VIRUSMYTH HOMEPAGE
LETTER FROM PETER DUESBERG TO NATURE
7 March 1995
Sir John Maddox
Nature, Macmillan Publishing
4 Little Essex St., London WC2R 3LF
England
Dear John,
After you have invited us with an editorial "to comment" on
"the new view of HIV" (Nature, 19 January 1995), we are surprised
to learn that you only want to "publish the essence of what [we] have
to say."
We have followed your advice that "it should be no longer than
it needs to be." Since neither of the two new Nature studies nor the
two accompanying News and Views by you and Wain-Hobson have explained the
old view of HIV, we had to explain the old view first for the reader of
Nature to understand our comments on "the new view of HIV." We
are not interested in a discussion between experts restricted just to titers
of HIV. Therefore we cannot accept your suggestion to "throw away
the first four pages" of our commentary.
Moreover, if our commentary comes out to be 3 pages in Nature, as you
say, that would only be a fourth of the space you have already dedicated
to the "new view of HIV"-10 pages for the two papers and 2 pages
for the two editorials. A 3-page commentary on 12 pages in Nature, supplemented
by an international press release, is hardly a convincing argument that
"it is longer than it needs to be."
You write that you "resent the way in which [we] appear to have
alerted the world press to the existence of [our] piece." However,
we are afraid, if alerting the world's press is a reason for resentment,
we should resent you. After all, you have alerted the world's press using
the power of your office about the "embarrassment for Duesberg"
and that you "eagerly awaited" our "comment." But you
did not respond to our commentary from February 7 until March 2. As a result
of your activities the world's press has called us, and some callers were
given our commentary, weeks after you had received it, with the proviso
that it may not be published in its present form by Nature. Indeed, the
exchange of opinions is protected by the free-speech amendment in this
country.
Are you aware that both Wei et al. and Ho et al. gave their papers to
John Coffin and David Baltimore prior to publication in Nature to write
editorials for Science (267, 483, 1995) and NEJM (332, 259-260, 1995) respectively?
If you plan to meet your published commitment that "his [Duesberg]
and his associates' views on the new developments should be made public"
by first cutting, and then editing our commentary with a "fine-tooth
comb with the intention of ridding it of ... various misrepresentations,"
we do not see a basis for an open debate with you.
In response to your letter we resubmit our manuscript with some revisions:
1) page 2, third paragraph: Replace "despite these 'new studies'"
by "in light of these new studies."
2) page 2, fourth paragraph: Insert after "immunodeficiency syndrome
(AIDS)," "if antibody to HIVis present."
3) page 3, item (2): According to Shaw, Ho and their collaborators,
HIV activity is "rapidly and effectively limited" by this antiviral
activity.17,18
4) page 4, second paragraph: Replace the sentence "The new studies
claim to resolve ..." by "The new studies are claimed by two
News and Views articles from Maddox (3) and Wain-Hobson (43) to resolve
the paradoxa, (I) How HIV kills T-cells, (II) how HIVcauses AIDS, and (III)
why HIVneeds 10 years to cause AIDS."
5) page 6, end; Insert the following paragraph after "... numerous
previous reports (see above)": "Ho and a different group of collaborators
just published a paper in which they show that over 10,000 "plasma
virions," detected by the "branched DNA signal-amplification
assay" used in the Nature paper correspond to less than one (!) infectious
virus.50 Thus Wei et al. and Ho et al. both reported titers of 105 biochemical
virus-units that really correspond to one or even less than one infectious
virus. However, infectivity is the only clinically relevant criterion of
a virus."
6) page 11: Insert after "are immunotoxic or carcinogenic?"
"Why is it that among 10 long-term (10 to 15 years) survivors of HIV
recently described by Ho et al.50 'none had received antiretroviral therapy
...'?"
References
17. Daar, E.S., Moudgil, T., Meyer, R.D. &Ho, D.D. N. Engl. J. Med.
324: 961-964 (1991).
18. Clark, S. J., et al., N. Engl. J. Med. 324: 954-960 (1991).
50. Cao, Y., Quin, L. Zhang, L., Safrit, J. & Ho. D.D. N. Engl.
J. Med. 332: 201-208 (1995).
Sincerely,
Peter Duesberg,
Harvey Bialy
(faxed)
VIRUSMYTH HOMEPAGE