Science Guardian

Judge turned against the Perth pair, threw out the baby with the bathwater

With Perth hobbled, perhaps conventional dissidents will be heard next time

Why Judge Sulan likes Gallo and we like John Moore

News reports of the Adelaide judgement are coming through now, and they show the basis of Judge Sulan’s decision to disallow the appeal of Andre Chad Parenzee, 36, against being jailed for having sex with three women without informing them that he carries antibodies against HIV, a virus which according to the original papers of Robert Gallo in 1984 does not cause AIDS (not to mention that how such antibodies could be transmitted sexually is another unanswered question).

Quite simply, it is his contempt for the independent scholars from Perth.

Both in the media and in his comments, the two decent and thoughtful witnessess for the defense from the Perth Group are being trashed mercilessly for their challenges to orthodoxy, which the judge rates as foolish and inexpert. Their reputation is now mud. Ms Papadopulos-Eleopulos is quoted on her forthright willingness to sleep with an HIV positive man as if she was some kind of gang bang:

‘HIV does not exist’ appeal thrown out

By Todd Cardy

April 27, 2007 05:56pm

A HIV-positive man convicted for having unprotected sex with three women has lost an appeal, after a South Australian judge rejected defence claims the virus does not exist.

Andre Chad Parenzee, 36, was convicted on three counts of endangering life last January after one of the women, a mother of two, became infected with HIV.

Defence lawyers launched an appeal calling two Perth medical researchers – Eleni Papadopulos-Eleopulos and Dr Valendar Turner – who testified in the South Australian Court of Appeal that the virus did not exist and could not be sexually transmitted.

The two AIDS-dissidents are members of the Perth Group, founded by Ms Papadopulos-Eleopulos, that believes HIV is not the cause of AIDS.

Justice John Sulan today dismissed the witnesses’ testimony, saying the pair lacked credibility and were advocates for a cause rather than independent experts.

He said the evidence that HIV existed was compelling and he rejected the application for a re-trial.

“I am satisfied that no jury would conclude that there is any doubt that the virus HIV exists,” he said in his judgment.

“I consider no jury would be left in any doubt that HIV is the cause of AIDS or that it is sexually transmissible.”

Justice Sulan said Ms Papadopoulos-Eleopulos, a physicist who works at the Royal Perth Hospital, relied upon opinions of others, which she often took out of context and misinterpreted.

He said claims that HIV testing methods were flawed were unfounded and the virus had been thoroughly studied by international experts.

Parenzee’s application for leave to appeal his conviction was the first time that the existence of HIV/AIDS had been tested in an Australian court.

The hearing spanned more than a year with controversy lining much of the witness testimony.

Under earlier cross-examination, Ms Papadopulos-Eleopulos was asked by the prosecution if she would have unprotected vaginal sex with a HIV-positive man.

“Any time,” she replied.

In other testimony, Ms Papadopulos-Eleopulos declared that Africa did not have an AIDS epidemic because HIV did not exist and efforts to curb the spread of the virus were merely political stunts.

To counter the claims, the prosecution called eight HIV experts including AIDS research pioneer Professor Robert Gallo.

Prof Gallo, who was one of the scientists who discovered AIDS in the early 1980s and linked HIV as the cause of the disease, testified via video-link from his home in Bethesda, Massachusetts.

He told the court the Perth Group members was misguided, inappropriate and delusional.

Parenzee was remanded in custody to be sentenced at a later date.

The bottom line is that the Perth Group pair made such a poor impression with their claim the virus didn’t exist that the Judge dismissed their authority and, unfortunately, any other arguments levelled against the HIV∫AIDS meme which no doubt took root in his brain many years ago.

It is unfortunate for Parenzee that his home is Australia. The defenders and promoters of HIV∫AIDS must have been delighted when they heard that the only defense witnesses appearing from the critics’ camp to undermine their cause were the two key figures of the nearby Perth Group.

They must have seen that as soon as the Perth pair started attacking the existence of the virus, the otherwise totally unpersuasive paradigm which is now an ideological given of government policy, charity, and culture around the world would get a free pass.

A better idea

Defense counsel Kevin Borick would have done better to arrange a video transmission from Berkeley to match the one from Bethesda, where Gallo testified by satellite. The judge valued hands on science as a qualification, and Duesberg is a classic lab retrovirologist.

For new arrivals to this disputed realm, we refer to the distinguished Berkeley scientist Peter Duesberg, who but for his personal integrity would now have a Nobel in hand for his priority in cancer research, and whose repeated demonstrations in peer reviewed journals that the claims of HIV∫AIDS scientists do not accord with the scientific literature of the field, including the studies which the leading scientists themselves carry out, are a lot harder to dismiss than the Perth Group’s claim that HIV does not exist despite its genetic cloning and different strains.

But perhaps Judge Sulan would dismiss Duesberg, and his repeated demonstrations in peer reviewed journals that the claims of HIV∫AIDS scientists do not accord with the scientific literature of the field, as insufficiently hands on as far as HIV is concerned.

So much for science critics

After all, he appears to have no respect whatsoever for independent examination of the scientific literature by attentive outsiders. This is how he dismisses Valendar Turner’s knowledge, despite his publications in peer reviewed journals:

His opinions are based on reading scientific literature, studying of scientific literature, and spending a considerable amount of time thinking.

That a Supreme Court judge can be so naive, and condemn the very process he lives by, is an embarrassment to the judiciary of Down Under, not to mention the entire nation.

