To Fund or Not to Fund, that is the Question: Proposed Experiments on the Drug-AIDS Hypothesis

DUESBERG FUNDING

scientists, dating back to around 1980.1
Duesberg's grant application was made to the proper agency, the
National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), whose responsibility it is to
fund such experiments as he proposed, and which has funded such
experiments in the past. In 1988 NIDA even published a monograph
entitled "Health hazards of nitrite inhalants" [NIDA 19881. This
monograph dealt with many aspects of toxicity of nitrite inhalants.2
Among other things it described the strong epidemiological and clinical
evidence, as well as experimental evidence resulting from experiments
on mice. The evidence from these experiments supported the nitrite1Some experiments were made at that time, and were mentioned in a report
on AIDS by the Center for Disease Control [CDC 1983] (p. 44). The CDC
concluded that "although the data obtained in this study indicate that IBN was
not immunotoxic for mice, these drugs do have toxic effects...Reported side
effects include: dizziness, headache, tachycardia, syncope, hypotension, and
increased intraocular pressure;...Nitrite inhalants do not appear to be
implicated as a cause of the immunosuppression seen in AIDS, but their role
as a cofactor in some of the illnesses found in this syndrome has not been ruled
out." One effect of the CDC taking this position was to influence others not to
do further experiments in the direction of the nitrites-AIDS hypothesis.
The book AIDS - The Making of a Chronic Disease [F&F 1990] contains an
article by Gerald Oppenheimer, giving a history of the early days when the
nitrite-AIDS hypothesis was considered seriously, and studies were made on
groups of homosexual or bisexual men, who were found to use drugs, especially
nitrites, extensively. See especially pp. 57-60. Later in his article,
Oppenheimer considers the history of the HIV-AIDS hypothesis, and
concludes (p. 75): "The history of the epidemic demonstrates that the
construction of HIV infection was and is a dynamic process in which different
scientific specialities negotiated definitions that, to a degree, reflected their
relative power."
2Titles of the sections: Nitrite inhalants: Historical Perspective; The Fate and
Toxicity of Butyl Nitrites; The Acute Toxicity of Nitrite Inhalants; Indications
From Animal and Chemical Experiments of a Carcinogenic Role for Isobutyl
Nitrite; Toxicity of Inhaled Isobutyl Nitrite in Balb/c Mice: Systemic and
Immunotoxic Studies; Altered T-Cell Helper/Suppressor Ratio in Mice
Chronically Exposed to Amyl Nitrite; Effects of Nitrites on the Immune System
of Humans; Deliberate Inhalation of Isobutyl Nitrite During Adolescence: A
Descriptive Study; Nitrite Inhalants: Contemporary Patterns of Abuse;
Epidemiologic Studies - Kaposi's Sarcoma Vs. Opportunistic Infections Among
Homosexual Men With AIDS.