Talking to the Experts
2. Talking to the experts
My next tack was to try to pursue the science of the matter. This was difficult, since my last foray into the natural sciences was in 1968, when I took the general biology course at college which was also required for humanities majors. Still, as a linguist I felt I was a scientist of a sort, and I felt that with a reasonable effort I should at least be able to inform myself enough to answer my basic question: Was Segal right, wrong, or is it impossible to know?
In the summer of 1989 I had seen a reference in Time magazine to someone I had known as a teenager who had become a well-known cancer and AIDS researcher – a virologist and a viral surgeon. If anybody could answer my questions it would be Tony. (The name is fictitious; I see no reason to personalize the issue.) I found his address in Who's Who and wrote to him, enclosing a copy of my unpublished article and a longer article written by Segal that had been published by a left-wing (Marxist) West German newspaper. An exchange of letters followed, which I reproduce here:
Sept. 14, 1989
Dear Tony,
...My main reason for writing is to ask what you think of the enclosed. My article has not been published. Segal's article is from the Rote Fahne, a Marxist weekly, which I know doesn't exactly enhance its credibility, but nobody else will publish him. That shouldn't affect the science of the matter. I hope your German is up to it. I think you'll find Segal's style clear and non-convoluted, which is more than I can say for most German academicians – or American ones, for that matter.
Let me be honest. I'm quite aware that you might be the last person who might tell me anything, even if you could, about this, but the thing really bothers me, and a lot of other people too, at least in this country. If Segal is wrong, he sure as hell ought to be proved wrong. Would be great to hear from you, in any case.
Best,
Mike Morrissey
September 21, 1989
Dear Mike,
Your question is one that has come up many times before. The answer is simple. The virus is not man-made. Segal gives us too much credit since this is the most complex virus we have seen. We can't even make a simple one. If it were as he says we would also have the technology to eliminate it and we do not, as yet.
We don't know where it actually comes from but the best guess is from a non-human primate from Africa. This is because very similar viruses cause AIDS-like diseases in these animals. However, the "missing link" has not been found, but it may turn up at any time as more studies are done.
You may also have heard that AIDS is not caused by the virus HIV. More nonsense. The evidence that it does is overwhelming and this will become clearer to the public as specific drugs and vaccines are developed. To get a better view of all of this let me refer you to the October 1988 issue of Scientific American.
Yours sincerely,
Antonio L. DiAngelo
Oct. 6, 1989
Dear Tony,
I'm afraid I don't understand your comments on AIDS. Of course we cannot make a horse or a donkey, but if we put them together we can "make" a mule. Segal says the horse and the donkey were Visna and HTLV-1. Nor do I see why, if this is what happened, the virus should be any more defeatable than any other.
I don't know if you have actually read Segal's work, but it is very convincing and simply cannot be dismissed out of hand. He has countered every even halfway "scientific" argument – it would appear – with success. What the public cannot understand or accept is why, if he is wrong, he cannot be refuted with scientific arguments, and why his arguments are simply ignored. If he is right, of course, everything is all too clear.
Segal deals at length with Essex's Africa hypothesis, and points out that even he (Essex) has retracted it, although it continues to be propagated in the media.
Nor can I understand why researchers seem to be ignoring the possibility that AIDS is a Visna variety and might be more amenable to prevention or cure if treated as such. That means that they should be working with sheep, not monkeys.
Sincerely,
Mike
Oct. 17, 1989
Dear Mike,
This is hard to do by letter, but here goes. Visna + HTLV-1 could never be crossed to give HIV-1. HIV-1 has things in it that neither of the others have.
HIV-1 is a member of the same family as Visna but more complex. Indeed, much of what is known about Visna is used to further our knowledge of HIV-1.
The Africa hypothesis is not that of Essex. What he has retracted is something that relates to HIV-2, an HIV of West African origin. Max detected the presence of this virus in man but when he isolated it, a contamination occurred in his lab with SIV-1 (a simian AIDS virus). This was not found out until later. The real HIV-2 exists and is a second human virus.
You need to read much more than Segal and I suppose I should read more about him. I finally stopped some time ago when I concluded he was on the wrong track. I can imagine how difficult it is for you, though, with all of this controversy about. It is a very strange time in science.
