Inventing the AIDS Virus

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Inventing the AIDS Virus
Aidsbook.jpg
Cover
Author Peter H. Duesberg
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Subject AIDS
Publisher Regnery Publishing
Publication date
1996
Media typePrint (Hardcover and Paperback)
Pages722
ISBN 0-89526-470-6

Inventing the AIDS Virus is a 1996 book by molecular biologist Peter Duesberg, in which the author argues that HIV does not cause AIDS. Duesberg contends that HIV is a harmless passenger virus and that AIDS is caused by unrelated factors such as drug abuse, antiretroviral medication, chronic malnutrition, poor sanitation, and hemophilia. The unambiguous scientific consensus is that HIV causes AIDS and that Duesberg's claims are incorrect. Duesberg received a negative response from the scientific community for supporting AIDS denialism, misrepresenting and ignoring the scientific evidence that HIV causes AIDS, and for relying upon poor logic and manipulation. The book was also the subject of an authorship dispute with one of his graduate students.

Contents

Summary

Duesberg maintains that AIDS is not an infectious disease. He argues that the accepted theory that HIV causes AIDS fails Koch's postulates, that HIV is a passenger virus unrelated to AIDS, and that drugs such as AZT, ddI, and ddC induce AIDS-like symptoms. In his view, AIDS in developed countries is primarily caused by heavy recreational drug use, particularly among the primary risk-group of young male homosexuals, in combination with repeated bacterial, viral, and parasitic infections, whereas AIDS in developing countries is a manifestation of the long-established diseases of malnutrition and unsanitary living conditions. He criticizes the Centers for Disease Control, National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation, charging them with stifling creativity and concealing the true causes of AIDS. He describes them as being captured by "virus hunters" after the Cutter Incident of 1955, contending that the war on cancer has been from the start primarily a search for cancer viruses, and that funding for such searches had long since overtaken the development of chemotherapy for specific treatments of cancer and the study of chemicals as environmental causes of cancer, and that such misapplied efforts are the primary reasons for the failure of that war to produce economically effective results. He argues that later medical and scientific leaders succumbed to political pressure to quickly find a cure for AIDS, and that the profit potential from the marketing of the HIV test and antiretroviral drugs also played its part. He also criticizes the gay press of the 1980s and 1990s for legitimizing AZT and related drugs in advertisements paid for by their manufacturers. [1]

Publication history

Inventing the AIDS Virus was first published in 1996 by Regnery Publishing. [2] The book was initially co-written with Bryan Ellison, one of Duesberg's graduate students at the University of California, Berkeley. However, following a 1994 dispute over manuscript changes, Ellison published the manuscript himself, under the title Why We Will Never Win the War on AIDS, listing himself as the lead author. A dispute between Duesberg and Ellison resulted, with Ellison charging that Duesberg was "doing favors on behalf of several people in the government" who wished to suppress the book. [3]

Ellison also charged Duesberg with "cooperat[ing] with some of the very hostile factors to have me thrown out of school right before I could submit my thesis and get my Ph.D." Duesberg stated that "...since [Ellison] didn't talk to me anymore and didn't show up at the lab, I couldn't pay him anymore." [3] Duesberg and Regnery Publishing sued Ellison for breach of contract and copyright violations, winning a "six-figure verdict" and an injunction against Ellison's manuscript. In a publisher's preface to Inventing the AIDS Virus, Regnery described the dispute in terms of Ellison becoming "disenchanted with Duesberg's and his publisher's insistence on careful documentation." [4]

Reception

Media commentary

Inventing the AIDS Virus received a positive review from David Crowe in Natural Life , [5] mixed reviews from Tina Neville in Library Journal and Richard Horton in The New York Review of Books , [6] [7] and negative reviews from the sociologist Steven Epstein in The Washington Post , [8] the physician June E. Osborn in The New York Times Book Review , [9] and Phyllida Brown in New Scientist . [10] The book was also reviewed by Ray Olson in Booklist . [11]

Crowe acknowledged that the book was controversial, but credited Duesberg with showing that "medical science has often before looked for an infectious cause to diseases that were actually caused by dietary deficiencies or even induced by drugs." He wrote that the book was well researched and referenced, and "a complex, mystifying tale where pride, greed and obstinacy have allegedly derailed science." [5] Neville wrote that the book was weakened by Duesberg's "obvious (and perhaps justified) bitterness about scientific politics" but that Duesberg raises "many thought-provoking points that deserve consideration, particularly since scientific research is dependent on the critical examination of ideas." [6]

