistic Responsibility

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HIV AND AIDS

Vatican's." Gerhard concluded her piece with the comment: "The HIV
critics didn't have answers; they just had questions. But from the looks
of this public gathering, and the questions that cropped up from its
audience of laypeople and pros, their position of oppositional prying
has been more welcome outside science than within it." Gerhard's
article is one among other pieces of evidence that the parallel local
press (derived from the counter-press of the sixties) is beginning to
warm up to the issue of HIV and the credibility of the scientific
establishment with respect to HIV.
Neither the NIDA meeting nor the AAAS meeting were covered by
Science and The New York Times. If this surprises you, come to the
front of the class because you haven't been paying attention.
The AAAS symposium represented many views about the
relationship of HIV and AIDS, including those who question the
causality such as Duesberg and Kary Mullis; the UC Berkeley
Molecular Biologist Harry Rubin, who is an agnostic as to the role of
HIV in causing AIDS; and supporters of the establishment line, such as
Jerold Lowenstein of the UC Medical Center in San Francisco.
An extensive account of the AAAS symposium is available on the
electronic nets. The printout I was given has about 30 pages, and
includes an article by John Lauritsen: "Truth is Bustin' Out All Over:
HIV Symposium at AAAS Conference." This account is available from
[email protected]. It includes a more detailed account of the pressures
put on the AAAS to cancel the symposium or to change its thrust, and it
includes extensive direct quotes from the participants. Here is a sample
quote from Kary Mullis, about the (non)existence of a scientific
reference giving evidence whether HIV is the probable cause of AIDS:
I assumed there must be such a reference, and that there might
be a controversy over who got credit for it, because I was under the
impression that Gallo and Montagnier might have been fighting
over who had first shown that HIV was the cause of AIDS...I
went back over their early papers, and found that neither of
them had shown that HIV was the probable cause of AIDS.
I was running into a lot of people who were doing AIDS
research, and every time somebody would give a talk, I'd go up to
them afterwards and ask politely: Who I should quote -- was
there a paper or a review that I should quote for that statement?
It seemed like a perfectly reasonable question to ask. Some