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{{main|Duesberg hypothesis}} {{main|Duesberg hypothesis}}


In his 1996 book ] and in numerous journal articles and letters to the editor, Duesberg asserts that HIV is harmless and that recreational and pharmaceutical drug use, especially of ] (AZT, a drug used in the treatment of AIDS) are the causes of AIDS outside Africa (the so-called Duesberg hypothesis). He considers AIDS diseases as markers for drug use, e.g. use of ] (]) among some ]s, asserting a correlation between AIDS and recreational drug use.<ref>Duesberg, 1997, pp. .</ref> This correlation hypothesis is contradicted by evidence showing that only HIV infection, not homosexuality or recreational/pharmaceutical drug use, predicts who will develop AIDS.<ref name="niaid"/><ref name="lancet"/><ref>{{cite journal | author = Vermund S, Hoover D, Chen K | title = CD4+ counts in seronegative homosexual men. The Multicenter AIDS Cohort Study | journal = N Engl J Med | volume = 328 | issue = 6 | pages = 442 | year = 1993 | pmid = 8093639}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal | author = Des Jarlais D, Friedman S, Marmor M, Mildvan D, Yancovitz S, Sotheran J, Wenston J, Beatrice S | title = CD4 lymphocytopenia among injecting drug users in New York City | journal = J Acquir Immune Defic Syndr | volume = 6 | issue = 7 | pages = 820–2 | year = 1993 | pmid = 8099613}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |author=Chao C, Jacobson LP, Tashkin D, ''et al.'' |title=Recreational drug use and T lymphocyte subpopulations in HIV-uninfected and HIV-infected men |journal=Drug Alcohol Depend |volume= 94|issue= 1-3|pages= 165|year=2008 |pmid=18180115 |doi=10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2007.11.010 |pmc=2691391}}</ref> In his 1996 book ] and in numerous journal articles and letters to the editor, Duesberg asserts that HIV is harmless and that recreational and pharmaceutical drug use, especially of ] (AZT, a drug used in the treatment of AIDS) are the causes of AIDS outside Africa (the so-called Duesberg hypothesis). He considers AIDS diseases as markers for drug use, e.g. use of ] (]) among some ]s, asserting a correlation between AIDS and recreational drug use.<ref>Duesberg, 1997, pp. .</ref> This correlation hypothesis has been disproven by evidence showing that only HIV infection, not homosexuality or recreational/pharmaceutical drug use, predicts who will develop AIDS.<ref name="niaid"/><ref name="lancet"/><ref>{{cite journal | author = Vermund S, Hoover D, Chen K | title = CD4+ counts in seronegative homosexual men. The Multicenter AIDS Cohort Study | journal = N Engl J Med | volume = 328 | issue = 6 | pages = 442 | year = 1993 | pmid = 8093639}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal | author = Des Jarlais D, Friedman S, Marmor M, Mildvan D, Yancovitz S, Sotheran J, Wenston J, Beatrice S | title = CD4 lymphocytopenia among injecting drug users in New York City | journal = J Acquir Immune Defic Syndr | volume = 6 | issue = 7 | pages = 820–2 | year = 1993 | pmid = 8099613}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |author=Chao C, Jacobson LP, Tashkin D, ''et al.'' |title=Recreational drug use and T lymphocyte subpopulations in HIV-uninfected and HIV-infected men |journal=Drug Alcohol Depend |volume= 94|issue= 1-3|pages= 165|year=2008 |pmid=18180115 |doi=10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2007.11.010 |pmc=2691391}}</ref>


Duesberg asserts that ] is misdiagnosed and the epidemic a "myth," claiming incorrectly<ref> AIDS diagnosis information from the ] Accessed 01 May 2008.</ref> that the diagnostic criteria for AIDS are different in Africa than elsewhere<ref>, accessed 11 October 2006. Duesberg asserts that ] is misdiagnosed and the epidemic a "myth," claiming incorrectly<ref> AIDS diagnosis information from the ] Accessed 01 May 2008.</ref> that the diagnostic criteria for AIDS are different in Africa than elsewhere<ref>, accessed 11 October 2006.

