Editing Peter Duesberg (section)

===AIDS===
{{Main|Duesberg hypothesis}}

In his 1996 book, ''[[Inventing the AIDS Virus]]'', published by [[Regnery Publishing]], a politically conservative book publisher based in Washington, D.C., and in numerous journal articles and letters to the editor, Duesberg asserts that HIV is harmless and that recreational and pharmaceutical drug use, especially of [[zidovudine]] (AZT, a drug used in the treatment of AIDS) are the causes of AIDS outside Africa (the so-called Duesberg hypothesis). He considers AIDS diseases as markers for drug use, e.g., use of [[poppers]] ([[alkyl nitrite]]s) among some homosexuals, asserting a correlation between AIDS and [[recreational drug use]].{{sfn|Duesberg|1996|pp=[https://books.google.com/books?id=pRWVZJKO0NsC&pg=PA260 260-9]}} This correlation hypothesis has been disproven by evidence showing that only HIV infection, not homosexuality or recreational/pharmaceutical drug use, predicts who will develop AIDS.<ref name="niaid"/><ref name="lancet"/><ref>{{Cite journal |author1-link=Sten H. Vermund |vauthors=Vermund S, Hoover D, Chen K |title=CD4+ counts in seronegative homosexual men. The Multicenter AIDS Cohort Study |journal=N Engl J Med |volume=328 |issue=6 |pages=442 |year=1993 |pmid=8093639 |doi=10.1056/NEJM199302113280615|doi-access=free }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |vauthors=Des Jarlais D, Friedman S, Marmor M, Mildvan D, Yancovitz S, Sotheran J, Wenston J, Beatrice S |title=CD4 lymphocytopenia among injecting drug users in New York City |journal=J Acquir Immune Defic Syndr |volume=6 |issue=7 |pages=820–2 |year=1993 |pmid=8099613}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |author=Chao C |title=Recreational drug use and T lymphocyte subpopulations in HIV-uninfected and HIV-infected men |journal=Drug Alcohol Depend |volume=94 |issue=1–3 |pages=165–71 |year=2008 |pmid=18180115 |doi=10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2007.11.010 |pmc=2691391 |name-list-style=vanc |author2=Jacobson LP |author3=Tashkin D |display-authors=3 |last4=Martínez-Maza |first4=Otoniel |last5=Roth |first5=Michael D. |last6=Margolick |first6=Joseph B. |last7=Chmiel |first7=Joan S. |last8=Rinaldo |first8=Charles |last9=Zhang |first9=Zuo-Feng}}</ref>

Duesberg asserts that [[HIV/AIDS in Africa|AIDS in Africa]] is misdiagnosed and the epidemic a "myth", claiming incorrectly<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.who.int/hiv/strategic/en/use_aids_def.xls |title=AIDS diagnosis information |publisher=[[World Health Organization]] |access-date=2010-10-01}}</ref> that the diagnostic criteria for AIDS are different in Africa than elsewhere.,<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.scientificexploration.org/jse/articles/pdf/17.1_hodgkinson.pdf |title=AIDS: Scientific or Viral Catastrophe? |first=N |last=Hodgkinson |year=2003 |access-date=2006-10-11 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060927091010/http://www.scientificexploration.org/jse/articles/pdf/17.1_hodgkinson.pdf <!-- Bot retrieved archive --> |archive-date=September 27, 2006}}</ref><ref name="DuesbergJBiosci">{{Cite journal |vauthors=Duesberg P, Koehnlein C, Rasnick D |title=The chemical bases of the various AIDS epidemics: recreational drugs, anti-viral chemotherapy and malnutrition |journal=J Biosci |volume=28 |issue=4 |pages=383–412 |year=2003 |pmid=12799487 |doi=10.1007/BF02705115 |citeseerx=10.1.1.610.3380 |s2cid=56553}}</ref> and that the breakdown of the [[immune system]] in African AIDS patients can be explained exclusively by factors such as [[malnutrition]], tainted drinking water, and various infections that he presumes are common to AIDS patients in Africa.<ref name="DuesbergJBiosci"/> Duesberg also argues that retroviruses like HIV must be harmless to survive, and that the normal mode of retroviral propagation is mother-to-child transmission by infection [[Uterus|in utero]].{{sfn|Duesberg|1996|p=179}}

