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John Crewdson

Science Fictions: A Scientific Mystery, a Massive Cover-up and the Dark Legacy of Robert Gallo Paperback – February 1, 2003

by John Crewdson (Author)

4.6 21 ratings

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A Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist describes the competition between scientists--including Robert Gallo of the National Cancer Institute--over credit for the discovery of the HIV virus in a study that offers a revealing look at how big scientific and research laboratories really work. Reprint. 20,000 first printing.

Print length

704 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Back Bay Books
Publication date

February 1, 2003
Dimensions

5.5 x 1.25 x 8.25 inches
ISBN-10

0316090042
ISBN-13

978-0316090049
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Robert Root-Bernstein
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Hardcover
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About the Author

John Crewdson won the Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of immigration. He is the author of two previous books, The Tarnished Door: The New Immigrants and the Transformation of America and By Silence Betrayed: The Sexual Abuse of Children in America. He lives in Washington, D.C.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Back Bay Books; Reprint edition (February 1, 2003)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 704 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0316090042
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0316090049
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.33 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 1.25 x 8.25 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #3,518,624 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #12,397 in History & Philosophy of Science (Books)

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4.6 21 ratings

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Or had he known better all along

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on September 27, 2016

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Review: "Science Fictions", by John Crewdson. Little, Brown & Co. 2002: "A massive cover-up, and the dark legacy of Robert Gallo", 670 pp.

This is the story of the search for the AIDS Virus in the large, United States NIH cancer laboratories directed by Dr. Robert Gallo, and by a small lab. at the Institut Pasteur, Paris, France. In the US, the AIDS epidemic triggered a national program for discovering its cause. While viruses are difficult to detect, the fact that an AIDS illness could be latent for years before producing an observable sickness - and that other viruses are marginally reactive to AIDS - greatly complicates the search for the principle agent. Finally the Institut Pasteur isolated the AIDS virus, they named LAV, from an infected lymph gland excised from a homosexual patient.

Virologists world-wide sort of know each other, and when Gallo received a sample of LAV from France, he acted to suppress its publication, and with his colleague Dr. Popovich, he co-opted LAV for his own use under a different name. The isolation of this virus was essential to the development of an ELISA test kit for AIDS antibodies, that identifies the presence of AIDS in a patient. Thus the US received a Patent for an ELISA test based on the co-opted LAV virus, worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

But after nine years of intense controversy, the facts were revealed and the French were awarded the Patent rights in court, and they received back-royalties from sales of the US test kit.

As the book points out, errors in science are more usual than unusual. It is an unsolved mystery why Gallo did not admit his mistake in using LAV. "Had he somehow convinced himself that all the lies were true? Or had he known better all along?" It seems to me, this issue is related to overconfidence in Italian society, since Gallo inherits these characteristics, even as a born US citizen.

The other major player is Gallo's colleague, Dr. Mikulas Popovich, a Czechoslovakian with US citizenship. Those who have worked with foreign immigrants, understand that they do what they are told to do, to avoid trouble in a foreign culture. Popovich did the best he could do under the overbearing attention of Dr. Gallo.

Even so, Gallo's adverse reaction to the news from Fance, can be understood by considering his distress - that the billion-dollar US program, and his future as a Nobel Laureate, were beaten by a few honest scientists at Institut Pasteur.

---jch

7 people found this helpful

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Robert Gallo and the U.S. government as tragic heroes

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on April 12, 2002

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Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain known as "A reader from Baltimore, MD." It's clearly Dr. Gallo himself. After reading more than six hundred pages of Gallo rants, you get to recognize the style pretty easily.
So, the question is, is Dr. Gallo a tragic hero or just a bullying fraud? In his "Poetics," Aristotle defines a tragic hero as someone as good or better than we, brought low by his own tragic flaw. Certainly Dr. Gallo has plenty of tragic flaws, of which hubris or "overweening pride" must be uppermost. Other flaws include greed, vaingloriousness, bullying, a nearly complete inability to admit being wrong, a callous disregard for the injury he does others, and, most certainly, vanity. But is he any worse than the rest of us, which would make him, in Aristotle's definition, a comic hero? Probably not by much. He appears to be a weak man thrust into a situation that brought out the worst in him: big science.
There's big money in big science -- big money, big egos, and big living. And, most of all, there's the Nobel Prize, which Gallo clearly covets desperately. And there's la vida, the lavish lifestyle of first-class tickets, fine hotels, jetsetting around the world, international prizes, a far cry from the everyday drudgery of the lab. So did Dr. Gallo give in to his lust for la vida and the Nobel Prize and commit scientific fraud? Almost certainly. But the more troubling aspect of Mr. Crewdson's book is the willing, nearly gleeful, complicity of the U. S. Government in perpetuating the fraud and intimidating any who would expose it.
That the government put people's lives at risk by insisting on using the Gallo-sponsored AIDS test with its alarmingly high rate of false positives and even more troubling rate of false negatives is bad enough. Were patients infected with AIDS as a result? Absolutely. Like Dr. Gallo, the government too was thrust into a situation guaranteed to exploit its greatest weaknesses. And in the Reagan administration Dr. Gallo found his perfect match: people who were equally prideful, vainglorious, and bullying.
In "Science Fictions," Mr. Crewdson protrays a government that has sold itself to the big American pharmaceutical companies. And for this portrayal alone the book is well worth its price. But what is even more fascinating is the sheer breadth of the research involved. Mr. Crewdson covers in depth not only the science but also the politics and legal wrangling involved in the US-French dispute of the discovery of the AIDS virus.
One ironic note: Nicholas Wade, one of the science reporters who had hailed Dr. Gallo as a true hero, was at the same time writing his own history of scientific fraud, "Betrayers of the Truth" (now lamentably out of print) which is a fitting companion to "Science Fictions."
It's too bad there aren't more stars. "Science Fictions" is an extraordinary work.

31 people found this helpful

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Garth Anderson

John Crewdson tells this exciting story of the good and the bad

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on September 25, 2014

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In the 1970's there was a widespread thought that cancer was caused by a virus. There was a mad dash at the National Cancer Institute to find the supposed virus. Money flowed, and sometimes ethics went by the wayside. This evolved into a quest for the AIDS virus, which was eventually found ..... by the French. John Crewdson tells this exciting story of the good and the bad, the ethical and the unethical, all trying to solve some very serious medical problems.

One person found this helpful

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M. Tackett

Truth is stronger than fiction

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on February 19, 2002

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This book is at once a richly told thriller and a prosecutor's brief. With rich, almost unassailable detail, Crewdson writes a compelling narrative about one of the most important scientific quests of our time, the hunt to isolate the AIDS virus and to come up with a cure. It is a tale complete with villains and heroes, with many of the former trying to block Crewdson's investigative efforts at every turn. The book's genius is being both accessible to the average reader and not offensive to the scientific community. And to bolster his arguments, Crewdson offers exhaustive documentation for the curious at a website, sciencefictions.net, in what may be a first in publishing.

17 people found this helpful

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Michael T Kennedy

Still a classic

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on May 11, 2006

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This book is still a classic in science history. Crewdson's work began as a series of newspaper articles in the Chicago Tribune. The other great book, although that author's premise is wrong, is "The River." These two books tell the scientific history of the AIDS epidemic in its early years. Along with "And the Band Played On" they are required reading to understand what happened. I relied on these books to write the chapter in my own history of medicine. "Science Fictions" is not only informative but it reads like a detective story.

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Science Fictions: A Scientific Mystery, a Massive Cover-up and the Dark Legacy of Robert Gallo Paperback – February 1, 2003

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