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

4

DUESBERG FUNDING

AIDS hypothesis. The NIDA monograph shows that as late as 1988,
research into the nitrites-AIDS hypothesis was regarded by some
people in NIDA as a legitimate field of scientific inquiry.
According to Duesberg, his proposal was originally solicited by the
above monograph's co-editor (and author of one of the articles in the
monograph) Harry Haverkos, clinical director of AIDS research at
NIDA. Thus Haverkos found it appropriate to NIDA's mission, and
according to Duesberg, Haverkos considers unfortunate that no testing of
the nitrite-AIDS hypothesis is currently being performed, because he
and other toxicologists agree that much evidence indicates an
important role for nitrites in AIDS. The preface to the monograph by
Haverkos and his co-editor is compatible with this view.
The reviewers of Duesberg's proposal for NIDA wrote a specific
positive recognition in connection with the proposal. They asserted (p.
2 of the review): "The major strength of this proposal is that it
addresses the important public health problems of whether nitrite
abuse acts as a cofactor in AIDS pathogenesis and if nitrites can cause
Kaposi's sarcoma in the absence of retrovirus infection."
The NIDA reviewers also explicitly recognized the credentials of the
applicants. The proposal involved a collaboration between Duesberg,
whose expertise lies in chemistry and retroviruses, and Otto Raabe, an
inhalation toxicologist. The above evaluation of "the major strength"
of the proposal was followed by an evaluation of the investigators: "In
addition, the proposed investigative team has expertise in retrovirus
research, inhalation research, and immune cell culture and has the
potential to carry out collaborative research in this area." The NIDA
reviewers followed up with a similar statement on p. 4. However, after
recognizing explicitly "the potential to carry out collaborative
research in this area", the reviewers made the apparently
contradictory statement: "However, the lack of direct experience of
any of the researchers with nitrite studies and the lack of publications
dealing with nitrites does detract from the likelihood of success of the
proposed project." We shall deal with this reservation and others in
the next section.
Duesberg's application was supported, among others, by Science
editor Daniel E. Koshland, who wrote directly to the Study Section of
the National Institute on Drug Abuse on 26 August 1993. Koshland
stated: "As an observer, I have in the past been critical of Duesberg for