Inventing the AIDS Virus By Peter H. Duesberg (review)

text. On the other hand, the science cited does not bore the person educated in science. I learned much by reading this book. I will undoubtedly pick it up and reread it on different occasions. It is one of the most informative books I have ever read, and I recommend that every scientist as well as non-scientist acquire it. Hopefully our policy makers too will at least peruse it. A. B. Çambel George Washington University Washington, DC 20052 Inventing the AIDS Virus. By Peter H. Duesberg. Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing , 1996, Pp. 722. $29.95. Inventing theAIDS Virus is, a lengthy reiteration ofPeter Duesberg's well-publicized 10-year contention that HIV cannot possibly cause AIDS. Although Professor Duesberg views himself as a modern-day Galileo, excommunicated from the church of big science for his unorthodoxviews, his use ofconspiracy-laden innuendo, selective truths, and high-handed language certainly have not helped his status. Readers hoping for a balanced treatment of the issues will be disappointed. Dr. Duesberg contends that there is a cabal of "microbe-hunters" who control research funding and are vested in the theory that HIV causes AIDS. This medical establishment inexorably favors microbes whenever searching for causes of disease, and it suppresses alternative views "for too many noninfectious diseases would put microbe hunters out of business" (p.58). As proof of this self-interested conspiracy, Professor Duesberg contends that "the medical establishment has never erred on the side ofnoninfectious causation ofdisease" (p.58). The story ofHelicobacterpylori, which the medical establishment initially dismissed as an infectious cause of peptic ulcer disease, is a striking demonsttation that Dr. Duesberg's thinking only registers information supporting his hypotheses while ignoring contradictory evidence. Furthermore , Professor Duesberg does not discuss the self-interest of the vast majority of epidemiologists and toxicologists who would benefit were he correct about the causes of AIDS, but who also repudiate his alternative hypotheses. In this tendentious book, we are continually given only half the story. A molecular and cell biologist, Professor Duesberg clearly has litde understanding of even basic epidemiological concepts: All circumstantial evidence aside, the ultimate epidemiological test for HIV would be a casecontrolled [sic] comparison. In such a study, a large number of infected people would be monitored over time and compared with a large number of uninfected people. They would be matched for age, sex, income, and all other health risks such as drug use. ... If HIV were truly harmful, the infected group would develop AIDS and the uninfected would not. (p.216) What he describes is a prospective cohort design, not a case-control study, and matching is but one technique available to control for confounding. In fact, proPerspeclives in Biology and Medicine, 40, 3 ¦ Spring 1997 467 spective controlled studies, such as the San Francisco Men's Health Study, have been performed with multivariable techniques used to control for confounding variables such as drug use. His blithe dismissal of epidemiological evidence as "circumstantial " raises serious questions about the rigor of Dr. Duesberg's thinking. Indeed, not one of his profiled fellow dissenters (Chapter 7) is a trained epidemiologist . Professor Duesberg also insists that a virus cannot behave in the manner proposed by the predominance ofvirologists who accept the HIV theory ofAIDS. Viral inoculation and the onset ofillness cannot be separated by a latency period ofyears, he argues, and the presence ofHIV antibodies negates the possibility ofHIV causing disease. Regarding the former point, recent studies of the dynamics of HIV infection have taught us that much of what was considered to be a latency period is actually a period of great immunological activity. Although I am not a virologist, my understanding is that we do not know everything there is to be known about the immune response to viral infection, and that it may be more complex than Professor Duesberg describes. The orthodoxy with which Dr. Duesberg proclaims his opinions contrasts starkly with the heterodoxy he reserves for all other widely accepted views. Dr. Duesberg further contends that AIDS is not a single ailment, but several different diseases with different manifestations and etiologies. Dr. Duesberg seems to overlook the difference between immunosuppression and its manifesting diseases, some ofwhich have been classified...