Horton credited Duesberg with drawing together his previous arguments about HIV into a coherent form, exposing misleading research and exaggerated predictions about the spread of AIDS, and showing how "dissidents who share his view have been snubbed by most other scientists" and how diseases have wrongly been blamed on infectious agents in the past. However, he wrote that Duesberg's arguments potentially undermined public health injunctions about the need for safe sex and calls to offer clean needles to injecting drug users, that his conclusion that only a correlation between HIV and AIDS has been established is mistaken, that his views on the role of drugs in AIDS and the AIDS epidemic in Africa were flawed, that studies on hemophiliacs conflicted with his views, and that his claim that HIV exists in a latent phase once integrated in a host cell is incorrect. He concluded that Duesberg failed to understand epidemiology, but added that, "as a retrovirologist, Duesberg deserves to be heard, and the ideological assassination that he has undergone will remain an embarrassing testament to the reactionary tendencies of modern science" and that the need for new ideas meant that Duesberg's research should be funded. [7] In a subsequent exchange of letters with Duesberg, Horton wrote that while the central role of HIV in the development of immunodeficiency was established by epidemiological and laboratory evidence, Duesberg was correct to predict that "the virus alone is not enough to explain all aspects of the immunodeficiency process." [12]

Epstein considered the book "readable and engaging ... though at times digressive and in need of a stronger editorial hand." He found Duesberg to be at his most appealing when criticizing the "mores and customs of the modern, commercialized world of Big Science", but wrote that Duesberg's "incautious hyperbole" detracted from the presentation. He criticized Duesberg for the way he responded to "new evidence and contrary arguments", giving as an example the way Duesberg repeated the claim that "HIV is found in far too few blood cells of AIDS patients to be a plausible destroyer of the immune system" despite more recent evidence showing "much higher blood levels of the virus". He faulted Duesberg for saying little about the fact that high percentages of HIV positive people experience a decline in T-cells and develop the opportunistic infections associated with immune dysfunction whereas HIV negative people "simply do not", and for misrepresenting the medical community as having moved toward his position on AZT. He granted that Duesberg raised "important questions about the scientific policing of deviant views", but criticized him for creating a "conspiracy theory" about virus hunters suppressing dissent. [8]

Osborn rejected Duesberg's views. She criticized him for maintaining that "there can be no such thing as an illness induced by a virus that has its overt onset years after initial infection" and "that no virus can cause more than a single disease, or any disease that appears after a neutralizing immune response develops", writing that "decades of progress in understanding infectious diseases" showed otherwise. She wrote that he was unaware that immune suppression caused by HIV takes a distinctive form, ignored epidemiological and clinical evidence that establish the role of HIV in AIDS, made proposals that would harm public health, and had misleading views on "microbial pathogenesis in general". [9]

Brown described the book, along with Neville Hodgkinson's AIDS: The Failure of Contemporary Science (1996), as "classic polemics by “AIDS dissidents”", writing that they repeat "now well-rehearsed arguments" that HIV is not the cause of AIDS. She concluded that while AIDS research has a "chequered history and "some of the questions raised by Duesberg and his followers were valid", Duesberg and Hodgkinson's arguments were "circular" and "ignore diverse and robust evidence linking HIV with AIDS". [10]

Reception in the gay community

Prior to its publication, Inventing the AIDS Virus was discussed in the New York Native , which reported on the dispute between Duesberg and Ellison. [13] After the book's publication, the New York Native presented comments about it from professors at the University of California at Berkeley, California. The biochemist J. B. Neilands supported Duesberg's views, while the epidemiologist Warren Winkelstein criticized them. [14] Inventing the AIDS Virus was reviewed in the New York Native by Tom Steele. [15] John Lauritsen credited Duesberg with cogently explaining the logic of Koch's first postulate and providing a clear explanation of how AZT functions as a "non-selective terminator of DNA synthesis". [16]

Scientific response

Duesberg's central premise, that HIV is not the cause of AIDS, has been rejected by the scientific community as a form of AIDS denialism. [17] [ failed verification ] [18] [19] Inventing the AIDS Virus received negative reviews from the virologist John P. Moore in Nature and Peter D. Friedmann in Perspectives in Biology and Medicine . [20] [21] It was also discussed by Malcolm Maclure in Epidemiology . [22]

