Inventing the AIDS Virus [Paperback]

Peter H. Duesberg (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1, 1998

An eminent scientist and pioneer in the discovery of retroviruses challenges the widely accepted belief that HIV is the cause of AIDS. Duesberg argues that HIV is merely a harmless passenger virus that does not cause AIDS. Sure to spark intense debate, this provocative book offers an original and incisive critique of the rise and fall of HIV.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

At last! This is the book every AIDS-watcher has been awaiting, in which the most prominent and persistent critic of HIV as the cause of AIDS presents his case most exhaustively and popularly. Duesberg, himself a virologist, stoutly maintains that HIV cannot cause AIDS because it fails to meet the rules by which a virus is implicated as disease-causing. He says that the causes of AIDS in First World countries most probably are overuse of toxic drugs--by legal prescription (e.g., AZT) as well as illicit use (e.g., the nitrite inhalants known as poppers that are used to enhance sexual capability)--and multiple and repeated infections with venereal diseases; in the Third World, they are malnutrition and maladies (e.g., tuberculosis) rare in wealthy nations but still prevalent in poor ones as well as, again, substance abuse. Duesberg massively documents and cogently argues these positions but not before laying out the historic and political reasons why most members of his profession and related medical specialists seized on a viral causation for AIDS. Basically, virologists wanted another success like that with polio and, frustrated by complete failure to find viral causes for cancer, took up AIDS as the perfect challenge as well as, once HIV was discovered, a ticket for prolonging their first-class ride on the medical research gravy train. Strong stuff, but Duesberg has never been alone in this analysis or in his scientific arguments. He has never before gathered his case together and presented it to the general public, though, so regard this book as a milestone essential to any collection concerned with AIDS. Ray Olson --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Kirkus Reviews

A well-credentialed scientist's hard-driving attack on the accepted view that AIDS is an infectious disease caused by HIV. Duesberg (Molecular biology/Univ. of Calif., Berkeley), an early researcher in the field of retroviruses, asserts that HIV, like virtually all retroviruses, is harmless. He finds that HIV meets none of the usual criteria (such as the six laws of virology) used to establish that a microbe causes disease. But if that is so, why do scientists persist in saying that AIDS is an epidemic caused by HIV? As Duesberg tells it, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention needed a serious epidemic to justify its continued existence, and by naming AIDS a single contagious disease, it created an atmosphere of public fear that brought it increased funding and power. The biomedical establishment took note. Having failed to find a viral cause of cancer, Duesberg says, virus hunters needed a new disease, and AIDS was it. The HIV-AIDS connection was then announced by Robert Gallo, head of a retrovirus lab at the National Cancer Institute, at a 1984 press conference rather than demonstrated in a peer- reviewed scientific paper. Further, Duesberg charges, the pharmaceutical companies exploited the situation by bringing back highly toxic failed cancer drugs, such as AZT, which, he says, destroys the immune system and causes AIDS-like symptoms. Duesberg cites other scientists who have questioned the HIV-AIDS hypothesis, among them several Nobel laureates, including Kary Mullis (for Chemistry), the author of this book's foreword. Duesberg's own theory is that AIDS is linked to the use of immunity-suppressing illicit drugs (such as crack and ``poppers''), and he urges investigation along these lines. One need not accept Duesberg's drug hypothesis, however, to be persuaded that the serious charges he makes deserve serious answers. A controversial book, certain to be met with strong resistance from the biomedical establishment. Four appendixes (not seen) include articles on HIV by Duesberg in scientific journals. -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 722 pages
• Publisher: Regnery Publishing (May 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0895263998
• ISBN-13: 978-0895263995
• Product Dimensions: 6 x 1.8 x 9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (103 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #237,664 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #42 in Books > Health, Fitness & Dieting > Diseases & Physical Ailments > AIDS

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

143 of 159 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Whose Burden of Proof? October 21, 2000

By Stephen McLeod

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

First: Don't be put off by the shrill reactions of other "reviewers" here who don't show any evidence that they have actually read the book. It is not clear to me what could be proven by Duesberg or anyone else injecting themselves with the virus, other than they believe that what they say is true. I don't suppose anyone in the scientific community has sacrificed more to maintain his challenge than has Duesberg. Even a cursory comparison of his career history before and after he became a "heretic" will demonstrate this. I don't think injecting himself with HIV would enhance the already clear and overwhelming evidence of his integrity. (Incidentally, while comparing credentials, check out Robert Gallo's. He started all this, after all. He holds the patent on the stuff their testing our blood with. Evaluate HIS integrity.)