Revision as of 02:05, 28 April 2010

File:Peter Duesberg.jpg
Peter Duesberg

Peter H. Duesberg (born December 2, 1936 in Germany) is a professor of molecular and cell biology at the University of California, Berkeley. He is best known as a central figure of AIDS denialism, believing that HIV is harmless and not the cause of AIDS.

Duesberg, along with Peter Vogt, was one of the first scientists to discover a cancer gene (oncogene), which became known as src. In 1970, Duesberg and Vogt reported that a cancer-causing virus of birds had extra genetic material compared with non-cancer-causing viruses. At the age of 36, Duesberg achieved tenure at the University of California, Berkeley, and at 49 he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences. He received an Outstanding Investigator Grant (OIG) from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in 1986, and from 1986 to 1987 was a Fogarty Scholar-in-Residence at the NIH laboratories in Bethesda, Maryland.

Although long considered by his scientific colleagues to be a "contrarian," Duesberg began to gain public notoriety with a March 1987 article in Cancer Research entitled "Retroviruses as Carcinogens and Pathogens: Expectations and Reality". In this and subsequent writings, Duesberg proposed his hypothesis that AIDS is caused by long-term consumption of recreational drugs and/or antiretroviral drugs, and that HIV was a harmless passenger virus. Duesberg's HIV/AIDS claims are rejected as disproven and incorrect by the scientific community.

Duesberg's views on HIV/AIDS are cited as major influences on South African policy under the administration of Thabo Mbeki. Duesberg also served on an advisory panel to Mbeki, convened in 2000. The consequent failure of South Africa to provide antiretroviral drugs in a timely manner is thought to be responsible for hundreds of thousands of preventable AIDS deaths and HIV infections. Duesberg disputed these findings in an article in the journal Medical Hypotheses, but the journal's publisher, Elsevier, later retracted the article over accuracy and ethics concerns as well as its rejection during peer review. The flap prompted several complaints to the University of California, Berkeley, which began a misconduct investigation of Duesberg in 2009.

Work

On AIDS

Main article: Duesberg hypothesis

In his 1996 book Inventing the AIDS Virus and in numerous journal articles and letters to the editor, Duesberg asserts that HIV is harmless and that recreational and pharmaceutical drug use, especially of zidovudine (AZT, a drug used in the treatment of AIDS) are the causes of AIDS outside Africa (the so-called Duesberg hypothesis). He considers AIDS diseases as markers for drug use, e.g. use of poppers (alkyl nitrite) among some homosexuals, asserting a correlation between AIDS and recreational drug use. This correlation hypothesis has been disproven by evidence showing that only HIV infection, not homosexuality or recreational/pharmaceutical drug use, predicts who will develop AIDS.

Duesberg asserts that AIDS in Africa is misdiagnosed and the epidemic a "myth," claiming incorrectly that the diagnostic criteria for AIDS are different in Africa than elsewhere and that the breakdown of the immune system in African AIDS patients can be explained exclusively by factors such as malnutrition, tainted drinking water, and various infections that he presumes are common to AIDS patients in Africa. Duesberg also argues that retroviruses like HIV must be harmless to survive, and that the normal mode of retroviral propagation is mother-to-child transmission by infection in utero.

Since Duesberg published his first paper on the subject in 1987, scientists have examined and criticized the accuracy of his hypotheses on AIDS causation. A number of scientific criticisms of Duesberg's hypothesis were summarised in a review article in the journal Science in 1994, which presented the results of a 3-month scientific investigation into some of Duesberg's claims.

In the Science article, science writer Jon Cohen interviewed both HIV researchers and AIDS denialists (including Duesberg himself) and examined the AIDS literature in addition to review articles written by Duesberg. The article stated:

...although the Berkeley virologist raises provocative questions, few researchers find his basic contention that HIV is not the cause of AIDS persuasive. Mainstream AIDS researchers argue that Duesberg’s arguments are constructed by selective reading of the scientific literature, dismissing evidence that contradicts his theses, requiring impossibly definitive proof, and dismissing outright studies marked by inconsequential weaknesses.

