As the probe into alleged misconduct by the National Cancer Institute lab of Robert Gallo in its search for the AIDS virus deepens, the scope of the investigation broadens as well.
Recently joining the National Institutes of Health's Office of Scientific Integrity (OSI) in its long-running investigation of Gallo are the General Accounting Office, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations.
And now, according to recent reports, NIH is investigating its own investigation, asking the FBI to determine how early results of the OSI report leaked to the press. As a result of the affair, the scientific community confronts professional issues whose implications extend beyond the charges leveled at Gallo's lab.
The various investigations are considering allegations originally raised in a 1989 special report by the Chicago Tribune. The newspaper charged that Gallo's lab failed to isolate its own human immunodeficiency virus, ...