Silver lining to Perth defeat

While the Judge’s contempt is a poor reward for their efforts to save humanity from despair over HIV, and we are sorry for them personally, a Perth retreat from the courts may be a good thing for the more conventional cause of correcting the science of HIV∫AIDS.

There has always been a danger that the Perth Group’s anachronistic and increasingly foolish claim that HIV does not exist would distract from the contradictions of the paradigm based on current scientific literature and label all dissidents as crackpot. Now it has happened.

The judge appears to have decided early that the Perth claim was unfounded and out of date (which it is now that genetic cloning and sequencing of HIV is a commonplace around the world) and that the credentials of the Perth pair were fatally flawed by their lack of hands on experience in the field.

I have found that Ms Papadopulos-Eleopulos and Dr Turner are not experts in the subject matter upon which they have given evidence. I have concluded that the witnesses called by the DPP are experts.

206 Because the witnesses called by the applicant are not expert, the opinion evidence which they gave is not admissible. I have noted above that the evidence given on whether HIV has been proved to exist, whether HIV is sexually transmissible, and whether it causes AIDS is opinion evidence. The finding that the witnesses for the applicant are not experts, and thus are not qualified to give expert opinion evidence, is, in my view, a sufficient basis upon which to refuse the application for permission to appeal.

So he decided there was nothing in the rest of their claims, since Bob Gallo was so much more prominent in the science, famous and persuasive, and therefore reliable. The judge fawned on Gallo and the other mainstream authorities produced by the prosecution, as his comments on Gallo show:

When he gave his evidence he was forthright. At times, he was impatient with propositions that were being put to him. Mr Borick QC is critical of the manner in which Professor Gallo gave his evidence. He submits that Professor Gallo was not entirely frank and that his aggressive attitude towards the questioner was due to the fact that his opinions lacked credibility.

197 I reject that submission. I consider that Professor Gallo was a frank, forthright witness. Professor Gallo has been recognised throughout the world for his work. He is a pre-eminent expert in the field of virus identification and treatment. I accept his evidence and his opinions. I accept his evidence that the debate about HIV, whether it causes AIDS and whether it is sexually transmissible by heterosexual vaginal sexual intercourse, is a debate that was completed by the mid-1980s. I accept his evidence that the witnesses called by the applicant have misused material in support of their argument that HIV has not been proved to exist.

Here come de judge

All this can be seen recorded in detail in his lengthy and illuminating 82 page judgement, the Reasons for Decision of The Honourable Justice Sulan now available to the world for study. Reading through it we have to say it seems unlikely that the Perth Group will survive this lengthy public demolition of their reputation by an inattentive judge prejudiced in favor of power.

In one way this is a pity since they have done good work on the fundamental reasons why AIDS patients should suffer immune decline in the absence of any ascertainable influence from HIV. But their distracting claim that HIV has not been effectively isolated is a stale red herring whose odor attaches itself to all critics of the hypothesis that HIV causes AIDS, a claim which is genuinely unproven and contradicted by the scientific literature.

Peter Duesberg and other thoughtful scientists who can see that the paradigm is unjustified do not need to be associated with unprofessional quarrels with premises they do not challenge. It was always a danger that the Perth Group would break into the headlines and put paid to any chance that the valid scientific objections to the paradigm would be taken seriously by those outside the field.

Not to mention that Duesberg himself powerfully, cogently and conclusively dismissed the Perth Group’s reasoning ten years ago (see Virusmyth’s The Missing Virus section) on the existential issue, even as he respected their many contributions on other fronts, including the real nature of African AIDS, inaccuracies of HIV testing, and misconceptions about hemophilia and AIDS. In fact, he gave them the first two chapters of the scholarly volume that he edited, AIDS: Virus or Drug Induced, in 1996, for their invited expert reviews of HIV∫AIDS research distortions.

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SPECIAL NOTE: The Perth Group deserves respect, in the opinion of the editorial staff of NAR, and the strictures of Judge Sulan are ignorant calumny. The Perth Group’s identification of oxidative stress as one key mechanism in the kind of immune deficiency now labeled HIV∫AIDS is notable as one of the earliest contributions made (published in 1988, after more than five years research) to a correct diagnosis of AIDS and its underlying mechanism, a solution derailed in 1984 by the unfounded and still undemonstrated claim of Gallo that HIV was the culprit. Their analysis pointing out that oxidative stress caused by drugs, malnutrition and multiple infections can harm sensitive T cells is justified by much mainstream literature since, and has been endorsed by Luc Montagnier in his book “Virus”.

It should also be pointed out that their critique of Montagnier’s original experiments detecting the presence of HIV in the blood of AIDS patients (they said that he had failed to purify the virus) was endorsed in the Adelaide court room by none other than the satellite image of Bob Gallo himself, perhaps glad to draw attention away from his own lab sins which are legion (he is famous for making a fool of himself with contaminations of cultures). and Montagnier has conceded it. But this basis for challenging the very existence of the Virus grew out of date as labs all over the world cultured the Virus, duplicated its sequencing, and even distinguished between strains of the 9 kilobase wisp of RNA even as they failed to show its harmful effects.

The Perth Group would have been better off defending their analysis of the mechanism of immune deficiency against Gallo’s groundless challenge by pointing out, for example, that not only was finding HIV in 36%of AIDS patients, and antibodies to it in 88%, screamingly unconvincing, but the presence of cytomegalovirus, Epstein Barr virus and herpes virus in approaching 100% of patient blood samples indicated a theoretical bias on the part of Gallo that science cannot explain. All this is well exposed in Robert Root-Bernstein’s Rethinking AIDS, Chapter four.