The article also stated that although Duesberg and the AIDS denialist movement have garnered support from some prominent scientists, including Nobel Prize winners such as Kary Mullis, most of this support is related to Duesberg’s right to hold a dissenting opinion, rather than support of his specific claim that HIV does not cause AIDS. Duesberg has been described as "the individual who has done the most damage" regarding denialism, due to the apparent scientific legitimacy his scientific credentials give to his statements.

On cancer

Duesberg disputes the importance of oncogenes and retroviruses in cancer. He supports the aneuploidy hypothesis of cancer that was first proposed in 1914 by Theodor Heinrich Boveri.

Although research into aneuploidy and cancer is nothing new (about 5000 scientific papers were published on aneuploidy before Duesberg became involved), Duesberg rejects the importance of mutations, oncogenes, and anti-oncogenes entirely. Duesberg et al., in a 1998 paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, reported a mathematical correlation between chromosome number and the genetic instability of cancer cells, which they dubbed "the ploidy factor," confirming earlier research by other groups that demonstrated an association between degree of aneuploidy and metastasis. Although unwilling to concur with Duesberg in throwing out a role for cancer genes, many researchers do support exploration of alternative hypotheses. Research and debate on this subject is ongoing. In 2007, Scientific American published an article by Duesberg on his aneuploidy cancer theory. In an editorial explaining their decision to publish this article, the editors of Scientific American stated: "Thus, as wrong as Duesberg surely is about HIV, there is at least a chance that he is significantly right about cancer."

Consequences of AIDS denialism

In 2000, Duesberg was the most prominent AIDS denialist to sit on a 44-member Presidential Advisory Panel on HIV and AIDS convened by then-President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa. The panel was scheduled to meet concurrently with the 2000 International AIDS Conference in Durban and to convey the impression that Mbeki's doubts about HIV/AIDS science were valid and actively discussed in the scientific community. The views of the denialists on the panel, aired during the AIDS conference, received renewed attention. Mbeki later suffered substantial political fallout for his support for AIDS denialism and for opposing the treatment of pregnant HIV-positive South African women with antiretroviral medication. Mbeki partly attenuated his ties with denialists in 2002, asking them to stop associating their names with his. In response to the inclusion of AIDS denialists on Mbeki's panel, the Durban declaration was drafted and signed by over 5,000 scientists and physicians, describing the evidence that HIV causes AIDS as "clear-cut, exhaustive and unambiguous."

Two independent studies have concluded that the public health policies of Thabo Mbeki's government, shaped in part by Duesberg's writings and advice, were responsible for over 330,000 excess AIDS deaths and many preventable infections, including those of infants.

A 2008 Discover Magazine feature on Duesberg addresses Duesberg's role in anti-HIV drug-preventable deaths in South Africa. Jeanne Linzer interviews prominent HIV/AIDS expert Max Essex, who suggests that,

...history will judge Duesberg as either "a nut who is just a tease to the scientific community" or an "enabler to mass murder" for the deaths of many AIDS patients in Africa.

Academic misconduct investigation

In 2009, Duesberg and co-authors including David Rasnick published an article in the unreviewed journal Medical Hypotheses in which they questioned research reporting that drugs policies implemented by the South African government on the advice of Duesberg, Rasnick and others had led to excess AIDS deaths. Observing that the overall population of South Africa has increased, Duesberg concluded that HIV must be a harmless "passenger virus" that has not caused deaths in South Africa or elsewhere. Duesberg stated that HIV does not replicate in the body and that antiviral drugs, which he calls "inevitably toxic" do not inhibit HIV. In addition, Duesberg wrote that neither he nor his co-authors had financial conflicts of interest.