Best regards,
Antonio L. DiAngelo
Oct. 29, 1989
Dear Tony,
I know I'm in way over my head, but all I can do, like everyone else, is try to evaluate somehow or other the opinions of experts, which is very difficult when they contradict each other.
I don't know if you are referring to the tat genes when you say HIV-1 has things that Visna and HTLV-1 do not, but if so Segal responds to this objection in his book as follows:
As early as June 1986 Gonda et al. (Proceedings of the Nat. Academy of Sciences 83, 4007-4011) published a comparative study of the HIV and Visna virus genomes ... The result was that both genomes were highly similar, and that all structural elements were shared by both of them, except for a small segment of 300 nucleotide pairs with an exceptionally high genetic instability, nearly identical to a section of the HTLV-1 genome. That means that all the new structural elements first described in the HIV genome, such as the tat-genes complex, also exist in the Visna virus genome.
Segal has a whole chapter based largely on this study by Gonda and an earlier one published in Science 227, 173-177 (1985). The 60% homology Gonda found between Visna and HIV-1 in 1986, with the latter varying by mutation at about 10% every 2 years (Hahn et al., Science 232, 1548-1553, 1986), would point to near identity around early 1978, when Segal claims that a section of a genome originating from HTLV-1 was added to Visna by gene surgery to produce HIV-1.
In another chapter, Segal suggests that HIV-2 is a manipulated SIV virus, made pathogenic possibly by the surgical insertion of an orf-A gene.
Other microbiologists I have talked to do not dispute Segal's thesis that AIDS is a laboratory product, though there is disagreement as to exactly how it might have happened and from precisely what components. I have also been referred to an article by Julie Overbaugh et al. in Nature 332, 731-734 (1988), which apparently demonstrates that it is possible to produce a new virus in the laboratory which is more pathogenic than its components. This means that Segal's scenario is at least not to be ruled out by any fundamental law of nature.
Certainly Dr. MacArthur did not believe this in 1969, when he made the statement to Congress that Segal quotes in the article I sent you. Jeremy Rifkin's petition of Feb. 10, 1988 (appended to Segal's book) to disclose what became of this project yielded nothing, of course. It's a secret! Perhaps the scientists themselves are our best hope. Segal feels that Gonda may have tried indirectly to point to the truth by calling attention to the similarity between Visna and HIV – if so, more power to him.
The worst thing about Segal's theory is not that it may be correct, bad as that would be, but that it is being, as the Germans say, "tot geschwiegen." Of that there can be no doubt, and the implications are dismal.
Sincerely,
Mike
Nov. 20, 1989
Dear Mike,
I can sympathize with your confusion and let me state that it is Segal that is over his head. He doesn't understand the words homology or mutation rates. He creates new viruses by splicing in genes (which is possible) without understanding the outcome. It is all nonsense.
Surely we can switch genes between HIV and HTLV-1 and make them work. It could also be done between Visna and HTLV-1, in theory. But, I repeat, Visna plus HTLV-1 in any arrangement does not make HIV-1 now or in 1970. 60% homology is a very distant relationship. If Segal is so convinced, why doesn't he make the construct and see what kind of virus it makes. Would it infect human cells? Would it kill T cells (Visna does not)?
Moreover, HTLV-1 was discovered as a virus in 1978 but its genes were not defined until the 1980s, certainly the ones Segal talks about. For that matter, the Visna genes were also not well established until the 80s and perhaps even later than HTLV-1. I envision it to be almost totally impossible that the chemical equation he speaks about could have taken place even in 1978. Add to that the likelihood that HIV-1 was present in man before then, probably as far back as 1959 and you now reach absurdity. It just does not add up.
Where he is correct is that HIV-2 and SIV are very similar, one perhaps deriving from the other. You don't need a surgical insertion to visualize that.
Sincerely,
Antonio L. DiAngelo
He had finally said it: Nonsense! So it is possible to "make" new viruses. That much, at least, was clear. Segal doesn't understand homology and mutation rates? What doesn't he understand, exactly? He doesn't understand "the outcome"? He says in this case the outcome was AIDS. Segal should do an experiment and find out? Why should an experiment be necessary, if Tony is so sure that Segal is wrong?
