Robert C. Gallo Looks Beyond NIH and Defends The Past

Gallo's Laboratory of Tumor Cell Biology in the National Cancer Institute at the National Institutes of Health developed a blood test to detect HIV antibodies and thus help ensure virus-free blood supplies worldwide. But shortly after the lab's findings were announced, information emerged that researchers in the laboratory of Luc Montagnier at the Institut Pasteur in Paris had been the ones to first identify a virus they called LAV, and had, in fact, supplied Gallo's lab with early isolates -- later shown to be genetically identical to Gallo's HTLV-III virus. The revelation strongly suggested that Gallo had taken credit for a discovery that was not his. Years of United States government investigations of alleged misconduct by Gallo and his researchers in his lab ensued, as well as difficult discussions between U.S. and French officials concerning what should constitute a fair...