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CAN ALTERNATIVE HYPOTHESIS SURVIVE IN THIS ERA OF MEGAPROJECTS?
By Peter H. Duesberg
The Scientist 8 July 1991
Scientific megaprojects costing taxpayers billions of dollars are, in some
instances, the only means of reaching achievable goals. But if a megaproject
becomes an undertaking that prejudicially focuses on a flawed theory promoted
by a special-interest group, the project is counterproductive.
The multibillion-dollar wars on AIDS and cancer are a case in point.
AIDS research is now based on the hypothesis that the disease is caused
by human immunodeficiency virus (HIV); the war on cancer is based largely
on the theory that cancer is caused by either activation of cellular oncogenes
or the inactivation of antioncogenes. Both wars are waged by self-serving
groups on behalf of hypotheses that neatly fit their limited expertise.
Among the casualities are scientific minorities whose alternative hypotheses
threaten the professional and commercial interests of these groups.
When a new theory deviates from that held by the majority, it is labeled
"controversial" rather than "original" - and the "controversial"
label is tantamount to a death sentence, manifested by non-invitations
to meetings, non-citations in the literature, non-nominations for awards,
and non-funding of research grants. Science journals participate in this
process of excommunication, favoring papers that confirm the prevailing
dogma.
As a result, the underlying hypotheses of the AIDS and cancer programs
have been perpetuated long after they failed to produce clinical benefits.
Meanwhile, the rise and fall of three "dissenting" AIDS
investigators illustrate how valuable research has been squelched:
* Luc Montagnier became a global leader in AIDS research when HIV, which
he discovered, was accepted as the cause of AIDS by Robert Gallo in the
United States and Robin Weiss in the United Kingdom. But when he concluded
in 1990 that HIV would not be a sufficient cause of AIDS, he was thrown
out of his own temple. No paper on his current AIDS hypothesis has yet
appeared in the leading journals.
* Michigan State physiologist Robert Root-Bernstein, a MacArthur "genius"
award recipient, has concluded that AIDS diseases have occured in the past
and are the result of conventional clinical health risks, such as hemophilia,
and of newly developed behavioral risks, including drug consumption and
sexual promiscuity. On requesting support for his AIDS studies from NIH
and NSF, he was advised that he was unqualified and should not bother to
submit an application. Although his research has since been supported via
industry collaboration, he is without federal grant support since June1.
* After discovering retroviral oncogenes and the common genetic map
of all retroviruses in the 1970s and 1980s, I became the darling of the
emerging hypotheses that cellular oncogenes also cause cancer and that
human retroviruses without oncogenes also cause cancer and many other diseases.
In view of this, I received an NIH Outstanding Investigator grant in 1985.
But five years later, after criticizing the cellular oncogene and the virus-AIDS
hypotheses, another NIH-selected committee terminated my grant. Although
my grant did not propose even one experiment on HIV, the review panel included
four HIV experts. My appeal, which pointed out the professional and commercial
conflicts of interest of a number of the reviewers of my application, was
disregarded by NIH.
What can be done to save investigator-initiated research grants from
extinction by theoretically and commercially fixed megaprojects? Among
other things, scientists should have to reveal all income derived from
their expertise when publishing papers, when peer-reviewing grant applications
- even when giving informal talks. *
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