For the suggested number of ’successful transmissions’ (as Truthseeker puts it, no doubt caught up in the general atmosphere of trial optimism) in 4000 people over 5 years to be a reliable measure, it seems to me the researchers would have to make sure:

1. That those people don’t engage in any other risk behaviour during those 5 years (doable but rather boring)

2. That they engage only in ‘heterosexual forms’ of sex since 4000 sodomists presumably would be at greater risk than 4000 missionaries (doable but rather boring)

3. That they average a prescribed number of couplings in those 5 years (doable but rather boring)

4. In case this is a couple study as the description suggests, that they remain faithful both in the sense that they are not allowed to break up, or at least required to replace the old with a new discordant partner, and in the sense that they cannot engage in promiscuous behaviour, since it would heighten the risk of contracting diseases like gonorrhea, which are said to facilitate the transmission of HIV. (doable but rather boring)

5. That a specified number of them (corresponding to the control group) consent to having regular sex with an HIV infected person. (extremely risky, not romantic – legal?)

6.That all consent to being experimented upon with a toxic drug. (extremely risky)

My question is this: Where will the researchers ever find thousands of test subjects with such a peculiar mix of conventional virtues and appetite for risky behaviour?

Sorry to say it, Richard, but clearly you do not respect the people and the material you are criticizing, including even your own, it seems, since you don’t wish me to quote it, so how is it possible to continue an exchange with you which will be of interest to any onlooker?

“Total rubbish” is simply not the kind of phrase to use about the points made by Peter Duesberg in the leading journals of science which have been vetted by senior peer reviewers unable to find factual flaws, let alone reject them as “total rubbish”, which they would have been only too glad to do if they could.

You seem by your own admission to know too little about the whole affair to make such dismissive remarks, since you do not even know whether Duesberg was a retrovirologist when Montagnier discovered HIV in patient blood. Not only was he aworking with retroviruses but he had achieved enough to be named California Scientist of the Year, soon (in 1986) to be admitted to the National Academy at a very young age, and be talked of as a candidate for the Nobel prize for his cancer work (letter in Nature).

You don’t seem to understand that you are dismissing out of hand one of the best scientists alive, one of the finest intellects of his scientific generation and one of the most accomplished even in the face of severe funding handicaps produced by the kind of prejudice you are showing.

I speak as someone who has interviewed for publication a large number of the most distinguished names in a variety of scientific and other fields, so I am reasonably familiar with the prevailing standards. I can assure you that any time you do not immediately understand Peter Duesberg’s point you had best assume that it is valid, and you will discover it to be so when you do understand it.

Of course his points are legitimate. Even the two you quote indicate that you are not aware of how the debate has progressed. The kind of adjustments you refer to are the adjustments of those who cannot answer objections without shifting the goalposts, as they say.

If you don’t respect the points made by those you think are wrong, or the people who make them, then your assertions will just reduce to insulting them, which is what has happened. You have to respect an argument to make an effective counter argument.