Press Release

December 9, 2008

Top Scientists Ask Medical Journal Science To Retract Original AIDS Papers

[see: [2008 Dec] Letter To: Bruce Alberts, Editor in Chief, Science]

SAN FRANCISCO (Rethinking AIDS) Dec. 9, 2008-The international nonprofit
scientific organization Rethinking AIDS gave its full support today to 37
senior researchers, medical doctors and legal professionals who are
requesting that the medical journal Science withdraw four seminal papers on
HIV authored by Dr. Robert Gallo-papers widely touted as proof that HIV is
the "probable cause of AIDS." An online posting of the letter can be found
here.

"With new findings that undermine the scientific integrity and veracity of
Gallo's four papers, the entire basis of the theory that HIV causes AIDS may
now be questioned," says Rethinking AIDS president David Crowe.

The letter to the journal comes at a time when the microbiology world is
abuzz about Gallo's omission from the 2008 Nobel Prize in medicine for the
discovery of HIV, contrary to an international agreement that the two teams
should share credit. French scientists Drs. Luc Montagnier and Francoise
Barré-Sinoussi are instead to be given the award, a decision that also
implicitly questions the scientific integrity of Gallo's claim of the
discovery. Montagnier, however, admitted on camera more than a decade ago
that his experiments did not purify any virus.

The four papers were originally published on May 4, 1984, a few days after
a press conference by Gallo announcing he had discovered the "probable cause
of AIDS." Now, a British investigative journalist has shown that Gallo's
claim was based on last-minute alterations to documents that make false
claims about the results of his lab work and research experiments. The
letter to Science sent by the 37 experts on Monday, Dec. 1, 2008, includes a
copy of Gallo's handwritten changes to the article, a letter from an
electron microscopy expert indicating that Gallo's samples did not contain
any virus, and a letter from Gallo to a researcher verifying that HIV could
not be purified directly from human materials.

The investigative conclusion prompting the letter to Science was made by
journalist Janine Roberts, author of Fear of the Invisible, a book that
examines the origin of several disease theories. "I was shocked when I read
the original draft of the key scientific paper now widely cited as proving
HIV causes AIDS," says Roberts. "Gallo's handwritten last-minute changes had
reversed what the scientists in his lab had originally concluded. This
demonstrates a stunning disregard for the scientific process and a very
disturbing breach of public trust."

It is clear that the seminal research published on HIV contained
unjustified claims and alterations. In 1993, governmental investigators
determined Gallo had so poorly recorded his key and much-cited experiment
that it was impossible to repeat and verify it.

In the early 1990s, several highly critical reports on the research
underlying Gallo's papers were produced as a result of governmental
inquiries working under the supervision of scientists nominated by the
National Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Medicine. The Office of
Research Integrity (ORI) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
concluded that the lead paper of the four was "fraught with false and
erroneous statements" and that the "ORI believes that the careless and
unacceptable keeping of research records . . . reflects irresponsible
laboratory management that has permanently impaired the ability to retrace
the important steps taken." Further, a Congressional Subcommittee on
Oversight and Investigations produced a staff report on the papers,
containing scathing criticisms of their integrity.

Rethinking AIDS - an international group of more than 2,600 scientists,
doctors, journalists, health advocates and others - offers several eminent
medical and scientific experts to comment on this and other AIDS issues
currently in the news:

Etienne de Harven, M.D.*

Professor Emeritus, University of Toronto

Saint Cézaire, France

Member and professor in cell biology, Sloan Kettering Institute, New York,
1956-1981. Isolated and obtained the first electron microscopic studies of
the murine Friend leukemia virus, and retroviral budding. Frequent critic of
the "isolation" of HIV, and past president of Rethinking AIDS. Dr. de Harven
can comment on the science of retrovirus isolation.

Janine Roberts

Investigative Reporter

Bristol, U.K.

jan@fearoftheinvisible.com

Author, Fear of the Invisible, a recent book exposing the fraud in the
drafting of one of the original 1984 Science articles by Robert Gallo.

Web site: www.fearoftheinvisible.com

Media Contacts:

David Crowe*

President, Rethinking AIDS

Calgary, Alberta, Canada (Mountain time zone)

1-403-289-6609 (office)

1-403-861-2225 (mobile)

david.crowe@aras.ab.ca

Elizabeth Ely

Public Relations Chairperson

Rethinking AIDS

Brooklyn, N.Y., U.S. (Eastern time zone)

1-718-704-9672 (mobile)

publicrelations@rethinkingaids.com

*Rethinking AIDS board member.

Rethinking AIDS: The Group for the Scientific Reappraisal of the HIV/AIDS
Hypothesis ("RA" or "the Group") was formed in 1991 to express the concerns
of a growing number of renowned scientists and medical doctors about HIV
research and the resulting human rights abuses. In 1995, by a letter
published in Science, the Group called for a thorough reappraisal of the
existing evidence for and against the HIV/AIDS hypothesis and recommended
that critical epidemiological studies be undertaken.

Among RA's founders and key members are University of Toronto professor
emeritus and former cancer researcher Dr. Etienne de Harven; Harvard
microbiologist Dr. Charles Thomas; 1993 Nobel laureate for chemistry Dr.
Kary Mullis; Nature/Biotechnology co-founder Dr. Harvey Bialy; University of
California at Berkeley molecular biologist Dr. Peter Duesberg and the late
Yale mathematician Dr. Serge Lang, both members of the National Academy of
Sciences; physicist Eleni Papadopulos-Eleopulos of the Royal Perth Hospital
in Australia; and Glasgow University professor emeritus of public health and
World Health Organization consultant Dr. Gordon Stewart.