Indeed the Group made very sharp points along these lines in the first paper, A Critical Analysis of the HIV-T4-cell-AIDS Hypothesis, they contributed to the Duesberg’s collection, AIDS: Virus or Drug Induced (1996). For example, they point out the little appreciated fact that Gallo’s original T cell culture of HIV was in a leukemia cell line, HT, which already happened to have the property of forming occasional giant cells with fused nuclei. This Gallo then interpreted as a cytopathic effect of HIV, his only evidence of supposed HIV cell killing in the one Science paper of his 1984 broadside to supposedly prove that HIV could kill cells.. “The virus positive cultures consistently showed a high proportion of round giant cells containing numerous nuclei (syncytia)”. But the syncytia was already happening before the presence of the harmless Deadly Virus.
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Now the loss of credibility due to arguing the Virus doesn’t exist has happened as feared in a court of law in Australia and sent an unfortunate man innocent of causing harm back to jail, because it meant that the very obvious proven fact in the literature (pace Nancy Padian, who now denies what she demonstrated) that HIV is effectively not transmissible in sex between heterosexuals could not be established in the Judge’s now closed mind.

But Kevin Borick, his lawyer who made the error of placing his bets on the Perth argument, says he will appeal anyway on other grounds, according to reports. And if this decision now fences off the Perth Group spoiler effect, it is all to the good.

Misdirected insults

However, let’s not agree with the court in rejecting their case on the grounds that they are outsiders to the field of HIV∫AIDS without practical experience of the virus. This is naive if not absurd. Judge Sulan has no idea it seems of how often outsiders come up with advances in a field, especially on a theoretical level. His jeers at Papadopulos-Eleopulos along these lines are silly:

Ms Papadopulos-Eleopulos has no practical experience. She has never worked with patients who are said to be infected with HIV, or with any virus. She has never treated or diagnosed patients who have viruses. She has never worked in laboratories or conducted research. She has no practical experience.

133 She has given evidence on the topics of virology, immunology, epidemiology, microbiology and microscopy. She has no practical experience and she has never worked in any of the areas.

134 Although Ms Papadopulos-Eleopulos demonstrated a superficial understanding of a number of the areas, I consider that her knowledge is limited to her reading. She has what one might describe as a textbook understanding of the science of viruses, but she has no depth of knowledge or understanding and she simply relies upon written material. She did not demonstrate any understanding or knowledge similar to that demonstrated by the witnesses called by the DPP.

135 I conclude that she does not have expertise in the various disciplines in which expertise is required. In my opinion, she is not qualified to express opinions about the existence of HIV, or whether it has been established that it causes AIDS. Nor has she expertise to express opinions about whether the virus is transmissible. Nor is she qualified to express opinions about the tests that have been developed to diagnose the virus.

136 Even if I were to conclude that Ms Papadopulos-Eleopulos had some expertise to express opinions about the methodology for determining whether HIV exists, I consider her opinions to be so out of line with the prevailing opinions and the prevailing evidence which supports the existence of the virus, that no jury could rely upon her opinions. In my view, no weight could be given to her evidence. That is a relevant factor in considering whether permission to appeal should be granted.

137 Ms Papadopulos-Eleopulos lacks independence. She is an advocate for a cause. She chooses to rely upon opinions of others which she often takes out of context and misinterprets. She lacks objectivity. If faced with evidence which does not support her views, she simply refuses to acknowledge it, or dismisses it without any basis for so doing. Examples of her refusal to acknowledge evidence which does not support her views include her response to the epidemiological evidence which she says is not proof and which she dismisses as unreliable.[81]

Of course, he had the good lady in front of him, so for all we know she does give a poor impression in public. She certainly fails to speak very good English, according to the transcript, although Gallo’s grammatical structures are not much better. We suspect that if Judge Sulan had been able to see Gallo in person rather than on video he might have got a different impression, also.

Here is what he thought about Turner:

Dr Turner’s knowledge of the subject matter is limited to reading. He has no formal qualifications to give expert opinions about the virus. He has no practical experience in the treatment of viral diseases. He has no practical experience in the disciplines of virology, immunology or epidemiology.

143 His opinions are based on reading scientific literature, studying of scientific literature, and spending a considerable amount of time thinking.

144 I conclude that Dr Turner is not qualified to advance expert opinion about virus isolation, antibody tests, viral load tests, or sexual transmission of the virus. His knowledge of these subjects is limited to having read a number of publications. He relies entirely on his interpretation of various studies in the specialised disciplines of virology, epidemiology, microbiology, immunology, pathology or infectious diseases, in none of which he has qualifications beyond his medical degree. He has no practical experience, and has performed no research which has been published.

This is an extraordinarily clear statement that no one but insiders are qualified to read and understand the literature of a field. The Gallo-Fauci-Moore defense team must be chortling.

How rebels are handicapped

In this way, the task of critics who detect a flaw in conventional wisdom is made difficult. The first accusation is that they don’t know what they are talking about, because they don’t have the inside knowledge needed to make a good decision. If for example you disagree with George W. Bush’s upcoming decision to drop bombs on Iran, the first counter is, you are not in possession of secret information about how close they are to making a nuclear weapon.