Moore described the book as pervaded by conspiracy theories. He rejected Duesberg's claims that "AZT causes AIDS and that HIV is a mere passenger virus" and questioned Duesberg's "understanding of modern virology", writing that Duesberg mistakenly asserted that retroviruses do not kill cells, that it is difficult to extract HIV from an "antibody-positive person", and that "HIV is dormant in vivo". Moore also argued that Duesberg was mistaken to believe that there is a "paradox in the fact that HIV can be grown in permanently infected, immortal T-cell lines in vitro, yet is supposed to cause AIDS by killing T cells in vivo." Though he accepted that Duesberg "has an outstanding knowledge of the relatively simple avian leukaemia viruses with which he made his professional reputation", he criticized Duesberg for basing his views on HIV on his early research experience, and for failing to publish "any papers based on his own work with HIV at the laboratory bench." He concluded that, "Duesberg wraps together his twisted facts and illogical lines of argument to create a tangled web to trap the unwary, desperate or gullible" and that Duesberg's arguments against the idea that HIV causes AIDS were "sad" and "ultimately pathetic." [20]

Friedmann described the book as "tendentious" and argued that Duesberg failed to provide a balanced discussion of issues related to AIDS. He accused Duesberg of mentioning only facts that supported his views and ignoring contradictory evidence, failing to understand "even basic epidemiological concepts", and making mistaken claims about virology. [21]

Maclure considered Duesberg's approach pseduoscientific and wrote that his "alternative hypotheses are imprecise mixtures, with flexible caveats, buttressed with supporting evidence but sheltered from conflicting evidence". He accused Duesberg of "dogmatism" and wrote that he provided an "unquantitative critique of the biases of AIDS scientists", and "704 pages of seemingly scientific evidence in support of hypotheses that are widely regarded as wrong." He noted that Duesberg is "well informed, with a broad and deep technical knowledge of viruses and microbes and a storehouse of facts about how public agencies responded to the epidemic", and cited eminent scientists who "initially found his argument and evidence intriguing or alarming". Nevertheless, he accused Duesberg of logical fallacies, and criticized him for trying to show that HIV is not the cause of AIDS by "reasoning by analogy with other retroviruses that he claimed were known to be harmless." He argued that while Duesberg put forward a "changeable" mixture of ideas that could not be falsified, he also accused Duesberg of ignoring contrary evidence and accusing others of being influenced in their views by political, psychological, and other forces but not himself. [22]

Related Research Articles

The Duesberg hypothesis is the claim that AIDS is not caused by HIV, but, instead, that AIDS is caused by noninfectious factors such as recreational and pharmaceutical drug use and that HIV is merely a harmless passenger virus. The hypothesis was popularized by University of California, Berkeley professor Peter Duesberg, from whom the hypothesis gets its name. The scientific consensus is that the Duesberg hypothesis is incorrect and that HIV is the cause of AIDS. The most prominent supporters of the hypothesis are Duesberg himself, biochemist and vitamin proponent David Rasnick and journalist Celia Farber. The scientific community generally contends that Duesberg's arguments in favor of the hypothesis are the result of cherry-picking predominantly outdated scientific data and selectively ignoring evidence that demonstrates HIV's role in causing AIDS.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter Duesberg</span> German-American molecular biologist (born 1936)

Peter H. Duesberg is a German-American molecular biologist and a professor of molecular and cell biology at the University of California, Berkeley. He is known for his early research into the genetic aspects of cancer. He is a proponent of AIDS denialism, the claim that HIV does not cause AIDS.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Koch's postulates</span> Four criteria showing a causal relationship between a causative microbe and a disease

Koch's postulates are four criteria designed to establish a causal relationship between a microbe and a disease. The postulates were formulated by Robert Koch and Friedrich Loeffler in 1884, based on earlier concepts described by Jakob Henle, and the statements were refined and published by Koch in 1890. Koch applied the postulates to describe the etiology of cholera and tuberculosis, both of which are now ascribed to bacteria. The postulates have been controversially generalized to other diseases. More modern concepts in microbial pathogenesis cannot be examined using Koch's postulates, including viruses and asymptomatic carriers. They have largely been supplanted by other criteria such as the Bradford Hill criteria for infectious disease causality in modern public health and the Molecular Koch's postulates for microbial pathogenesis.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Zidovudine</span> Antiretroviral medication