Scientists expressed concerns to Elsevier, the publisher of Medical Hypotheses, about unsupported assertions and incorrect statements by Duesberg. After an internal review and with a unanimous recommendation of rejection by five Lancet reviewers, Elsevier stated that the article was flawed and of potential danger to global public health. Elsevier permanently withdrew the Duesberg article and another AIDS denialist publication and asked that the editor of the journal implement a peer review process. Letters of complaint to the University of California, Berkeley, including one from Nathan Geffen of the South African Treatment Action Campaign, prompted university officials to open an inquiry into possible academic misconduct related to false statements and failure to disclose potential conflicts of interest.

Notes

  1. Duesberg P and Vogt P (1970). "Differences between the ribonucleic acids of transforming and nontransforming avian tumor viruses". Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 67 (4): 1673–80. doi:10.1073/pnas.67.4.1673. PMC 283411. PMID 4321342. 4321342.
  2. Biography of Peter Duesberg, hosted by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences website. Accessed 2008-11-24.
  3. ^ Linzer, Jeanne (2008-06-15). "AIDS "Dissident" Seeks Redemption... and a Cure for Cancer". Discover. Retrieved 2008-05-16. {{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  4. Duesberg P (1 March 1987). "Retroviruses as carcinogens and pathogens: expectations and reality". Cancer Res. 47 (5): 1199–220. PMID 3028606.
  5. ^ "Fact Sheet: The Evidence that HIV causes AIDS". National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease. Retrieved 2007-01-08.
  6. ^ Schechter M, Craib K, Gelmon K, Montaner J, Le T, O'Shaughnessy M (1993). "HIV-1 and the aetiology of AIDS". Lancet. 341 (8846): 165. doi:10.1016/0140-6736(93)90421-C. PMID 8095571.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  7. ^ Chigwedere P, Seage GR, Gruskin S, Lee TH, Essex M (2008). "Estimating the Lost Benefits of Antiretroviral Drug Use in South Africa". Journal of acquired immune deficiency syndromes (1999). 49: 410. doi:10.1097/QAI.0b013e31818a6cd5. PMID 18931626. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |laysummary= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  8. ^ Nattrass N (2008). "AIDS and the Scientific Governance of Medicine in Post-Apartheid Africa". African Affairs. 107 (427): 157–76. doi:10.1093/afraf/adm087. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  9. ^ Duesberg PH, Nicholson JM, Rasnick D, Fiala C, Bauer HH (2009). "WITHDRAWN: HIV-AIDS hypothesis out of touch with South African AIDS - A new perspective" (PDF). Med Hypotheses. doi:10.1016/j.mehy.2009.06.024. PMID 19619953. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  10. ^ Corbyn, Zoë (2010-04-07). "Editor digs in over Medical Hypotheses reform". Times Higher Education. {{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  11. ^ Goldacre, Ben (11 September, 2009). "Peer review is flawed but the best we've got". The Guardian. UK. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  12. ^ Miller, Greg (2010-04-16). "AIDS Scientist Investigated for Misconduct After Complaint". Science, American Association for the Advancement of Science. {{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  13. Duesberg, 1997, pp. 260-9.
  14. Vermund S, Hoover D, Chen K (1993). "CD4+ counts in seronegative homosexual men. The Multicenter AIDS Cohort Study". N Engl J Med. 328 (6): 442. PMID 8093639.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  15. Des Jarlais D, Friedman S, Marmor M, Mildvan D, Yancovitz S, Sotheran J, Wenston J, Beatrice S (1993). "CD4 lymphocytopenia among injecting drug users in New York City". J Acquir Immune Defic Syndr. 6 (7): 820–2. PMID 8099613.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  16. Chao C, Jacobson LP, Tashkin D; et al. (2008). "Recreational drug use and T lymphocyte subpopulations in HIV-uninfected and HIV-infected men". Drug Alcohol Depend. 94 (1–3): 165. doi:10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2007.11.010. PMC 2691391. PMID 18180115. {{cite journal}}: Explicit use of et al. in: |author= (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  17. AIDS diagnosis information from the World Health Organization Accessed 01 May 2008.
