Peter Duesberg

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Peter H. Duesberg (born December 2, 1936 in Germany) is a professor of molecular and cell biology at the University of California, Berkeley, best known for his controversial theories on the cause of AIDS.

He isolated the first cancer gene from a virus at the age of 33,[citation needed] at 36 earned tenure at the University of California, Berkeley, and at 49 was invited to the National Academy of Sciences. He was also the recipient of a seven-year Outstanding Investigator Grant from the National Institutes of Health. He has since been turned down for funding by the NIH; Duesberg alleges that this is due to his status as an AIDS dissident. He now funds his research from other sources, including charitable contributions and the sales of his books. He lives in Germany for part of the year.

On the basis of his experience with retroviruses, Duesberg has challenged the scientific consensus that HIV is the cause of AIDS by writing letters and commentary in journals as Cancer Research, Lancet, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Science, Nature, Journal of AIDS, AIDS Forschung, Biomedicine and Pharmacotherapeutics, the New England Journal of Medicine and Research in Immunology. He has instead proposed the hypothesis that the various American and European diseases identified as AIDS are in fact caused by the long-term consumption of recreational drugs and/or AZT, a drug that is prescribed to prevent or treat AIDS.[1]

Contents

[edit] His work

  1. He disputes the importance of oncogenes and retroviruses in cancer and has proposed an aneuploidy hypothesis of cancer in 1997.
  2. He offers the alternative hypothesis that recreational and pharmaceutical drug use (especially AZT, a drug used in the treatment of AIDS) and not HIV are the primary causes of AIDS outside Africa (the so-called Duesberg hypothesis). He considers HIV a marker for drug use, e.g. use of alkyl nitrites among some homosexuals, thus accounting for the correlation between HIV and AIDS.
  3. He asserts that AIDS in Africa is mostly misdiagnosed (he notes that the diagnostic criteria for AIDS are different in Africa)[2] and that the breakdown of the immune system in African AIDS patients is explained by malnutrition, bad drinking water, and other infections.
  4. He argues that retroviruses like HIV must be harmless to survive, because after reverse transcription from RNA to DNA, they depend on cell division to replicate (their normal mode of propagation is from mother to child)[citation needed].

In recent years a growing number of scientists have begun to support his idea that aneuploidy may indeed have a role in the formation of some cancers.[citation needed] Research on this subject is ongoing.

South African President Thabo Mbeki voiced support for the Duesberg hypothesis and suffered substantial political fallout as a result. At the 2000 International AIDS Conference in Durban, South Africa, Duesberg's view received further attention. In response to Mbeki's invitation of Duesberg and other AIDS dissidents,[3] the Durban declaration was drafted and signed by over 5,000 scientists, describing the evidence that HIV causes AIDS as "clear-cut, exhaustive and unambiguous."[4]

In 1984, before he questioned HIV's role in AIDS, Duesberg was praised by Robert Gallo, the co-discoverer of HIV.[5] Duesberg and Gallo later became highly critical of each other's work.

[edit] The Duesberg Hypothesis

Main article: Duesberg hypothesis

Since Duesberg published his first paper on the subject in 1987, mainstream scientists have been extremely critical of his theories of 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.[6]

In the Science article, science writer Jon Cohen interviewed both mainstream scientists and AIDS dissidents (including Duesberg himself) and examined the AIDS literature, including papers 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 dissident movement have garnered support from some prominent mainstream scientists, including Nobel Prize winners, 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.

Yale University professor Serge Lang, Ph.D., a mathematician and author of many articles and a book on scientific controversies, criticized the Science article, claiming that it misrepresented many of Duesberg's claims, ignored most of the evidence he says supports his claims, and then argued against positions that Duesberg does not actually take.[7]

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Peter Duesberg's website, accessed 16 Sept 2006.
  2. ^ AIDS: Scientific or Viral Catastrophe? by Neville Hodgkinson, 2003, accessed 11 October 2006.
  3. ^ Reuters article on the Mbeki summit, accessed 16 Sept 2006.
  4. ^ Text of the Durban Declaration, accessed 2006-10-13.
  5. ^ Praise for Duesberg from Robert Gallo, on Duesberg's website, accessed 16 Sept 2006.
  6. ^ Science Magazine series critically reviewing Duesberg's hypothesis, accessed 16 Sept 2006.
  7. ^ Virusmyth (dissident) website, with Serge Lang's criticism of Science magazine article on Duesberg hypothesis, accessed 16 Sept 2006.

[edit] Bibliography

[edit] External links

[edit] AIDS dissident

[edit] Mainstream scientific

[edit] Cancer-related

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