Editing Kary Mullis (section)

== Views on HIV/AIDS and climate change ==
{{See also|HIV/AIDS denialism|Climate change denial}}

In his 1998 autobiography, Mullis expressed disagreement with the scientific evidence for humans' role in [[climate change]] and [[ozone depletion]].<ref name="Carlson 1998">{{cite news |last1=Carlson |first1=Peter |title=Nobel Chemist Kary Mullis, Making Waves as a Mind Surfer |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1998/11/03/nobel-chemist-kary-mullis-making-waves-as-a-mind-surfer/31e7e720-44e4-49ff-8458-a9822cdcb47e/ |newspaper=The Washington Post |date=November 3, 1998 |page=D1 |issn=0190-8286 |url-access=limited |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210923234455/https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1998/11/03/nobel-chemist-kary-mullis-making-waves-as-a-mind-surfer/31e7e720-44e4-49ff-8458-a9822cdcb47e/ |archive-date=23 September 2021}}</ref><ref name="Capricorn">{{cite book |last=Mullis |first=Kary |title=Dancing Naked in the Mind Field |publisher=Pantheon Books |location=New York |edition=1st |year=1998 |isbn=978-0-679-77400-6 |pages=143–53 |chapter=I am a Capricorn |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/dancingnakedinmi00mull/page/143/mode/1up?view=theater |chapter-url-access=registration}}</ref> Mullis claimed that scientific theories about ozone depletion and climate change were the product of scientists and government bureaucrats conspiring to secure funding,{{r|Winter 2011}} saying that "science is being practiced by people who are dependent on being paid for what they are going to find out" instead of searching for the truth.<ref name="Yoffe 1994" /> ''[[The New York Times]]'' listed Mullis as one of several scientists who, after success in their area of research, go on to make unfounded, sometimes bizarre statements in other areas, especially in regard to contradicting the [[scientific consensus on climate change]] and ozone depletion.<ref name="Johnson Oct 2007">{{Cite news |last=Johnson |first=George |date=October 28, 2007 |title=Bright Scientists, Dim Notions |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/28/weekinreview/28johnson.html |access-date=August 6, 2010 |url-access=limited}}</ref>

Mullis also questioned the scientific validity of the link between [[HIV and AIDS]], despite never having done any scientific research on either subject,<ref name="Nattrass 2009">{{cite book |last1=Nattrass |first1=Nicoli |last2=Kalichman |first2=Seth C. |display-editors=1 |editor1-last=Rohleder |editor1-first=Paul |editor2-last=Swartz |editor2-first=Leslie |editor3-last=Kalichman |editor3-first=Seth C. |editor4-last=Chisamu Simbayi |editor4-first=Leickness |title=HIV/AIDS in South Africa 25 Years On: Psychosocial Perspectives |date=2009 |publisher=Springer |location=New York |isbn=978-1-4419-0306-8 |chapter=The Politics and Psychology of AIDS Denialism |page=124}}</ref><ref name="SI">{{Cite magazine |last=Nattrass |first=Nicoli |date=September–October 2007 |title=AIDS Denialism vs. Science |url=https://skepticalinquirer.org/2007/09/aids-denialism-vs-science/ |magazine=Skeptical Inquirer |volume=31 |issue=5 |issn=0194-6730}}</ref><ref name="Winter 2011">{{cite web |last1=Winter |first1=David |date=8 Oct 2011 |title=The Nobel disease |url=https://sciblogs.co.nz/the-atavism/2011/10/08/the-nobel-disease/ |website=Sciblogs |department=The Atavism |publisher=Science Media Centre |location=Wellington, New Zealand |archive-date=January 20, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210120135923/https://sciblogs.co.nz/the-atavism/2011/10/08/the-nobel-disease/ |access-date=January 12, 2024 |url-status=live }}</ref> leading [[Seth Kalichman]] and Paroma Basu<ref>[https://www.semanticscholar.org/author/Paroma-Basu/6693725 Paroma-Basu], semanticscholar.org</ref> to call him an AIDS denialist.<ref name="Kalichman 2009a">{{Cite magazine |last=Kalichman |first=Seth |date=November 3, 2009 |title=How to spot an AIDS denialist |url=https://newhumanist.org.uk/articles/2165/how-to-spot-an-aids-denialist |magazine=[[New Humanist]] |access-date=August 14, 2019}}</ref><ref name="Basu">{{Cite journal |last=Basu |first=Paroma |date=June 1, 2005 |title=AIDS denialists back on the upswing |journal=Nature |volume=11 |issue=6 |page=581 |doi=10.1038/nm0605-581b |doi-access=free |pmid=15937451 |s2cid=29361429}}</ref> He wrote that he began to question the AIDS consensus while compiling a report for a project's sponsor and being unable to find a published reference for HIV being the cause of AIDS.{{r|Mullis 1998|pp=173–174}}{{Third-party inline|date=January 2024}} Mullis published an alternative hypothesis for AIDS in 1994,<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Mullis |first=Kary B. |date=1995 |title=A hypothetical disease of the immune system that may bear some relation to the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome |journal=Genetica |volume=95 |issue=1–3 |pages=195–197 |doi=10.1007/bf01435010 |issn=0016-6707 |pmid=7744261 |s2cid=28158163 |url=http://name.umdl.umich.edu/5571095.0256.021}}</ref> claiming that AIDS is an arbitrary diagnosis used when [[HIV antibodies]] are found in a patient's blood.<ref name="Youson">{{Cite news |last=Youson |first=Patricia |title=Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) |date=May 31, 2000 |newspaper=The Washington Informer |issn=0741-9414}}</ref> [[Seth Kalichman]], AIDS researcher and author of ''Denying AIDS'', names Mullis "among the who's who of AIDS pseudoscientists".<ref name="Kalichman 2009b">{{Cite book |last=Kalichman |first=Seth |title=Denying AIDS: Conspiracy Theories, Pseudoscience, and Human Tragedy |publisher=Springer Science+Business Media |year=2009 |isbn=978-0-3877-9476-1 |location=New York |pages=177–178 |chapter=Appendix B: About the HIV/AIDS Denialists}}</ref> Mullis was often cited in the press as a supporter of molecular biologist and AIDS denialist [[Peter Duesberg]].<ref name="Cohen 1994">{{Cite journal |doi=10.1126/science.7992043 |last1=Cohen |first1=Jon |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}}</ref> According to ''California Magazine'', Mullis's HIV skepticism influenced [[Thabo Mbeki]]'s denialist policymaking throughout his tenure as president of South Africa from 1999 to 2008, contributing to as many as 330,000 unnecessary deaths.<ref name="McDonald"/>

According to ''[[Skeptical Inquirer]]'', Mullis's statements on HIV/AIDS and human-caused climate change are an instance of "[[Nobel disease]]", i.e. the tendency of some Nobel laureates to go on to embrace ideas that are scientifically implausible, rejected by most scientific experts, and based mostly on anecdotal or uncorroborated evidence.<ref name="Basterfield 2020">{{cite magazine |last1=Basterfield |first1=Candice |last2=Lilienfeld |first2=Scott O. |last3=Bowes |first3=Shauna M. |last4=Costello |first4=Thomas H. |title=The Nobel Disease: When Intelligence Fails to Protect against Irrationality |url=https://skepticalinquirer.org/2020/05/the-nobel-disease-when-intelligence-fails-to-protect-against-irrationality/ |access-date=12 Jan 2024 |magazine=Skeptical Inquirer |date=May–June 2020 |volume=44 |issue=3 |issn=0194-6730}}</ref>