AIDS Special
Today marks the 25th anniversary of the discovery of the Human Immunodeficiency Virus or HIV as the targeted causal, viral agent for Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome or AIDS.
Presenting the HIV=AIDS paradigm, and challenges to it
Dr Robert Gallo published in 1984 the first scientific papers identifying the retrovirus, now known as HIV, as the biological agent for AIDS. He is currently Dir, Institute of Human Virology , University of Maryland School of Medicine, where he continues research on HIV diagnostics & global AIDS awareness programs. Dr Luc Montagnier received the 2008 Nobel Prize in Medicine, on the 25th anniversary of his research, first identifying the HIV virus. He is co-fonder of the World Foundation for AIDS Research and Prevention and co-directs the Program for International Viral Collaboration. David Crowe: President, Rethinking AIDS; President, Alberta Reappraising AIDS Society; Former President and Treasurer, Green Party of Alberta. http://www.rethinkingaids.com Dr Peter Duesberg: Professor of molecular and cell biology at the University of California, Berkeley. In 1968-1970 he demonstrated that influenza virus has a segmented genome. This would explain its unique ability to form recombinants by reassortment of subgenomic segments. He isolated the first cancer gene through his work on retroviruses in 1970, and mapped the genetic structure of these viruses. This, and his subsequent work in the same field, resulted in his election to the National Academy of Sciences in 1986. He was also the recipient of a seven-year Outstanding Investigator Grant from the National Institutes of Health from 1985-1992. He is also a member of South Africa’s Presidential AIDS Advisory Panel. In 1987, Dr Duesberg published a paper on cancer research in which he made the case that HIV (a retrovirus, the same class of virus suspected at the time to cause cancer) cannot be the cause of AIDS. Charles L. Geshekter, PhD Professor of African history at California State University, Chico, recipient of grants from the Ford Foundation, Fulbright-Hayes, National Endowment for the Humanities and Social Science Research Council. From 1991-95, he chaired the History of Science Section of the AAAS and was a member of its Executive Council. He is also a member of South Africa’s Presidential AIDS Advisory Panel. Dr Roberto Giraldo, University of Antioquia, Colombia, specialty internal medicine; Master of Science in infectious and tropical diseases (U. of London, The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine). Member of South Africa’s Presidential AIDS Advisory Panel.