HIV and AIDS: Questions of Scientific and Journalistic Responsibility

HIV AND AIDS

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debate. In the mainstream of science or in a court of law it would be
thrown out as hearsay evidence. Instead of asking why the authors
of this very "important" study did not take the trouble to submit
their work through normal channels, but instead chose the less
rigorous process, the Chronicle chooses to treat the work as valid,
proven, information. The Chronicle owes all its readers, and
especially all HIV+ people a profound apology.
The authors of the "Commentary" in Nature ended their piece as
follows:
The energies of Duesberg and his followers could better be
applied to unraveling the enigmatic mechanism of the HIV
pathogenesis of AIDS. To this end, we have proposed an
alternative model14,15 based on HIV signalling at CD4 cells.
This model and others are now being evaluated, and we cordially
invite Duesberg to participate in this endeavour. [I omit the
footnotes 14 and 15.]
I find it presumptuous and objectionable for scientists to tell others
where energies "could better be applied". Scientific standards as I
have known them since I was a freshman at Caltech require that some
energies be applied to scrutinize data on which experiments are based,
in documenting the accuracy of the data, its significance, its
completeness, and to determine whether conclusions allegedly based on
these data are legitimate or not.
Especially in connection with the last paragraph telling scientists
where to apply their energies, Strohman also wrote an open letter to
Warren Winkelstein, one of the authors and a colleague at UC
Berkeley (The Daily Californian, 1 April 1993).
Extract from Strohman's open letter to Winkelstein. Dear
Warren, The HIV-AIDS hypothesis is a crucial problem that must
be either discarded or proven. We all agree to that. As stated in
your recent Nature article, scientists still do not know how HIV
works, and until that time we must all strive to do what we can to
find a solution. Your own work has striven to develop a strong
correlation between HIV and AIDS, but you agree that correlation
does not establish cause. More than 90% of a multibillion dollar
budget is dedicated to finding a molecular link between the virus