HIV: Science by press conference

Abstract

One of the most disturbing aspects of what passes for AIDS research these days, is the separation between what researchers actually find, what they tell the press conference and what the media tells the public. To assume that these three are identical or even similar would be pure folly. The press conference has a venerable history in AIDS science. When Robert Gallo’s group ‘found’ that 26 out of 72 AIDS patients had small amounts of newly discovered retrovirus in their bodies, this interesting but unconvincing work was transformed by the magic of an officially sanctioned press conference into the announcement of the ‘probable cause of AIDS’. And Gallo’s modest findings became ‘compelling evidence’ that this new retrovirus was the cause of AIDS. Ten years later nothing has changed.