Second: Don't be scared by the size of the book. It is well written, accessible, and engaging. The science is patiently explained for the general reader without being patronizing or condescending. This is coming from someone who has a paralyzing fear of scientific writing. I read the first hundred pages the day I got it. Plus, the last 300 pages are appendices which ought, in any case, to add credibility to the argument, since they present the actual evidence upon which the argument is based.

Third: Keep an open mind. Duesberg is no quack. He is a member of the elite National Academy of Sciences, and before he became a heretic, was on the Nobel prize fast-track for his discovery of the first cancer gene. Moreover, long before AIDS appeared, Duesberg was an eminently respected retro-virologist. Since the reputed source of "AIDS" is supposed to be precisely one of these strange and rare critters (actually not a critter, since viruses are not living things), who better than someone who has devoted his career to studying them to explain what they do, and what they cannot do? Maybe he's obsessed; maybe that doesn't really matter. This book makes a case that should be answered, not vilified by his peers (if they can; I've searched and searched and found nothing more enlightening by way of counter-argument than the reviewer who immediately precedes me here).

Fourth: This book is especially important if you are a person who has tested positive with HIV. The story told here will answer many of your questions, and may lead to some degree of independence. If Duesberg is right (and I think, at least as far as HIV is concerned, he is), then this is very GOOD news for thousands of people who have been infected with what would appear to be a very old and not terribly interesting passenger virus. This is especially true for HIV positive people who have never been sick (except from side effects of the toxic medicines that are currently the protocol of choice among mainstream physicians).

Finally: No great scientific innovation in history has resulted from those who were at the mainstream. From Aristotle to Copernicus, Galileo, Darwin, Einstein, and forward: all were rejected by their peers, vilified, called quacks and condemned as heretics. Admittedly, that doesn't prove anything about the current debate, but it ought to give one pause before raising the argument that usually goes: "How could so many eminent scientists be wrong?" How indeed. This book probably sheds more light on that mystery than it does on AIDS itself.

I gave the book 4 instead of 5 stars because I don't think everything argued here is of equal value. Duesberg's alternative theory what DOES cause AIDS is not as well proven as his case as to what does NOT cause AIDS. Which is not to say that he's not right. But interested readers should also look at the work of Dr. Eleni Papadopulos-Eleopolus and her colleagues of the Perth Group in Australia. Search her name on any search engine and you'll get more than enough. These scientists go farther than Duesberg, suggesting that HIV may not even exist.

I respectfully encourage anyone who has come to visit this page to read the first few chapters of this book, starting with the forward by 1993 Nobel Prize winner (chemistry; developer of the polyemerase chain reaction [PCR] protocol, currently the "gold standard" in virus hunting) Kary Mullis. See if you can put it down.

122 of 135 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Can science err? Yes--and sometimes with dire consequences. November 9, 2004

By JF

Format:Paperback

I picked up this book shortly after it hit the shelves in 1997. I wasn't on the lookout for anything like this; I just happened to be strolling through a bookstore when I ran across it and skimmed through the foreword by Kary Mullis. I devoured the book in a few days. The conclusions--that AIDS is not infectious, that HIV is harmless, and that AIDS drugs do more harm than good--were certainly shocking, but not all that shocking to anyone with even a cursory knowledge of science, in particular medical science. Mistakes get made all the time in medicine. But could a mistake of this scale have been made and then perpetuated by thousands of well-meaning scientists? That's really the question one must answer when considering this book, and one that I set out to answer myself.

It's interesting that many of the negative reviews below argue that anyone who spends time hunting down Duesberg's references will see through his charade. It's interesting because when I first encountered this book, I was in graduate school pursuing my philosophy PhD, and upon reading the book, I did exactly what these reviewers suggest everyone should do (it's what any good graduate student does): I buried myself in the stacks at the basement of the UCSD medical school library. For three weeks. And I read. And read. And I found something quite interesting: With a few minor exceptions for misinterpreted evidence, Duesberg was right. The caliber of logic used to establish HIV's connection to AIDS was abysmal. I read countless papers in internationally-respected journals that, had they been submitted to me by one of my undergraduate philosophy students, would have been returned bathed in red ink. The reasoning really was that sloppy. With potentially millions of lives at stake, logic and skepticism had been thrown out the window.