Then it is also a fairly clear principle in cases where independent scholars and critics tilt at mainstream shibboleths that the critics are likely to be eccentrics in personality and behavior, and the defenders at the top of the establishment much more acceptable in their smooth conformity to the conventions of dressa and behavior, since that is partly how they got to the top of the pyramid and stay there. The critics, meanwhile often have all the earmarks of the crackpot, or at least can easily be painted as such.

That is why we thank Destiny for the existence of John P. Moore, one of the greatest assets of the movement to reexamine HIV∫AIDS science in his non conformist behavior in speech and writing, and in the inaccurate and ad hominem style of his website AIDSTruth.org

Unlike Anthony Fauci of NIAID, he is neither stylish in dress nor smooth in behavior. He and Robert Gallo, the ebullient roguish initiator of this gigantic mess, have in common the tendency to let loose verbally or in print and on line (in the case of Moore) if they get a chance.

Quick way to tell who’s right on HIV∫AIDS

For a change, we have colorful individuals on both sides of this debate, and that is as it should be. For after all, these are disputes about scientific theory and interpretation, and the quality of the ideas that are expressed are highly dependent on the qualities of the man or woman expressing them.

In fact, we have often thought it is not really necessary for any outsider who comes upon this debate to read very far into it to know who is almost certain to be right.

All one has to do is line up Robert Gallo, Anthony Fauci, Mark Wainberg and John Moore and compare them with Peter Duesberg, Harvey Bialy, Celia Farber and Rebecca Culshaw.

It would be pretty clear even to a distinguished but mentally myopic, meme ridden, power worshipping Australian Supreme Court judge who are the salesmen heavily invested in the paradigm, and who are the independent minded, public spirited, self sacrificial critics.

Addition: While we were posting this a very fine Comment by the inimitable MacDonald has been attached to the previous post, but is highly relevant here for its deft exposure of the Judge’s bias against the Perth Group as revealed in his Reasons for Decision, in which his Reasons for Bias against the Perth Group are in fact, as MacDonald aptly points out, much better as Reasons to Reject the Testimony of Robert Gallo, to whom they apply in spades. (Later moved to Comments under this post. - Ed.)

Judge Sulan turns down Parenzee appeal of jail sentence

HIV∫AIDS meme triumphs on legal front

Bad news for human rationality from Adelaide. Australia, where after ruminating for two or three months Judge Sulan of the Supreme Court of Southern Australia has decided the fate of the unfortunate Chad Parenzee, jailed earlier for having sex without confessing that he was, according to the science of Robert Gallo, harboring antibodies to the HIV virus.

Despite a court hearing where it was plain to all intelligent observers present or who afterwards read the transcript, that Gallo’s HIV∫AIDS science was exposed as senseless, being both inconsistent in theory and without good evidence of any kind, an impression most clearly conveyed by the great man himself, Gallo having testified by video transmission from his home in the USA, the Judge decided an hour ago as of this writing that Parenzee’s appeal should be denied.

On what grounds he justified this opinion we do not yet know, but we have a very good idea that the efforts of the courageous Perth Group pair (see previous post on this topic) to challenge Gallo and his fellow Australian HIV∫AIDS promoters on their science went for nought, simply because this was a political game and not a legal or scientific one.

Immovable meme

We imagine that the Judge despite showing one or two moments of Aussie feistiness and independent spirit during the case, notably when Gallo was giving his testimony, was not able to overcome the HIV∫AIDS meme which must have set up residence in his brain some twenty two years ago, and have ruled it ever since.

Most of the testimony which showed that there were serious questions that could be asked about the HIV∫AIDS paradigm probably went over his head, and even if they didn’t, the insistence of the Perth pair in challenging the very existence of the virus probably lost them the case as soon as they testified. This kind of allegation has no chance against the meme once it is in the brain of a judge or anyone else.

However, their other points about the inconsistency, incredible claims, and lack of evidence for the paradigm probably showed him that there was a valid controversy behind the scenes and in a world ruled by sense should have persuaded him, during the month or two he has taken to review the case, to allow the appeal.

What the decision shows, in our opinion, is that it is politics and economics that decides this kind of case, not science, even if Judge Sulan was the sharpest of cookies and saw through the babble that Gallo produced in testifying, as he read it through again in the quiet of his chambers.

Running from buffalo

We imagine that the good Judge actually spent a fair amount of time on the phone and at lunches, dinners and parties sounding out the other influential people in his city, which is the capital of Australia, and in other centers of influence, who have to do with governing medical matters, and finding out who would approve what. A Supreme Court judge in Adelaide did not achieve his prominent post without a good bit of discreet clubmanship and subtle approval negotiation, you can be sure of that.

Far better that a no account gay man should languish in jail a few years for flouting the law, even if it was based on flawed establishment science, that the Judge should have to deal with all the social fallout for taking a stand against the thundering herd of buffalo heading in the wrong direction. Can you imagine the comment he would be exposed to in the press and at parties of the ruling classes of Adelaide? His wife surely imagined it for him.

Stand up, and stand for, or you stand still, say the idealists from their encampment outside the gates of power. On the other side of the moat, drawbridge and walls of the castle that keeps them out, however, everyone but the servants knows that the real ruling principle is observe the weathercock at all times, and know which way the wind is blowing.

Time will tell

Perhaps Judge Sulan took his time because he was wrestling with his conscience. We like to think so. Or perhaps he hesitated, appalled at the idea of playing the provincial handmaiden to a bunch of carpetbagging crooks whose congame was all too apparent via video when Gallo testified.

