Duseberg and Aids

Source: Science magazine, Vol 266 No. 9, P. 1642-1644

On 28 October, Robert Willner held a press conference at a North Carolina hotel, during which he jabbed his finger with a bloody needle he had just stuck into a man who said he was infected with HIV. Willner is a physician who recently had his medical license revoked in Florida for, among other infractions, claiming to have cured an AIDS patient with ozone infusions. He is also the author of a new book, Deadly Deception: The Proof that SEX and HIV Absolutely DO NOT CAUSE AIDS. He insists that jabbing himself with the bloody needle, which he describes as “an act of intelligence,” was not meant to sell books. “I’m interested in proving to people that there isn’t one shred of scientific evidence that HIV causes any disease,” Willner says.

Relying largely on the work of Peter Duesberg who claims that HIV is harmless and that AIDS is the result of the use of illegal drugs and drugs like AZT, a number of "HIV dissenters" have been clamoring for attention and trying to effect policy changes.

If they're right, people are getting sick and dying while medical science is offering treatments that either fail to address the disease, or actually make it worse. If they're wrong, people who take their advice are putting their lives, and the lives of their loved ones, at risk.

Tons of research have been done on HIV, including studies that seem to show it entering, hijacking, and killing critical immune cells. We should be able to reach a pretty definitive answer as to who's right. Both sides can't be right here, and whichever side is wrong is a wonderful example of how bad science kills people.

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...although the scientific community seems concerned about the effects of Duesberg’s message, with few exceptions—such as Nature editor John Maddox, who took on the London Sunday Times for its AIDS coverage—the scientific community has largely ignored Peter Duesberg. But because the Duesberg phenomenon has not gone away and may be growing, Science decided this was a good time to examine Duesberg’s main claims. In a 3-month investigation, Science interviewed more than 50 supporters and detractors, examined the AIDS literature, including Duesberg’s publications, and carried out correspondence and discussion with Duesberg. This investigation reveals that although the Berkeley virologist raises provocative questions, few researchers find his basic contention that HIV is not the cause of AIDS persuasive. Mainstream AIDS researchers argue that Duesberg’s arguments are constructed by selective reading of the scientific literature, dismissing evidence that contradicts his theses, requiring impossibly definitive proof, and dismissing outright studies marked by inconsequential weaknesses. The main conclusions of Science’s investigation are that:

• In hemophiliacs (the group Duesberg acknowledges provides the best test case for the HIV hypothesis) there is abundant evidence that HIV causes disease and death (see p. 1645).
• According to some AIDS researchers, HIV now fulfills the classic postulates of disease causation established by Robert Koch (see p. 1647).
• The AIDS epidemic in Thailand, which Duesberg has cited as confirmation of his theories, seems instead to confirm the role of HIV (see p. 1647).
• AZT and illicit drugs, which Duesberg argues can cause AIDS, don’t cause the immune deficiency characteristic of that disease (see p. 1648).

This raises the question: what motivates someone like Duesberg to pursue this theory in the face of such opposition? It seems obvious that he and many of his supporters are True Believers. He has lots to lose by bucking the consensus, and if he's right, he'll win fame, and maybe a bit of a fortune. And why does this alternate theory have any following at all?

The linked article quotes Steven Epstein, "a sociologist of science" at UCSD:

What seems to gives this controversy a lot of its motive force and its peculiar twists and turns is the way in which it’s enacted in very public arenas.

The press gave enthustiastic support to Duesberg's "attack on the AIDS establishment", and people who are at a high risk for AIDS have an emotional investment in any message that tells them they're really safe.

Part of the reason why Duesberg's views are hanging on is that AIDS hasn't been cured yet. In a culture where world-shaking problems are wrapped up in a maximum of eighty minutes (allowing time for commercial breaks), the notion that it might take decades to solve a hard problem doesn't compute. If we haven't come up with answers after a whole decade of work, it must mean the theory we're using is wrong.

Another [reason Duesberg’s message found receptive audiences outside the scientific community] is that his attacks on AIDS researchers as greedy self-interested mythmakers clicked into a growing disenchantment with the medical establishment.

In fact, you see this belief popping up throughout the "alternative medicine" community. One ad I heard recently essentially accused the pharmaceutical companies of making drugs that don't cure diseases. If they actually cured anything, people wouldn't need to buy drugs, and the companies wouldn't make any money. Similarly, one can argue that AIDS researchers would lose all that grant money if they actually cured the disease.

Harold Jaffe, head of the CDC’s Division of HIV/ AIDS, also senses disenchantment with the established order. "In the beginning, it may have represented honest scientific argument," says Jaffe. "Now it has assumed some kind of cult status. It’s attractive to people who believe the establishment is always wrong. This would be the biggest example of all."

It would be interesting to draw the parallels between this "controversy" and the "controversy" over evolution and ID/IOT. For the time being, I'm going to leave that as an exercise for the reader with no life.