BOOK REVIEW (THE SUNDAY TIMES):
Einstein's special theory of relativity was fundamentally flawed, argued
Herbert Dingle, the science historian, some 30 years ago. Dingle set out
his views in both specialised journals and general magazines, where they
were repeatedly refuted. Yet in 1972 he published a book, Science at the
Crossroads, which represented the story of his campaign on that single
issue as a crisis for the whole of science. Among those he attacked for
ignoring or suppressing his criticisms were the Royal Society, Nature and
its editor John Maddox.
Now Neville Hodgkinson, too, has written a book that assails the same
three targets. It follows a campaign, waged principally in The Sunday Times
between 1991 and 1994, challenging the expert consensus that Aids is caused
by a virus (HIV), that it threatens heterosexuals as well as homosexuals
and that there is a serious epidemic in Africa. Hodgkinson was repeatedly
attacked by both scientists and journalists, not least over reporting that
could endanger lives by undermining health advice designed to reduce the
transmission of HIV.
Two years ago, Hodgkinson left the paper and went to a retreat centre
near Oxford where he ''soon re-established peace of mind''. Now he has
produced a portrayal of the HIV story as ''a classic example of the dangers
of narrow-focus science''. Hodgkinson hopes that ''when the illusions are
shed and a clearer picture of Aids finally emerges, the enormity of what
went wrong will be turned to good advantage by the world of science, as
a catalyst for a radical rethink about its own observational methods, assumptions,
and institutional checks and balances''.
To his credit, Hodgkinson has allocated space to his critics. One is
Angelo D'Agostino, a doctor in Nairobi who found fewer deaths than expected
among HIV-positive babies in his care. When his comments appeared in a
front-page story headed, ''Babies give lie to African Aids'', questioning
the entire HIV theory, D'Agostino was angry. His riposte, reproduced here
in full, clearly asserts that ''we believe there is a virus designated
HIV which has been isolated and is responsible for the fatal disease called
Aids''.
Hodgkinson, however, insists that D'Agostino changed his mind on the
issue. He then tells us that ''an unfortunate piece of editing'' was also
to blame, and attacks Nature for misreporting the Nairobi doctor's criticism
of his journalism as ''terrible''. The adjective D'Agostino actually used
was ''irresponsible''.
At the heart of the Aids story is the difficulty of proving that a microbe
is responsible for causing a particular disease. Around the turn of the
century, Elie Metchnikoff in France and Max von Pettenkofer in Germany,
sceptical about claims over the discovery of the bacterium responsible
for cholera, drank water containing the bacterium from the intestines of
people dying of the disease. Although they suffered transient diarrhoea,
neither scientist developed cholera. But this did not discredit the claims,
it simply showed that illness does not always follow when a disease-causing
microbe invades the body.
Aids is an unusual disease, the causation of which has been even more
difficult to establish with clarity. HIV, for example, is not very infectious.
This is why it has to be introduced into the bloodstream for the recipient
to become HIV-positive. Second, not all HIV-positive individuals develop
Aids. Hence the furore, much of it centred on the initially valuable critique
of the Hill theory by American virologist Peter Duesberg, whose views Hodgkinson
uses extensively.
Readers of this book will be able to discern the problems which various
features of the virus and the disease have posed for scientists seeking
to clarify their relationship. The analysis is, however, set in the context
of Hodgkinson's disbelief. And it is accompanied by much disingenuous argument.
Thus Nature is criticised for rejecting a paper arguing that drug abuse
and anal intercourse were the primary causes of Aids. The journal's request
for supporting evidence was ''an impossible demand'', we are told, because
all Aids research had been based on the erroneous HIV theory.
Nevertheless, some of the conventional literature is cited here for
readers to pursue. My own verdict is that HIV is indeed correctly described
as the cause of Aids. I do not believe that microbiologists, the World
Health Organisation, learned societies and the pharmaceutical industry
have all been misled for more than a decade through ignorance, gullibility
or conspiracy. Yet the peculiarity of this disease undoubtedly provides
opportunities for those who wish not only to practise the essential art
of criticism in science, but to deny the overwhelming weight of evidence
and to try to discredit its practical implications. *