But one way or another, it was probably the naivete of those who deal in ideas and in truth that made them think for a moment that the decision could run any other way. The game is politics, not science, and only political influence and celebrity wattage of the William Jefferson Clinton level can really move the mountain, we see now.

Luckily that does not seem impossible. Sooner or later, some kid of some megarich couple in a society where top hedge fund managers are now paid $2.4 billion a year - the USA - will run into the trap of HIV∫AIDS positivity one way or another, and Daddy will fork up enough money to fight the case in an American court and win.

But meanwhile John Moore of Cornell will crow, and those who can read the scientific literature for themselves and see how it contradicts the public claims of the scientists who write it, will have to remain patient.

Well, we can promise them a consolation prize soon - a post showing how Dr Moore himself is one of the staunchest witnesses for the prosecution of his own paradigm, simply by quoting his own papers.

Guessing game

Meanwhile, it is of interest to note that a straw poll taken in recent days among the most active critics of HIV∫AIDS found that most were unwilling to guess the outcome, but those that did broke about 50/50.

We are embarrassed to admit that we thought the good Judge, being full of down to earth Aussie spirit, and rebelling against the influence of carpetbaggers from the US, would allow the appeal.

Most accurate was the cynical satirist and 911 conspiracy theorist Marcel Girodian, who wrote to us:

I’m quite sure that he will not allow the appeal, because the international ramifications of that would be too destabilizing to established order. I am also sure that he has been “talked to” by the powers that be, and it has been made clear to him that he is not to allow the appeal.

Now if i’m wrong , i’ll very delightedly eat my hat. But i doubt that i’m wrong.

Democracy is just a fantasy that they use to keep the people from realizing they are slaves. All the structures of democracy are easily manipulated and corrupted, and have been so for centuries.

On the other side was the more idealist Marcos, from South America. He wrote:

I´ve been reading the testimonies and I think that the existence of a scientific controversy has become so clear that that only for itself should be proof enough for the judge to aknowledge a reasonable doubt and allow the appeal.
I see it that way.Therefore, I´m confident.
I`m not saying that the judge will take any sides in the controversy. It´s not his job.
On the other hand, if this thing doesn´t turn out to be a winner, well I won´t care… I´ll keep on and on fighting for the truth to come out. That´s the message I think we should send out to everyone.

We like to believe that the tide of history runs from Marcel to Marcos, from cynicism and disappointment to success and truth. In the end. But it may be that, as Max Planck observed, we have to wait for the retirement and even death of the current rulers before that rennaissance of science to where it should be.

“Science advances funeral by funeral,” was his rueful thought.

Surgeon-biologist Orac tackles Duesberg’s cancer idea with limited respect

Hostile to Duesberg on AIDS, he labors to rescue oncogenes from the aneuploidy gold rush

The first attempt at a public critique of Peter Duesberg’s cancer initiative, his leadership of a return to exploring the aneuploidy which marks all cancer cells (their excess chromosomes, sometimes even double the normal number), has been made. Orac, whose blog on Seed magazine’s Science Blogs site, is Insolence, has managed quite a lengthy treatment, laboriously raising objections to Duesberg’s explanation in Scientific American (earlier post).

The post attempts to save oncogenes from the stampede over to aneuploidy, reminding us that Duesberg both pioneered the field of cancer genes and repudiated it soon afterwards. Thus the first section of the Duesberg article, which is being carried by You Bet Your Life in the form of a pdf , mentions how Duesberg found the first example of ‘oncogenes’‘, the quickly fashionable cancer field that he afterwards rejected and now is threatening to replace with more productive aneuploidy research.

Chromosomal Chaos and Cancer

Current wisdom on the role of genes in malignancy may not explain some features of cancer, but stepping back to look at the bigger picture inside cells reveals a view that just might

By Peter Duesberg

When I first began to study cancer as a young postdoctoral fellow in the early 1960s, it looked to leading scientists as though viruses could be the cause of most, if not all, malignancies. That idea was based on the discovery of several tumor- and leukemia-producing viruses that could infect a host cell and insert their own genetic material into its genome, sparking a cancerous transformation and proliferation of the cell. I was optimistic and naive enough to hope that if researchers could understand the exact molecular mechanisms by which such viruses caused cancer, we could develop vaccines to eliminate one of humanity’s most dreaded diseases.

My own contribution to that pursuit came in 1970, when my colleagues, Michael Lai and Peter Vogt, and I managed to isolate a specific gene, src, which was suspected to be the tumor-initiating culprit in avian Rous sarcoma virus. Within a few years, more creative scientific minds than mine had followed this lead to a realization that a closely related gene was already present in the normal DNA of animals, including humans. And a new cancer model was born: it proposed that some triggering event, such as a mutation in a human cell’s own version of src, could ignite tumorigenic powers like those possessed by its viral counterpart. The cancer-promoting potential of such a time bomb buried in our personal genomes earned it the title of “proto-oncogene.” Once the mutation occurred, it would become a full-fledged oncogene. …. (cont. in Scientific American or on the pdf copy of the Duesberg article here

Here is a Wall Street Journal blog note on the appearance of the piece:

A Cancer Theory From a Controversial Scientist

Researchers have been looking in the wrong place in the body for cancer’s origins, writes Peter Duesberg in Scientific American (subscription required). What makes the publication of his theory remarkable is that the magazine’s editors felt obliged to include a note disavowing the work Mr. Duesberg is most famous for—his claim that HIV doesn’t cause AIDS. While Mr. Duesberg is “surely wrong” about HIV, the magazine’s editors write, his work on a new theory about cancer—that an aberration in chromosomes, not genes, ignites malignant cells—has gained enough traction in the scientific world that it merits publication.