But it wasn't the numerous journal articles I soaked in that ultimately convinced me that Duesberg was correct. Rather, it was an old PDR (Physician's Desk Reference--the drug bible for doctors) that I had on my shelf. I looked up the listing for Retrovir, also known as AZT, the antiretroviral drug implicated by Duesberg as a major cause of the health problems associated with AIDS. Right there in my PDR was the warning, from the drug's manufacturer, that the effects of AZT are "indistinguishable" from the symptoms of AIDS. "Indistinguishable". If you have an old PDR, go look it up. This admission was of monumental importance, because it was the drug's own maker confirming what Duesberg has been vilified for arguing in his book: AZT causes the symptoms of AIDS.

My only beef with Inventing the Aids Virus is that Duesberg obviously has such a huge chip on his shoulder, but upon reading that listing in the PDR, I wrote him a note. In response, he called me at home to chat, and was remarkably self-effacing, articulate, and accommodating. Who knows--maybe the guy is a bulldog in scientific conferences and other settings, but in my extended interaction with him, he couldn't have been nicer, even in the face of some of my challenges to his work.

My subsequent investigations have only confirmed what was first suggested to me by Duesberg's book. And so, it's worth clarifying some points made in some of the 1-star reviews below. First, several reviewers mention the multitude of studies showing the health benefits of AIDS drugs. No such studies exist. If you don't believe me, go find the ads for these drugs in any magazine sold here on Amazon (large-format magazines like Rolling Stone are usually the best). Behind the pages of tanned, muscular, athletic people living life to the fullest, you'll inevitably find admissions similar to this one found in Merck's ad for Crixivan: "It is not yet known whether taking Crixivan will extend your life or reduce your chances of getting other illnesses associated with HIV". I doubt the reviewers here know something the drug companies don't. Sure, lots of studies have been undertaken, but no completed, properly-controlled studies show any health benefits for any drug combinations. Hence Merck's admission that even they don't know if the drugs work.

And although there are many further arguments to add to this discussion, Amazon's review page is not the place to debate the countless flaws in the HIV hypothesis. So, I'll just address one more theme in all those 1-star reviews below, the notion that if Duesberg really believed in the harmlessness of HIV, he'd inject himself with it. First, this response is totally unscientific. With a sample size of one and absolutely no control population, such an experiment would be meaningless, and would prove nothing. Duesberg knows this, as do the reviewers. Second, this suggestion is patently dishonest. If these reviewers really believed that the harmlessness of a suspected agent could be tested by consumption, then to prove their point, they would all agree to go on life-long regimens of AIDS chemotherapy, the documented effects of which include bone marrow depletion, muscle wasting, lymphoma, immune dysfunction, pancreatitis, and other debilitating conditions too numerous to mention. Needless to say, no reviewer here has offered to do this.

So read this book. I'd like to say you'll be glad you did, but you'll probably find your initial reaction is one of anger. And once you've read this, read Christing Maggiore's book. And Robert Root-Bernstein's. And Steven Epstein's. And Elinor Burkitt's. And Duesberg's other books. And when you read about healthy children being taken from their parents and force-fed chemotherapy in the name of the HIV hypothesis, you'll be even more angry--hopefully angry enough to do something about it.

122 of 138 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Silence=Death July 28, 2000

By Cathleen M. Walker VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

Silence=Death. That's what the Act Up movement has been screaming for years. Then why the effort to silence Duesberg, who is only asking for scientific review of the "evidence" that HIV causes AIDS? It is the effort to silence Duesberg that actually adds to his credibility, the massive effort to keep his thoughts, questions and ideas from the mass of individuals who might start asking their own questions. Aren't we taught to ask questions of our doctors? Aren't we taught that we have to take responsibility for our own well being? Why is it that Duesberg is considered such a threat to the medical establishment? Who benefits by his silence? Who loses if the truth comes out?