Zidovudine (ZDV), also known as azidothymidine (AZT), is an antiretroviral medication used to prevent and treat HIV/AIDS. It is generally recommended for use in combination with other antiretrovirals. It may be used to prevent mother-to-child spread during birth or after a needlestick injury or other potential exposure. It is sold both by itself and together as lamivudine/zidovudine and abacavir/lamivudine/zidovudine. It can be used by mouth or by slow injection into a vein.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">HIV/AIDS denialism</span> False belief that HIV does not cause AIDS

HIV/AIDS denialism is the belief, despite conclusive evidence to the contrary, that the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) does not cause acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS). Some of its proponents reject the existence of HIV, while others accept that HIV exists but argue that it is a harmless passenger virus and not the cause of AIDS. Insofar as they acknowledge AIDS as a real disease, they attribute it to some combination of sexual behavior, recreational drugs, malnutrition, poor sanitation, haemophilia, or the effects of the medications used to treat HIV infection (antiretrovirals).

The spread of HIV/AIDS has affected millions of people worldwide; AIDS is considered a pandemic. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that in 2016 there were 36.7 million people worldwide living with HIV/AIDS, with 1.8 million new HIV infections per year and 1 million deaths due to AIDS. Misconceptions about HIV and AIDS arise from several different sources, from simple ignorance and misunderstandings about scientific knowledge regarding HIV infections and the cause of AIDS to misinformation propagated by individuals and groups with ideological stances that deny a causative relationship between HIV infection and the development of AIDS. Below is a list and explanations of some common misconceptions and their rebuttals.

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases is one of the 27 institutes and centers that make up the National Institutes of Health (NIH), an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). NIAID's mission is to conduct basic and applied research to better understand, treat, and prevent infectious, immunologic, and allergic diseases.

This is a timeline of HIV/AIDS, including cases before 1980.

A passenger virus is a virus that is frequently found in samples from diseased tissue, such as tumours, but is not a contributing factor in causing the disease.

Harvey Bialy was an American molecular biologist and AIDS denialist. He was one of the signatories to a letter to the editor by the "Group for the Scientific Reappraisal of the HIV-AIDS Hypothesis", which denied that HIV was the cause of AIDS, and was a member of the controversial and heavily criticized South African Presidential AIDS Advisory Panel convened by Thabo Mbeki in 2000. Bialy authored a scientific biography of Peter Duesberg, a fellow AIDS denialist, in 2004.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Indinavir</span> Chemical compound

Indinavir is a protease inhibitor used as a component of highly active antiretroviral therapy to treat HIV/AIDS. It is soluble white powder administered orally in combination with other antiviral drugs. The drug prevents protease from functioning normally. Consequently, HIV viruses cannot reproduce, causing a decrease in the viral load. Commercially sold indinavir is indinavir anhydrous, which is indinavir with an additional amine in the hydroxyethylene backbone. This enhances its solubility and oral bioavailability, making it easier for users to intake. It was synthetically produced for the purpose of inhibiting the protease in the HIV virus.

Celia Ingrid Farber is an American print journalist and author who has covered a range of topics for magazines including Spin, Rolling Stone, Esquire, Harper's, Interview, Salon, Gear, New York Press, Media Post, The New York Post and Sunday Herald, and is best known for her controversial beliefs about HIV and AIDS, and a 1998 report on O. J. Simpson's post-trial life. Farber is the daughter of radio talk pioneer Barry Farber and a graduate of New York University.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joseph Sonnabend</span> South African physician (1933–2021)

Joseph Adolph Sonnabend was a South African physician, scientist and HIV/AIDS researcher, notable for pioneering community-based research, the propagation of safe sex to prevent infection, and an early multifactorial model of AIDS.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">HIV/AIDS in Russia</span>

The situation with the spread of HIV/AIDS in Russia is described by some researchers as an epidemic. The first cases of human immunodeficiency virus infection were recorded in the USSR in 1985-1987. Patient zero is officially considered to be a military interpreter who worked in Tanzania in the early 1980s and was infected by a local man during sexual contact. After 1988—1989 Elista HIV outbreak, the disease became known to the general public and the first AIDS centers were established. In 1995-1996, the virus spread among injecting drug users (IDUs) and soon expanded throughout the country. By 2006, HIV had spread beyond the vulnerable IDU group, endangering their heterosexual partners and potentially the entire population.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fairfield Infectious Diseases Hospital</span> Hospital in Fairfield, Australia

<i>The Other Side of AIDS</i> 2004 American film

The Other Side of AIDS is a 2004 pseudoscience film by Robin Scovill. Through interviews with prominent AIDS denialists and HIV-positive people who have refused anti-HIV medication, the film makes the claim that HIV is not the cause of AIDS and that HIV treatments are harmful, conclusions which are rejected by medical and scientific consensus. The film was reviewed in Variety and The Hollywood Reporter in 2004, and received additional attention in 2005, when Scovill's three-year-old daughter died of untreated AIDS.