Mr. Duesberg, a professor of molecular and cell biology at the University of California, Berkeley, is treated as a pariah in the scientific community for his ideas about HIV and AIDS. At the same time, he has carried out groundbreaking cancer research and gained fame in 1970 for being the first virologist to identify a cancer-causing gene.

In the late 1960s and 1970s, Mr. Duesberg and others began looking into the role of mutations in a few key genes that regulate cell function. He has since shifted the hunt for cancer’s origins one level up in the cell, to chromosomes, rod-like structures made up of thousands of genes. Unlike genes, chromosomes barely vary across a species. The smallest difference in them can be catastrophic. In cancer cells, chromosomes are scrambled. Mr. Duesberg suggests these chromosomal disruptions unbalance the way thousands of genes regulate cell function and reproduction, eventually leading to cancerous cells.

The chromosome hypothesis avoids some difficulties with the gene theory of cancer, Mr. Duesberg says. Some of the most potent carcinogens, like asbestos or tar, don’t cause genetic mutations. But the chromosomes of cells treated with cancer-causing doses of carcinogens become unstable. Few children get cancer, but Mr. Duesberg notes that the rare cases of those who do also suffer from or are susceptible to chromosomal abnormalities. — Robin Moroney
Permalink | Trackback URL: http://blogs.wsj.com/informedreader/2007/04/16/a-cancer-theory-from-a-controversial-scientist/trackback/

For additional understanding of the value of Duesberg’s approach - and the scientific weakness of the oncogene paradigm which has ruled for nearly three decades in cancer research - see Harvey Bialy’s book, “Oncogenes, Aneuploidy and AIDS: A Scientific Life and Times of Peter H. Duesberg” (North Atlantic Book, 2004).

Then you can have fun reading and dissecting the blog critique, which task Dr Bialy, Duesberg’s sharp witted champion in this as well as in the soggy science of HIV∫AIDS, says is beneath him, according to a recent communication referring to “gibberish read only by pod people”. It is hard not to agree with him.

It is also hard to stomach the demons of illwill and disrespect let loose by the witchcraft of the Web and attached to every comment by “Adele” and other witless riders of Orac’s self-confessedly “insolent” coat tails, or those of epidemiologist Tara Smith, the svelte bathing beauty and blogging genius also at Science Blogs to whom Duesberg’s errors are also transparent at first glance. It is amazing that knowledgeable posters such as Ky Sanderson are prepared to punt in this verbal sewer, where they have as little effect trying to correct the prejudices of the lynch mob as pouring a single bottle of Listerine into the subterranean tunnels of waste disposal under Manhattan.

Here is the self-description of the blogger:

Who (or what) is Orac?

Orac is the nom de blog of a humble pseudonymous surgeon/scientist with an ego just big enough to delude himself that someone, somewhere might actually give a rodent’s posterior about his miscellaneous verbal meanderings, but just barely small enough to admit to himself that few will. (Continued here)
…I’m not only a cancer surgeon (which in and of itself is not enough to qualify me to comment on this topic) but rather because I’m also a cancer researcher and a molecular biologist (which, I submit, does make me qualified to comment on this topic).

This is the well qualified fellow who now has the effrontery to decorate his text in his long post with the following prejudicial statements (errors in bold) about Duesberg’s incorrectness (as he sees it) on HIV∫AIDS”, reminding us that one of the many crosses the distinguished Berkeley professor has had to bear in trying to enlighten the elite as to the scientific three card monte shuffle perpetrated upon them for 22 years by Robert Gallo, Anthony Fauci and now John Moore is the smug prejudice of the lay defenders of the faith, who intuitively know that he is wrong even though his many hostile peer reviewers were by definition unable to show it:

Peter Duesberg, as you may know, is the controversial scientist who is perhaps the foremost advocate of the discredited hypothesis that HIV does not cause AIDS.

(A rhetorical statement) “The one that first comes to mind as particularly relevant to Peter and AIDS is that it does seem impossible that a man who is clearly so utterly wrong concerning something as now scientifically straightforward as whether AIDS is caused by HIV could actually be correct about something as complex as the genetic basis of malignancy.”

Yet they think nothing conflating the scientific validity of Duesberg’s ideas concerning cancer, which might indeed be partially or mostly correct, with his discredited hypothesis that HIV does not cause AIDS, implying that because he might be correct about cancer implies that he is correct about AIDS. It doesn’t

I do not plan on discussing why Duesberg’s ideas regarding HIV are wrong, even though the results of such HIV/AIDS denialism leads to quackery and has serious real-world consequences for real people. Tara and Nick have done far more than my minor efforts to critically examine such wingnuttery.

I think Duesberg’s an utter crank and pseudoscientist when it comes to his HIV/AIDS denialism,

Clearly, this is a man in whose brain the AIDS meme has taken up residence and cuckoo-like, has kicked out any semblance of openmindedness on that score, and so probably one who appoaches Duesberg’s new ideas with equal lack of self assessment.