Since Duesberg published his first paper on the subject in 1987, scientists have examined and criticized the accuracy of his hypotheses on AIDS causation. Duesberg entered a long dispute with [[John Maddox]], then-editor of the scientific journal ''[[Nature (journal)|Nature]]'', demanding the right to rebut articles that HIV caused AIDS.  For several years Maddox consented to this demand<ref name = Goertzel/> but ultimately refused to continue to publish Duesberg's criticisms:
{{Blockquote|[Duesberg] forfeited the right to expect answers by his rhetorical technique. Questions left unanswered for more than about ten minutes he takes as further proof that HIV is not the cause of AIDS. Evidence that contradicts his alternative drug hypothesis is on the other hand brushed aside...Duesberg will not be alone in protesting that this is merely a recipe for suppressing challenges to received wisdom. So it can be. But Nature will not so use it. Instead, what Duesberg continues to say about the causation of AIDS will be reported in the general interest. When he offers a text for publication that can be authenticated, it will if possible be published.|Maddox, 1993<ref name = Maddox1993>{{Cite journal |last1=Maddox |first1=J. |title=Has Duesberg a right of reply? |journal=Nature |volume=363 |issue=6425 |pages=109–199 |year=1993 |pmid=8483492 |doi=10.1038/363109a0 |bibcode=1993Natur.363..109M |s2cid=12103876 |doi-access=free}}</ref> }}

A number of scientific criticisms of Duesberg's hypothesis were summarized in a review article in the journal ''Science'' in 1994, which presented the results of a 3-month scientific investigation into some of Duesberg's claims.  In the ''Science'' article, science writer Jon Cohen interviewed both HIV researchers and AIDS denialists (including Duesberg himself) and examined the AIDS literature in addition to review articles written by Duesberg. The article said:
{{blockquote|...although the Berkeley virologist raises provocative questions, few researchers find his basic contention that HIV is not the cause of AIDS persuasive. Mainstream AIDS researchers argue that Duesberg's arguments are constructed by a selective reading of the scientific literature, dismissing evidence that contradicts his theses, requiring impossibly definitive proof, and dismissing outright studies marked by inconsequential weaknesses.|Jon Cohen.<ref name=Cohen-1994>{{Cite journal |doi=10.1126/science.7992043 |last1=Cohen |first1=J. |title=The Duesberg phenomenon |journal=Science |volume=266 |issue=5191 |pages=1642–1644 |year=1994 |pmid=7992043 |url=http://www.sciencemag.org/feature/data/cohen/266-5191-1642a.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060615143449/http://www.sciencemag.org/feature/data/cohen/266-5191-1642a.pdf |archive-date=15 June 2006 |bibcode=1994Sci...266.1642C}} See also the full set of articles by Cohen in [[#Further reading|Further reading]].</ref>}}

The article also said that Duesberg and the AIDS denialist movement have garnered support from some prominent scientists, including Nobel Prize winner [[Kary Mullis]], while others are cited as "equally, if not more, concerned about the treatment Duesberg has received at the hands of the establishment", rather than support of his specific claim that HIV does not cause AIDS.<ref name=Cohen-1994/> Duesberg has been described as "the individual who has done the most damage" regarding denialism, due to the apparent scientific legitimacy his scientific credentials give to his statements.<ref name = Kalichman>{{Cite book |author=Kalichman, Seth C. |author-link=Seth Kalichman |title=Denying AIDS: Conspiracy Theories, Pseudoscience, and Human Tragedy |publisher=[[Springer Science+Business Media|Springer]] |location=Berlin |year=2009 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_mtDBCDwxugC&pg=PA25 |pages=25–56 |isbn=978-0-387-79475-4}}</ref>

In a 2010 article on [[conspiracy theory|conspiracy theories]] in science, [[Ted Goertzel]] highlights Duesberg's opposition to the HIV/AIDS connection as an example in which scientific findings are disputed on irrational grounds, relying on [[rhetoric]], appeal to fairness and the right to a dissenting opinion rather than on evidence.  Goertzel said that Duesberg, along with many other [[Denialism|denialists]] frequently invoke the [[meme]] of a "courageous independent scientist resisting orthodoxy", invoking the name of persecuted physicist and astronomer [[Galileo Galilei]].<ref name = Goertzel>{{Cite journal |last1=Goertzel |first1=T. |title=Conspiracy theories in science |journal=EMBO Reports |volume=11 |issue=7 |pages=493–499 |year=2010 |pmid=20539311 |pmc=2897118 |doi=10.1038/embor.2010.84}}</ref> Regarding this comparison, Goertzel wrote:
{{blockquote|...being a dissenter from orthodoxy is not difficult; the hard part is actually having a better theory. Publishing dissenting theories is important when they are backed by plausible evidence, but this does not mean giving critics 'equal time' to dissent from every finding by a mainstream scientist.| Goertzel, 2010<ref name = Goertzel/>}}

Duesberg's advocacy of AIDS denialism has, by all accounts, effectively made him a pariah to the worldwide scientific community.<ref name="redemption"/>