From the first chapter: "our leading scientists and policymakers cannot demonstrate that their efforts have saved a single life." Who benefits from testing and "treating" the "high risk" communities who are, more likely, dying from the "treatment" that is *not* saving their lives? "AIDS itself has not yet affected larger numbers of women nor has it entered the heterosexual population outside of drug addicts: nine out of ten AIDS patients is still male, and more than 95 percent still fall into the same risk categories: homosexual (men), heroin addicts, or, in a few cases, hemophiliacs. All other sexually transmitted diseases are equally distributed between the sexes. AIDS has not exploded into the heterosexual population, as do all other sexually transmitted diseases. Yet, the cry rings out for all pregnant women (especially women of color) to be tested, to receive treatment *even if they are not sick*, to transmit AZT to their unborn children, *to save their lives." This, while expectant mothers will be arrested if they take cocaine or drink alcohol, and will be lectured if they take so much as an aspirin. What is wrong with this picture?

David Ho, director of the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center of New York, recently gave the key to long-term survival with HIV: "None had received antiretroviral therapy." The chilling news is that instead of preventing AIDS, the drugs help to bring it on. The mortality of AZT recipients is 25 percent higher than that of those in untreated control groups. The drug, originally developed for cancer chemotherapy, efficiently destroys the immune system and causes symptoms largely indistinguishable from "AIDS" itself. Even the AIDS establishment is admitting the problems with AZT today.

The anger pointed at Duesberg is easily understood as he uncovers much of the dirty politics behind the American scientific establishment: something that can only ring very familiar bells as the beginning of the epidemic and the confusion around "who discovered the virus," come to mind, and the press conference that *announced* the cause of the "epidemic" as Secretary of Health and Human Services Margaret Heckler was ushered, quickly and quietly, out of the country. Freedom of speech and scientific inquiry have gone the way of the wind as patients are expected to "trust their doctors" and maintain their drug regimen regardless of the horrendous side effects.

We have lost our power of choice. Duesberg insists that "AIDS," if it exists at all, is not contagious and that it is not spread by sexual contact. In whose benefit is it to control the sexual behavior and the reproductive capacity of others through terror?

Duesberg *has* offered to inject himself with the virus. His stand has cost him a great deal that he could have maintained by marching to the tune of the AIDS establishment. Whistle blowers do not fare well in this society, but they are very important and very necessary.

How quickly we forget the important questions: why is it that the partner of AIDS patient Rock Hudson, the wife and 8 year old daughter of Arthur Ashe, as well as the husband of the late AIDS patient Elizabeth Glasser are HIV and AIDS-free? Why is it that Magic Johnson seems to be doing so well? He won't talk about it, but while Arthur Ashe was on the medical regimen, Magic Johnson dropped it...and seems to be doing just fine.

Duesberg makes a clear and meticulous case for the correlation of recreational drug use with the breakdown of the immune system that leads to the opportunistic infections associated with AIDS. He also is very clear that whatever is going on in Africa is another story entirely, and quite explainable by sloppy science and big money interests. The current debate in Africa (that is not making the news) threatens to expose the racist rationale behind the push of "anti-AIDS" drugs in South Africa. I can only admire a national leader that would question the agenda of the multi-national pharmaceutical corporations.

It's a big book, and too thorough to reproduce in a review. I can only suggest a careful reading.

One more point, though, that will open your eyes as it did mine: Much money is being funneled to community agencies and medical treatment centers in the name of Ryan White, the young Indiana teenager who became a national poster boy for the symbol of heroic battling against AIDS after his school expelled him as a threat to the other students. Although the news media portrayed the death as the tragic end to White's long fight with AIDS, the doctor never publicly confirmed that the death certificate actually attributed the cause of death to AIDS.

"A phone call to the Indiana Hemophilia Foundation to check the details generated a very different story. A foundation representative directly familiar with White's case was asked of what specific AIDS diseases Ryan White had died. Only internal bleeding and hemorrhaging, liver failure, and collapse of other physiological systems were listed. These conditions interestingly happen to match the classical description of hemophilia, none being listed as peculiar to the AIDS condition, but the representative did not seem to know that. It was then acknowledged that White's hemophilia condition was more severe than the average, requiring him to take clotting factor every day near the end (extremely high risk, according to Duesberg, for immune suppression). On top of all that, White had taken AZT, the former toxic cancer chemotherapy now prescribed as AIDS treatment. Hemophiliacs, needless to say, are particularly vulnerable to the internal ulcerations induced by such chemotherapy. Thus, only media hype transformed White's death from a severe case of hemophilia, exacerbated by AZT, into AIDS."

Don't take my word for it. Read this book. I read it twice. And I'm sure I'll read it again.