That characteristic is always the most amazing attribute of the host of otherwise intelligent, combative and self promoting bloggers that have mushroomed with the advent of the Web. Why is it that they never turn their critical eye on themselves and their own thinking? Self-editing is not the greatest talent of Orac, that’s for sure. Does he not consider that if in his view Duesberg’s hypothesis is “argued poorly”, it may be his own understanding which is lacking? After all, it has been Duesberg’s career interest and project for many years, and if it has made headway against so much prejudice against him it must make very good sense.

But Orac is such a clogged thinker himself that it may be he is simply confused. For example, he says “implying that because he might be correct about cancer implies that he is correct about AIDS. It doesn’t. Sorry, but the two issues are at best peripherally and weakly related and at most not related at all. ” Here he seems unable to grasp the point, which is not that the two fields are closely related but that Duesberg is a very good mind in science, one of the best in the business. who has initiated two fashionable fields of research.

Similarly, he writes that

Now, potential chromosomal causes are again being looked at, and for whatever part Duesberg’s advocacy had in spurring this he is to be acknowledged, even if his boosters do have an annoying tendency to make it sound as though scientists would have zero interest in studying chromosomal causes of cancer were it not for Duesberg, which, given the attention shown to this topic at recent meetings that I’ve attended, is ridiculous.

without seeming to think of the possibility that without Duesberg’s pathbreaking efforts over many years the dominant paradigm (cancer through individual gene mutation) would reign on undisturbed, and that he has every reason to take credit that it is now a hot topic.

It is by now abundantly clear that Orac’s research methods lean heavily on the “Ask John” approach.

However, he begins with a nice enough statement of the core idea of aneuploidy - excess chromosomes in the cell - and its history starting with Boveri and sea urchins.

It has been known for many many decades that most cancer cells are aneuploid. This means that, instead of having the correct number of chromosomes (in the human, 46 chromosomes, two matched sets of 22, plus the sex chromosomes, either XX or XY). In some diseases, such as Down syndrome (known as trisomy-21), there are either missing or extra chromosomes. In the case of Down syndrome, there is a third copy of chromosome 21. Such abnormal chromosomal numbers come about when, during meisosis (cell division that produce germ cells), the newly copied chromosomes don’t segregate properly to the two daughter cells, one to each. Instead, both go to one or the other cell. In cancer cells, the situation is much worse; such missegregation during mitosis can lead to aneuploidy that is much more severe, to the point where some cancer cells can have 70 chromosomes or more. Because certain genetic mutations, for example in DNA damage repair genes, can lead to chromosomal instability that can in turn lead to aneuploidy, the basic argument has been over the relative importance of the roles of aneuploidy and the accumulation of genetic mutations as leading to cancer. On the one extreme, there is the argument that aneuploidy is the primary cause of cancer, causing the accumulation of genetic mutations through breaks in chromosomes. On the other extreme is the argument that aneuploidy is a consequence, not a cause, of cancer. Duesberg, as you may guess, takes the extreme version of the former view. These days, most other scientists studying this question tend to consider both important to varying degrees in the development of cancer.

This is an introduction to a post which in theme is presumably the product of Orac’s “Ask John” research, where he has checked with anyone around in the hospital who might know to find out what the current paradigm’s cancer research is all about. Anyone who has read “Oncogenes, Aneuploidy and AIDS” knows what kind of briefing he has received. Leading scientists in the field are desperate to make sure that even if aneuploidy continues to prove out as a productive field it won’t replace the oncogenes paradigm they have invested in for three decades.

Now master blogger Orac sounds the same theme: aneuploidy is “intriguing” and may even be “primary” but let’s allow oncogenes to keep their place on the stage also. Never mind that Duesberg - who founded the field of oncogenes, no less, when he discovered the first example of a cancer causing gene in the Rous sarcoma virus - has always rejected that paradigm as well the HIV∫AIDS story as unsound, and Orac doesn’t seem to know why.

The concept that aneuploidy may play a major and, in some cases, primary role in carcinogenesis is a legitimate scientific idea with scientific evidence to support it. It doesn’t need to be defended or argued using such bad arguments, but Duesberg can’t seem to help himself. The problem is, Duesberg’s thinking is black-and-white, all-or-nothing. He can’t seem to fathom the concept that both aneuploidy and genetic mutations might feed upon each other. In addition, he also almost totally neglects other evidence implicating other causes or important factors in the progression of cancer, such as cancer stem cells, tumor angiogenesis, or even the metabolic hypothesis ( i.e., the Warburg effect), which, like the chromosomal hypothesis, is also enjoying a resurgence. Cancer is a complex set of diseases, likely with multiple causes contributing to the development of different cancers in different proportions, which is why my skeptical antennae start twitching whenever I hear someone like Duesberg (or anyone else, for that matter) postulate in essence a single cause for all cancer.

Still, he is obviously persuaded persuaded that Duesberg’s approach is productive, even if he spends much time emphasizing that Duesberg didn’t think of it first:

It is clear to me that epigenetics (cellular factors other than genes that regulate gene activity) and chromosome structure are very important in carcinogenesis, more so than had been appreciated before

All in all, not too disrespectful a treatment, and a useful collection of possible objections to aneuploidy that will come from the blog world. There are endless jabs at the supposed idiocy of one of the world’s great scientists for flouting the assumption of the blogger that HIV∫AIDS must be as valid as its global support indicates. But these don’t erase the new if split respect that Orac seems to have for Duesberg now that the Scientific American has endorsed aneuploidy and him in this fashion.