The Perth Group is a group of HIV/AIDS denialists based in Perth, Western Australia who claim, in opposition to the scientific consensus, that the existence of HIV is not proven, and that AIDS and all the "HIV" phenomena are caused by changes in cellular redox due to the oxidative nature of substances and exposures common to all the AIDS risk groups, and are caused by the cell conditions used in the "culture" and "isolation" of "HIV".

<i>How to Survive a Plague</i> 2012 American documentary film by David France

How to Survive a Plague is a 2012 American documentary film about the early years of the AIDS epidemic, and the efforts of activist groups ACT UP and TAG. It was directed by David France, a journalist who covered AIDS from its beginnings. France's first film, it was dedicated to his partner Doug Gould who died of AIDS-related pneumonia in 1992. The documentary was produced using more than 700 hours of archived footage which included news coverage, interviews as well as film of demonstrations, meetings and conferences taken by ACT UP members themselves. France says they knew what they were doing was historic, and that many of them would die. The film opened in selected theatres across the United States on September 21, 2012, also includes footage of a demonstration during mass at St. Patrick's Cathedral in 1989.

In South Africa, HIV/AIDS denialism had a significant impact on public health policy from 1999 to 2008, during the presidency of Thabo Mbeki. Mbeki criticized the scientific consensus that HIV is the cause of AIDS beginning shortly after his election to the presidency. In 2000, he organized a Presidential Advisory Panel regarding HIV/AIDS including several scientists who denied that HIV caused AIDS.

Big Pharma conspiracy theories are conspiracy theories which claim that pharmaceutical companies, especially large corporations, act in sinister and secretive ways, such as concealing effective treatments, or even intentionally causing and worsening a wide range of diseases, in pursuit of profitability, or for other nefarious reasons. Some theories have included the claim that natural alternative remedies to health problems are being suppressed, the claim that drugs for the treatment of HIV/AIDS are ineffective and harmful, the claim that a cure for all cancers has been discovered but hidden from the public, claims that COVID-19 vaccines are ineffective, and that alternative cures are available for COVID-19. In most cases the conspiracy theorists have blamed pharmaceutical companies' search for profits. A range of authors have shown these claims to be false, though some of these authors nevertheless maintain that other criticisms of the pharmaceutical industry are legitimate.

References

  1. ↑ Duesberg 1996, pp. 1–722.
  2. ↑ Duesberg 1996, p. iv.
  3. 1 2 McGarrahan 1995.
  4. ↑ Duesberg 1996, pp. vii–viii.
  5. 1 2 Crowe 1997, p. 53.
  6. 1 2 Neville 1996, p. 96.
  7. 1 2 Horton 1996, pp. 14–20.
  8. 1 2 Epstein 1996, p. C2.
  9. 1 2 Osborn 1996, pp. 8–9.
  10. 1 2 Brown 1996, p. 50.
  11. ↑ Olson 1995, p. 514.
  12. ↑ Duesberg & Horton 1996, p. 51.
  13. ↑ New York Native 1995, p. 28.
  14. ↑ New York Native 1996, p. 42.
  15. ↑ Steele 1996, p. 70.
  16. ↑ Lauritsen 1997, pp. 150, 152.
  17. ↑ National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases 2005.
  18. ↑ O'Brien, Stephen J; Goedert, James J (1996-10-01). "HIV causes AIDS: Koch's postulates fulfilled". Current Opinion in Immunology. 8 (5): 613–618. doi:10.1016/S0952-7915(96)80075-6. ISSN   0952-7915. PMID   8902385.
  19. ↑ Blattner, W.; Gallo, R. C.; Temin, H. M. (1988-07-29). "HIV Causes AIDS". Science. 241 (4865): 515–516. Bibcode:1988Sci...241..515B. doi:10.1126/science.3399881. ISSN   0036-8075. PMID   3399881.
  20. 1 2 Moore 1996, pp. 293–294.
  21. 1 2 Friedmann 1997, pp. 467–469.
  22. 1 2 Maclure 1998, pp. 467–473.

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