BOOK REVIEW (BOSTON HERALD):
Everybody knows AIDS is caused by HIV. That's what science has been
telling us for a dozen years.
So why does Peter Duesberg, a pioneering researcher on retroviruses
at the University of California at Berkeley, disagree so strongly?
In a controversial new book, "Inventing the AIDS Virus," (Regnery;
$ 29.95), Duesberg accuses the government of leading medical science down
the wrong path when it comes to AIDS.
He says medicine's failure to make progress against the disease proves
it. HIV, he says, has nothing to do with AIDS.
"Tragic deaths, time and money wasted, hysterical public debate
over a harmless virus - these have been the fruits borne of a scientific
establishment grown too large for genuine science," he writes.
The establishment says Duesberg doesn't know what he is talking about,
but several hundred scientists, including a handful of Nobel laureates,
aren't so sure. They back Duesberg and want the HIV-AIDS hypothesis re-examined.
Whether Duesberg's premise is right or wrong, the book is a fascinating
look at the politics that appear to have tainted the world of scientific
research.
While he concedes HIV can be passed during sex, intravenous drug use,
transfusions and from mother to baby, Duesberg contends it is a harmless
virus.
Rather, he says, the illnesses said to be the result of HIV's weakening
the immune system - Kaposi's sarcoma and more than 25 others - are caused
not by HIV, but, in nearly all cases, by rampant drug use.
Duesberg says that includes both recreational and prescription drugs,
including AZT, given to those with HIV or AIDS.
While many of Duesberg's ideas may seem unbelievable, the 722-page book
is complete with 200 pages of appendices and footnotes that make them at
least worthy of attention.
Kary Mullis, who won the 1993 Nobel Prize in chemistry for his invention
of the PCR (polymerase chain reaction) technology, thinks so.
In the book's forward, Mullis writes: "We have not been able to
discover any good reasons why most people on earth believe that AIDS is
caused by a virus called HIV. There is simply no scientific evidence. "
That lack of evidence is Duesberg's main problem with the HIV-AIDS theory.
While there are more than 100,000 scientific papers about AIDS, none proves
the connection.
Government scientists, who announced in 1984 that HIV causes AIDS, say
there is a strong correlation, in that nearly all who have come down with
AIDS-defining illnesses also test positive for antibodies to HIV. To officially
be diagnosed with AIDS, one must be HIV-positive and have one of the 30
illnesses.
But Duesberg notes there have been more than 4,600 documented cases
of patients with such illnesses, but no HIV.
He says the growth of AIDS parallels the drug epidemic and that 94 percent
of AIDS cases remain within the original risk groups - gay men, injecting
drug users and hemophiliacs.
He notes that each of these groups suffers its own unique AIDS diseases
and says no germ could differentiate among its victims in this way.
Of the 94 percent, about one-third are heroin addicts; about two-thirds
are male homosexuals, nearly all of whom had abused recreational drugs
or went on AZT when they learned they were HIV-positive, he says.
Duesberg says all of these drugs, including AZT, can damage the immune
system, allowing the development of the opportunistic infections that define
AIDS.
For example, tennis star Arthur Ashe, who contracted HIV from a transfusion,
and Kimberly Bergalis, who may have gotten it from her dentist, were both
AZT victims, Duesberg charges.