Is he sure? First he says "Visna plus HTLV-1 in any arrangement does not make HIV-1 now or in 1970." Then he says he "envisions it to be almost totally impossible." Not so sure, after all.
Tony must know that Segal doesn't say that Visna kills T-cells. Sheep with Visna die because the macrophages, the large white blood cells, become infected in the earliest stage, not the T-4 cells. The infected macrophages then eventually destroy the thymus gland, which prevents the further development of T-4 cells and destroys the immune system. This is why HIV-infected chimpanzees do not develop AIDS. The T-4 cells in the monkeys are infected, but the macrophages remain healthy. In humans, the macrophages are infected, as in sheep. If Segal is right, then, the key to therapy is not in preventing the infection of the T-4 cells but in preventing the infected macrophages from destroying the thymus.
Not a word about the tat-genes. Why? It's an important point. Does HIV-1 have things that neither Visna nor HTLV-1 have or not? Segal says no, Tony says yes, then drops the point. Not a word about the MacArthur testimony, either.
I saw no point in continuing. Tony wasn't going to say more than he had, and I was not impressed. In fact, it was hard to believe he was being honest. He seemed to be dodging every point. Every time I threw him the ball, he just stepped out of the way and threw another ball back. What was a "simian AIDS virus"? Monkeys don't get AIDS. Tony never responded to my point about "making" the AIDS virus. Had this been a misunderstanding, a question of semantics?
I couldn't help remembering this a year and a half later, in March 1991, when I saw an interview on WorldNet, the USIA's satellite television network, with a chap named Todd Lowenthal, who looked a little like a llama and had an equally exotic job title, something like "Chief for Countering Soviet Disinformation." He used the Segal theory to explain what "disinformation" is. The theory was obviously false, said Lowenthal, because everybody knows that the AIDS virus is "far too complex to have been made by a scientist."
That was exactly what Tony had said. He had also said that if "we" had made it, we would be able to destroy it. But why should this be so?
Segal had dealt with all of the other points Tony brought up, as Tony presumably knew. What I wanted was a rebuttal to Segal, not simply a repetition of the claims that Segal had (seemingly) refuted, including the claim that there is evidence of AIDS before 1979. Segal has consistently argued that this evidence is inconclusive.
Almost a year after Tony's last letter, Segal published a short article in the Rote Fahne (Aug. 25, 1990) responding to the latest claim of evidence for AIDS before 1979. I sent a copy of the article to The Lancet, Science, Nature, and Scientific American, along with a cover letter asking for a response. Not one responded. I also decided to try Tony once more:
Sept. 3, 1990
Dear Tony,
Enclosed is an article by Segal published here re. the Corbitt et al. study published in The Lancet (336, 51f., 1990), which I guess you know is a respected English medical journal. Corbitt et al. claim to show that a British sailor died indisputably of AIDS in 1959. Segal challenges this claim, as he has all the purported evidence of AIDS before 1979, saying they proved only that the sailor was infected with a retrovirus, not necessarily one that causes AIDS, it being now known that many people, perhaps half the population, are carriers of non-pathogenic retroviruses which have nothing to do with AIDS. What do you think?
Segal was in Kassel for a talk in February, and I asked him the same question you ask in your letter of last November: If Visna + HTLV-1 = HIV-1, why doesn't he do an experiment and prove it? He said he would like to but it's not that simple. You need a P-4 laboratory and the virus specimens, and no one is about to make those available to him.
An equally good question is, if he is wrong, why doesn't someone with the requisite facilities (e.g. the U.S. government) do the experiment and prove it? He could be invited as an observer to make sure he was convinced, then forced to retract his allegations.
Just to say it's nonsense, even if nearly everyone who should know something about the matter says it, is not enough. Remember the Warren Commission? Besides, even crazier theories, e.g. the Duesberg idea that HIV does not cause AIDS at all, get plenty of exposure and debate. There is absolutely no reason why Segal has not been discussed with equal fervor in the scientific community – unless that reason is political. This is the sad thing, because it shows that science stops where politics begins.
I guess I have been naive, but I have always wanted to believe that science had a special status and was somehow immune (to use a fateful word) to political pressures. Yes, that really was naive, I'm afraid. No one is more subject to pressure and manipulation than high tech scientists, who can work only in dependence on complicated (and all-powerful) institutional and financial structures.
