BERKELEY, CALIF.—On a Saturday early in April, as Washington’s famous cherry trees began to blossom, eight of the nation’s top AIDS researchers gathered at George Washington University for a special meeting. But they weren’t there to discuss their latest findings, or to devise new strategies for fighting the deadly disease, or even to enjoy the Washington spring. Instead, says Berkeley molecular biologist Harry Rubin, one of the participants, “the forum was called to lynch Peter Duesberg.”
That description may be a bit too strong, a bit too bitter. But then, feelings run deep when it comes to Peter Duesberg. As anyone who reads Science or Spin or most newspapers knows by now, the Berkeley biologist has had the temerity not just to challenge the current dogma of AIDS—that the disease is caused by the human immunodeficiency virus—but to do it in a flamboyant and highly public fashion. Duesberg’s stance, argue ...