The Comments that follow include a priceless articulation of the hostile prejudice against Duesberg that now sprinkles the floor of the Web forest like toadstools:

I agree with you, this almost seems to be a presage to even more crankery from Duesberg. I can just see that as time goes on and this hypothesis is balanced out by other findings that show every cancer can’t simply be housed under the umbrella of aneuploidy if he’ll once again just dig in and refuse to accept evolving facts. When Duesberg suggested that HIV causing AIDS was based on mostly correlative evidence in 1987 (and Science published it), he kind of had a point. It wasn’t a particularly good, or useful point, but within the year there was excellent evidence from studies of AZT, as well as responses to Duesberg’s criticisms that really should have had those ideas tossed, and certainly by about 1993 or so the science was settled. These days given what we know about the HIV proteins, mechanisms of latency and entry in CD4 cells, it’s frankly just embarrassing he didn’t give up decades ago, I wonder if he’ll do the same here if things don’t turn out his way.

I will continue to disagree, however, that this wasn’t a mistake for Sci Am. I believe in the scientific death sentence - that is, if you are proven untrustworthy, you shouldn’t be allowed to contribute to the literature anymore. So what if he’s changed fields, he demonstrated himself to be a dishonest crank so badly and for so long why should we risk the literature with contributions from this guy? I don’t find his so-called dissident status cute or funny, it results in bad science, bad policy and ultimately death as these bizarre ideas take hold in Africa (especially S. Africa) and even in the United States as with the HARM people. I’m all for the black list for cranks too because I believe cranks are fundamentally deceptive and untrustworthy contributors to scientific debate, and all of his subsequent (thankfully rejected) internet publications on HIV/AIDS are really just a pack of lies.

I simply wouldn’t trust this guy again, ever.

Posted by: Mark | April 25, 2007 03:50 PM

Established publications used to keep this kind of rant out of the letters column, but now we see it given permanent form on the servers of the Web, rather like a madman used to have to work very hard to get hold of a weapon, but now a Mr Cho can kill 32 people with a Glock bought at a sports store.

One always wonders what the writer - Mark, in this case - will feel when he is older, and Duesberg is vindicated, but his juvenile post is still cached by Google for all his grandchildren to see,

(Orac’s post)

Peter Duesberg, chromosomal chaos, and cancer: An intriguing hypothesis argued poorly

Category: Cancer • Medicine • Science • Skepticism/critical thinking
Posted on: April 25, 2007 9:01 AM, by Orac

A lot of readers (well, a couple, anyway) have been asking me about the recent article by Peter Duesberg in the most recent issue of Scientific American entitled Chromosomal Chaos and Cancer. I suppose it’s because I’m not only a cancer surgeon (which in and of itself is not enough to qualify me to comment on this topic) but rather because I’m also a cancer researcher and a molecular biologist (which, I submit, does make me qualified to comment on this topic). Peter Duesberg, as you may know, is the controversial scientist who is perhaps the foremost advocate of the discredited hypothesis that HIV does not cause AIDS. I had been tempted to comment on Dueseberg’s hypothesis based on the orgasmic reaction of Duesberg’s sycophants in the HIV/AIDS “dissident” community to the recent publication of an article on it by Duesberg in Scientific American. One such booster, even went so far as to say:

The one that first comes to mind as particularly relevant to Peter and AIDS is that it does seem impossible that a man who might just be correct concerning something as complicated as the genetic basis of malignancy could be so totally wrong about something as straightforward as whether HIV kills T-cells.

This is perhaps the dumbest thing I’ve heard said about evaluating Duesberg’s aneuploidy hypothesis of cancer. To demonstrate why, let me recast the question a bit to: “The one that first comes to mind as particularly relevant to Peter and AIDS is that it does seem impossible that a man who is clearly so utterly wrong concerning something as now scientifically straightforward as whether AIDS is caused by HIV could actually be correct about something as complex as the genetic basis of malignancy.”

HIV/AIDS denialists would be screaming bloody murder about such a question were I to pose it as anything other than a rhetorical device, and they would have a point to some extent. Yet they think nothing conflating the scientific validity of Duesberg’s ideas concerning cancer, which might indeed be partially or mostly correct, with his discredited hypothesis that HIV does not cause AIDS, implying that because he might be correct about cancer implies that he is correct about AIDS. It doesn’t. Sorry, but the two issues are at best peripherally and weakly related and at most not related at all. That is why I do not plan on discussing why Duesberg’s ideas regarding HIV are wrong, even though the results of such HIV/AIDS denialism leads to quackery and has serious real-world consequences for real people. Tara and Nick have done far more than my minor efforts to critically examine such wingnuttery. Instead, I decided simply to ask the question about Duesberg’s chromosomal chaos hypothesis as the cause of cancer and ask: Is there any “there” there? It’s a question I’ve asked myself before but never written about, and this seemed like an opportune time to discuss the issue.

The first thing that struck me about the Scientific American article is that it looked very much like a popular version of two very similar recent review/opinion articles that Duesberg published in 2005 and 2006. I’m mainly going to discuss the Scientific American article because it’s basically the same message in a form more palatable to the educated lay reader. But, before I begin, I’d like to point out a couple of things. First, the concept that chromosomal abnormalities cause cancer dates back at least to 1914, when the German zoologist Theodor Boveri, based on studies of sea urchin development, first suggested it. Indeed, this featured promi