In short, I have no doubt that – if Segal is right – enough pressure could be brought to bear, all over the world, to keep the lid on. There are plenty of examples of that.
I'm quite aware that having worked at the Frederick Cancer Research Facilities under Gallo, formerly the virus section at Ft. Detrick, you probably know a lot more about these things than you could admit. That too is very sad. I wish you could find some way to tell me what you really know.
All the best,
Mike
Sept. 11, 1990
Dear Mike,
I have never worked under Bob Gallo nor in Gallo's laboratory at the Frederick Cancer Research Facilities. There is also nothing secret or occult. Strike all of that from your mind.
Your apparent obsession with Segal is difficult to comprehend. There are many more important things to do than to rebut a theory that makes no scientific sense. Our focus is on a vaccine for AIDS and other measures that will help eradicate the disease and relieve suffering. This requires all of our attention, energy and skills. Scientific truth lies in reproducible experiments, which automatically means that these must fall in the public domain.
With best wishes,
Antonio L. DiAngelo
Never worked directly under Gallo? He had worked as a consultant to Frederick – that was in Who's Who. Not a word about Segal's article in The Lancet. Nothing secret or occult? Science always in the public domain? Who did he think he was kidding?
I felt there was nothing more I could say to Antonio L. DiAngelo. I wished that just once he had signed his name "Tony."
Tony wasn't the only scientist I talked to. One German researcher said sure, it was possible to mix viruses together. Yes, he had heard of Segal, but he didn't know a lot about it. In fact, he said, only scientists doing AIDS research would be able to answer my questions. But he didn't think Visna + HTLV-1 would make HIV-1. Why not? He couldn't explain.
Another scientist, a woman who is also an environmental activist, said she thought it was possible that the AIDS virus was produced by mistake in a laboratory, most likely in experiments with monkeys, but that Segal's particular theory was wrong. Why? She couldn't explain. She was no longer pursuing the origin of AIDS question. She had butted her head against stone walls for a while and finally just gave up. I was beginning to see what she meant.
I talked with one of the representatives of the Greens in the European Parliament in Strasbourg. He wasn't interested. There were more important concerns than the origins of AIDS, he said. People were more concerned about the dangers of applying genetic engineering to agriculture, for example. Really? How could they expect to find out the truth about agricultural products if we can't find out the truth about AIDS? How did he know what people were concerned about? Here was one person who was concerned – me. What did he know but what he read in the press, just like the rest of us? Segal did not appear in the press (except occasionally in the Rote Fahne), so as far as this supposedly progressive politician was concerned, the origin of AIDS was not a public issue. I thought he might be interested in making it a public issue, but I was wrong.
Segal was scheduled to give a talk at the university in Kassel in September 1990. By then I knew his arguments, and I also knew that the problem for me – as well as for him – was to find someone willing and qualified to debate with him. I called the director of a German AIDS research institute, introduced myself and asked him if he would be willing to answer some questions. He was willing, and friendly enough, but that was all. Our telephone conversation went as follows (again, the name is fictitious):
Hoffmann: Ok, shoot.
MM: Have you heard of a man called Jacob Segal, from Humboldt University in Berlin?
Hoffmann: Yes, I've heard of him.
MM: Well, I'm not a biologist, but the reason I'm calling is that he's coming here to Kassel the day after tomorrow to give a lecture. You probably know that his work is very controversial...
Hoffmann (chuckling): That's putting it mildly!
MM: From what I've heard, he can't even get people to debate with him. That's why I'm calling. He's giving a speech here at the university next week, and I don't know anyone in Kassel involved in AIDS research, but a friend of mine told me you are one of the most competent men in the field, and I wanted to know if you or anybody at your institute could come to Kassel as a kind of counterpoint. Not necessarily to debate with him, but I think it would be good if a different point of view could be presented too.
Hoffmann: I'll tell you, unless Segal has something new, it would be a waste of time. I remember a lecture he gave in Aachen. He claimed the AIDS virus was created in American biological warfare laboratories and set loose in order to get rid of homosexuals and control the overpopulation problem in Africa.
