INVENTING
THE
AIDS VIRUS
Dr. Peter Duesberg
REGNERY PUBLISHING, INC.
Washington, D.C.
Foreword
I N 1988 I WAS WORKING as a consultant at Specialty Labs in Santa
Monica, setting up analytic routines for the Human Immunode-
ficiency Virus (HIV). I knew a lot about setting up analytic routines
for anything with nucleic acids in it because I had invented the Poly-
merase Chain Reaction. That's why they had hired me.
Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS), on the other
hand, was something I did not know a lot about. Thus, when I
found myself writing a report on our progress and goals for the
project, sponsored by the National Institutes of Health, I recog-
nized that I did not know the scientific reference to support a
statement I had just written: "HIV is the probable cause of AIDS."
So I turned to the virologist at the next desk, a reliable and
competent fellow, and asked him for the reference. He said I didn't
need one. I disagreed. While it's true that certain scientific discov-
eries or techniques are so well established that their sources are no
longer referenced in the contemporary literature, that didn't seem
to be the case with the HIV/AIDS connection. It was totally
remarkable to me that the individual who had discovered the
cause of a deadly and as-yet-uncured disease would not be con-
tinually referenced in the scientific papers until that disease was
cured and forgotten. But as I would soon learn, the name of that
individual-who would surely be Nobel material-was on the tip
of no one's tongue.
Of course, this simple reference had to be out there somewhere.
Otherwise, tens of thousands of public servants and esteemed sci-
entists of many callings, trying to solve the tragic deaths of a large
xii • Foreword
number of homosexual and/or intravenous (IV) drug-using men
between the ages of twenty-five and forty, would not have allowed
their research to settle into one narrow channel of investigation.
Everyone wouldn't fish in the same pond unless it was well estab-
lished that all the other ponds were empty. There had to be a pub-
lished paper, or perhaps several of them, which taken together
indicated that HIV was the probable cause of AIDS. There just had
to be.
I did computer searches, but came up with nothing. Of course,
you can miss something important in computer searches by not
putting in just the right key words. To be certain about a scientific
issue, it's best to ask other scientists directly. That's one thing that
scientific conferences in faraway places with nice beaches are for.
I was going to a lot of meetings and conferences as part of my
job. I got in the habit of approaching anyone who gave a talk
about AIDS and asking him or her what reference I should quote
for that increasingly problematic statement, "HIV is the probable
cause of AIDS."
After ten or fifteen meetings over a couple years, I was getting
pretty upset when no one could cite the reference. I didn't like the
ugly conclusion that was forming in my mind: The entire cam-
paign against a disease increasingly regarded as a twentieth-
century Black Plague was based on a hypothesis whose origins no
one could recall. That defied both scientific and common sense.
Finally, I had an opportunity to question one of the giants in
HIV and AIDS research, Dr. Luc Montagnier of the Pasteur Insti-
tute, when he gave a talk in San Diego. It would be the last time I
would be able to ask my little question without showing anger,
and I figured Montagnier would know the answer. So I asked him.
With a look of condescending puzzlement, Montagnier said,
"Why don't you quote the report from the Centers for Disease
Control?"
I replied, "It doesn't really address the issue of whether or not
HIV is the probable cause of AIDS, does it?"
"No," he admitted, no doubt wondering when I would just go
away. He looked for support to the little circle of people around
Foreword _ xiii
him, but they were all awaiting a more definitive response, like I
was.
"Why don't you quote the work on SIV [Simian Immunodefi-
ciency Virus]?" the good doctor offered.
"I read that too, Dr. Montagnier," I responded. "What hap-
pened to those monkeys didn't remind me of AIDS. Besides, that
paper was just published only a couple of months ago. I'm look-
ing for the original paper where somebody showed that HIV
caused AIDS."
This time, Dr. Montagnier's response was to walk quickly away
to greet an acquaintance across the room.
Cut to the scene inside my car just a few years ago. I was dri-
ving from Mendocino to San Diego. Like everyone else by now, I
knew a lot more about AIDS than I wanted to. But I still didn't
know who had determined that it was caused by HIV. Getting
sleepy as I came over the San Bernardino Mountains, I switched
on the radio and tuned in a guy who was talking about AIDS. His
name was Peter Duesberg, and he was a prominent virologist at
Berkeley. I'd heard of him, but had never read his papers or heard
him speak. But I listened, now wide awake, while he explained
exactly why I was having so much trouble finding the references
that linked HIV to AIDS. There weren't any. No one had ever
proved that HIV causes AIDS. When I got home, I invited Dues-
berg down to San Diego to present his ideas to a meeting of the
American Association for Chemistry. Mostly skeptical at first, the
audience stayed for the lecture, and then an hour of questions, and
then stayed talking to each other until requested to clear the room.
Everyone left with more questions than they had brought.
I like and respect Peter Duesberg. I don't think he knows nec-
essarily what causes AIDS; we have disagreements about that. But
we're both certain about what doesn't cause AIDS.
We have not been able to discover any good reasons why most
of the people on earth believe that AIDS is a disease caused by a
virus called HIV. There is simply no scientific evidence demon-
strating that this is true.
We have also not been able to discover why doctors prescribe a
XIV • Foreword
toxic drug called AZT (Zidovudine) to people who have no other
complaint than the presence of antibodies to HIV in their blood.
In fact, we cannot understand why humans would take that drug
for any reason.
We cannot understand how all this madness came about, and
having both lived in Berkeley, we've seen some strange things
indeed. We know that to err is human, but the HIV/AIDS hypoth-
esis is one hell of a mistake.
I say this rather strongly as a warning. Duesberg has been say-
ing it for a long time. Read this book.
Kary B. Mullis
Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 1993
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