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| From the archives of The Memory Hole |
HIV=AIDS Controversy: Letters Department
The following is a copy of the letter being distributed by Martin Delaney of Project Inform which seeks to silence Prof. Peter Duesberg. James M. Scutero puts Delaney and PI in perspective in his expose, Project Dis-Inform: PI's Martin Delaney is the Pied Piper of the AIDS Establishment.
Dr. Bruce Alberts
President, National Academy of Sciences
2101 Constitution Ave., NW
Washington, DC 20418
July 31, 1997
Dear Dr. Alberts,
I am writing as the head of a nationally known AIDS organization and as a representative of a larger group of AIDS service providers. I am also a member of the NIAID Council and a member of the former Medicine Roundtable on the Developments of Drugs and Vaccines for AIDS. I am writing today to seek your attention and advice on a matter which has come to trouble almost all of us working in the AIDS service field.
Our concern is the continuing public campaign of Peter Duesberg to convince the public, people at risk of HIV infection, and people already infected that they are in no danger from this virus, that AIDS is solely a behavioral disease, and that current treatments for the disease and recreational drug abuse are in fact the cause of the disease. I have followed this debate for more than a decade and have yet to see any meaningful scientific evidence that supports these views. Instead, over the years I've seen a rapid accumulation of evidence that conclusively disproves his viewpoint. His views have long ceased to be a topic of serious discussion within the scientific community. Having lost the debate with his peers, he has taken his campaign to the public and directly to the people most vulnerable- young and poorly informed people struggling with HIV infection. He fans a natural inclination toward denial on the part of such people, giving them a seemingly legitimate way to ignore a positive HIV antibody test, to cast aside the difficult behavioral changes associated with safe sex, and to forego the complex challenge of multi-drug combination therapy. Obviously, such a deceptively attractive package will find a ready audience.
No one opposing his views wishes to discourage his academic freedom, nor do I see evidence that this has been done in any way. Though he claims his views on AIDS are responsible for the loss of NIH grants, it is far more likely that this is due to his lack of contribution and publication in his own field over the last decade. The scientific community has shown unprecedented tolerance for his behavior, as well-meaning people hoped that the airing of his views would lead him to see his errors. Such is not the case. Just as the right of free speech doesn't sanction the person who yells "fire" in a crowded theater, neither does academic freedom provide blanket protection for irresponsible behavior by scientists which adversely affects the public health.
Perhaps most troubling is the degree to which his current campaign has come to flaunt the scientific method. His disregard for accuracy and integrity in the scientific process is amply demonstrated in the lengthy review published in 1995 in Science Magazine by Jon Cohen. In this and in Duesbergs own recent book, even the most junior of trained observers can see how he chooses to overlook all data which contradicts his conclusions, while misstating and distorting the data on several aspects of the disease. I had the misfortune of debating Professor Duesberg and his cohort Kary Mullis together in 1995 and found both strangely ignorant of some of the simplest principles of drug Developments and clinical research.
A most recent example of how badly he has come to flaunt the values of science can be found in the attached material. I have included here an ad, placed personally by Professor Duesberg, announcing a public presentation of his views at the Metropolitan Community Church, a gay community facility in San Francisco. The audience is hardly the scientific community. Instead, it is aimed at enticing another generation of younger gay men- in whom new HIV infections are already running rampant- into seeing things his way. The most remarkable aspect of this is the effort he has taken to make the program look like an official program of the University of California at Berkeley, right down to the use of the University Seal. It also features his 1986 appointment to the NAS. It most certainly is not a university function. Moreover, the entire text of the ad is deceptive, disguised to look like an ad for one of the many community forums held about the new therapies, research advances, and viral load. There isn't a hint anywhere as to what the real agenda is, or how he will do his best to discourage the use of the new drugs and diagnostic measures which have given so much hope and new life to so many people. He will be there to try to convince an unwitting and otherwise uninformed audience that there is serious scientific support for his contrarian view and that all those who hold other views are somehow puppets of the pharmaceutical industry and a conspiratorial research establishment. Undoubtedly, he will succeed with some of those present, and no doubt hasten their deaths. In these days when AIDS therapy has shown such great promise, it is difficult to distinguish his actions from those of a mass murderer.
I am writing to you as the chief executive of the National Academy of Sciences because Professor Duesberg is a member of your distinguished body, whose mission is to serve the public interest. His actions, I believe, are an affront to everything the NAS stands for. They mock your Academy's commitment to the scientific method and to the principle that scientists should fight their battles in a peer setting, not by public relation efforts in the public. As members of the public aggrieved by his actions, we call upon the National Academy of Sciences to raise the question of whether he is fit for continued membership in your group. I would like to propose a few possible topics for debate by the NAS:
- Given a thorough review of his scientific and public behavior in
the AIDS epidemic, should Peter Duesberg remain a member in good
standing of the NAS?
- Should the NAS issue a public statement, perhaps reaffirming his
academic freedom, but condemning his efforts to sway the public rather
than his peers?
- Should the NAS broker a settlement with Professor Duesberg which would, minimally, prohibit him from further promotion of his potentially harmful views to the public until he presents convincing evidence to the NAS that the common view of HIV and AIDS are in error?
I would like to set up a meeting between yourself and several representatives of AIDS service organizations to discuss this matter in greater detail. I will call your office to seek an appointment.
Sincerely,
Martin Delaney Founding Director, Project Inform
Organizational Endorsements:
- Act-up Golden Gate, Oakland, Ca.
- AIDS Action Committee, Boston, Ma.
- APLA/AIDS Project Los Angeles
- AIDS Research Alliance, LA
- AIDS Service Center, Pasadena, Ca.
- AIDS Treatment Initiatives, Atlanta, Ga
- Being Alive, LA
- Center for AIDS Prevention Studies, UCSF AIDS Research Institute
- CRIA/Community Initiative on AIDS, NYC
- Critical Path AIDS Project, Phil., PA
- Denver Buyers Club
- FAIR
- Florida AIDS Action Council, Miami
- Kraus Medical Group, LA
- Multicultural AIDS Coalition, Boston, Ma.
- Project Inform
- PWA Coalition Colorado
- Research Sanctuary, LA
- "Resolute: Dedicated to Surviving HIV/AIDS", Denver
- Robert Smith Medical Group, San Diego
- San Francisco AIDS Foundation
- Test Positive Aware Network, Chicago
- United foundation for AIDS, Miami
- Women Alive, LA
Individual Endorsements:
(23 names are listed. Most all are representatives of the endorsing
groups so I have not listed them here.. MDP)
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