  18. AIDS: Scientific or Viral Catastrophe? by Neville Hodgkinson, 2003, accessed 11 October 2006.
  19. ^ Duesberg P, Koehnlein C, Rasnick D (2003). "The chemical bases of the various AIDS epidemics: recreational drugs, anti-viral chemotherapy and malnutrition". J Biosci. 28 (4): 383–412. doi:10.1007/BF02705115. PMID 12799487.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  20. Duesberg, 1997, pp. 179.
  21. Cohen, Jon (1994). "The Controversy over HIV and AIDS". Science. ISSN 1095-9203. Retrieved 2009-06-14.
  22. Kalichman, Seth C. (2009). Denying AIDS: Conspiracy Theories, Pseudoscience, and Human Tragedy. Berlin: Springer. pp. 26. ISBN 0-387-79475-1.
  23. ::Biozentrum Universitaet Wuerzburg: The person: Theodor Boveri::
  24. Offerhaus GJ, De Feyter EP, Cornelisse CJ; et al. (1992). "The relationship of DNA aneuploidy to molecular genetic alterations in colorectal carcinoma". Gastroenterology. 102 (5): 1612–9. PMID 1568571. {{cite journal}}: Explicit use of et al. in: |author= (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  25. Duesberg P, Rausch C, Rasnick D, Hehlmann R (1998). "Genetic instability of cancer cells is proportional to their degree of aneuploidy". Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 95 (23): 13692–7. doi:10.1073/pnas.95.23.13692. PMC 24881. PMID 9811862. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  26. Wahlström B, Branehög I, Stierner U, Sunzel H, Holmberg E (1992). "Association of ploidy and cell proliferation, Dukes' classification, and histopathological differentiation in adenocarcinomas of colon and rectum". Eur J Surg. 158 (4): 237–42, discussion 242–3. PMID 1352139. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  27. Gibbs WW (2003). "Untangling the roots of cancer". Sci. Am. 289 (1): 56–65. doi:10.1038/scientificamerican0703-56. PMID 12840947. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  28. Duesberg P (2007). "Chromosomal chaos and cancer". Sci. Am. 296 (5): 52–9. doi:10.1038/scientificamerican0507-52. PMID 17500414. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  29. "When pariahs have good ideas". Sci. Am. 296 (5): 10. 2007. doi:10.1038/scientificamerican0507-10. PMID 17500402. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  30. Sithole, Emelia (2000-07-04). "S.Africa AIDS panel to validate HIV tests". Reuters. Retrieved 2008-11-24.
  31. Schoofs, Mark (2000-07-04). "Debating the Obvious". Village Voice. Retrieved 2008-11-24. {{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  32. McGreal, Chris (March 2002). "Thabo Mbeki's catastrophe". Prospect Magazine. Retrieved 2008-11-24. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  33. tpan.com, "Mbeki fails to break the silence," by Charles E. Clifton, September/October 2000, accessed 6 Jan 2007,
  34. Karon, Tony (2000-04-21). "Why South Africa Questions the Link Between HIV and AIDS". TIME. Retrieved 2007-01-06. {{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  35. Journ-AIDS:Factsheet Mbeki Distances Himself from AIDS Dissidents (April 2002). Accessed 14 May 2008.
  36. , (2000). "The Durban Declaration". Nature. 406 (6791): 15–6. doi:10.1038/35017662. PMID 10894520. {{cite journal}}: |author= has numeric name (help)CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link)
  37. Martin Enserink, Elsevier to Editor: Change Controversial Journal or Resign. Science, March 8, 2010

Bibliography

  • Bialy, Harvey, Oncogenes Aneuploidy and AIDS, A Scientific Life and Times of Peter Duesberg, North Atlantic Books, 2004, ISBN 1-55643-531-2
  • Duesberg, Peter H., Inventing the AIDS Virus, Regnery, 1996, ISBN 0-89526-399-8
  • Duesberg, Peter H., and Ellison, Bryan J., Inventing the AIDS Epidemic, St. Martin's Press, 1994, ISBN 0-312-11293-9
  • Duesberg, Peter H., and Yiamouyiannis, John, AIDS: The Good News Is HIV Doesn't Cause It, Health Action Press, 1995, ISBN 0-913571-05-9

External links

Mainstream scientific

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