This was wrong, but I didn't correct him. Segal says the virus escaped accidentally, with prisoners who had been inoculated with it in an experiment, in return for their freedom. When no symptoms of disease showed up after six months, they were released prematurely, since no one knew the disease would have such a long incubation period. Some of the ex-prisoners joined the gay scene in New York, whence it spread. Segal has never implied that it was anything but an accident, an experiment gone awry.
But Hoffmann's inaccuracy was interesting. It showed how closely linked the two thoughts are, and how easily Theory A, that AIDS is laboratory product (which Segal endorses), leads to Theory B, that AIDS is biological warfare (which Segal does not endorse). If Theory A is correct, Theory B is at least conceivable.
Hoffmann: Segal's first mistake was that he claimed it happened in 1976. That's completely impossible, from a bio-engineering point of view. Nobody could have spliced genes together with that result then, and I doubt that it's possible today.
He doubts that it's possible? He doesn't know? Has he tried it? If not, how can he be so sure?
Hoffmann: But the most important proof that his theory is absolute nonsense is the fact that we have evidence of AIDS infections long before 1976.
1979, I corrected him silently. That was when the first AIDS case was documented in New York, which Segal still insists was in fact the first case, despite the so-called evidence (which Segal disputes) to the contrary.
Hoffmann: That takes care of Mr. Segal. It's a completely idiotic hypothesis, and I hope that Segal, who has done some reasonable work in other areas, has found something else to spend his time on. Or how do you see it?
MM: I'm not in a position to judge, as a layman. That's just the point. I've read his book and I must say his arguments are plausible, but I have no way to evaluate them scientifically. I do know that he has counterarguments to what you've just said. I can't explain it in detail, but he says what other researchers have considered evidence of AIDS before 1979 is inconclusive, that there may be evidence of retroviruses, but not of AIDS in particular.
Hoffmann: Nonsense. I saw cases myself in the sixties in Africa, even photographed them, and there are blood samples which have been preserved and documented. If Segal still wants to stick to the 1979 in New York thesis, he really ought to hang it up.
MM: He puts a lot of faith in the gene-sequencing analysis or gene-mapping and Chandra's work showing the electro-focusing of the reverse transcription.
I had no idea what I was talking about, but I trusted that Hoffmann did.
MM: Segal says this kind of analysis proves conclusively that the similarity of Visna and HTLV-1 with HIV-1 is so great that it could not have occurred otherwise, that is, naturally – that it must have resulted from gene-splicing. So there we are. He says the degree of similarity proves it beyond the shadow of a doubt, and other scientists say it proves nothing at all. What is the layman supposed to think?
Hoffmann: As far as I'm concerned, Segal is just being stubborn. The whole thing is very far-fetched. Of course you can talk forever about something, but in the scientific world you can't just go to a university somewhere and give a lecture and expect other people to jump to defend themselves or even respond. We have no time for that. Segal's theory is passé. The best you can say is that it was an idea once, a suspicion, but there isn't the slightest proof of it, never has been.
MM: Still, it's a horrific accusation, and I don't say that just because I'm an American and it's my government that's being accused of being responsible for AIDS. I would think someone, not the least the American government, would want to prove him wrong. What he says sounds scientific enough to me, but of course I'm no judge. Aren't there any serious scientific rebuttals to Segal's theory?
Hoffmann: Serious scientists haven't dealt with it for the simple reason that it is ridiculous.
MM: Yes, but it continues to circulate, and if it is nonsense it's not doing anybody any good. I'm not a superpatriot, in fact I'm pretty critical of my government, but I don't want to think of it as responsible for creating AIDS if it's not true. I hope it's not, but I just can't be as sure of that as you are. That's my problem. How can I convince myself that it's nonsense? I need to have a counterargument that makes at least equally good sense. Isn't there some way to prove that he's wrong – by experiment, for example? He says any trained laboratory technician could make HIV-1 out of Visna and HTLV-1 in less than two weeks. Why not try that and see?
Hoffmann: Such nonsense! Look, I have a young biochemist sitting here next to me. Let me repeat that for his benefit. [To his colleague] Segal claims any lab technician could produce HIV-1 from Visna and something else in two weeks.
A loud guffaw could be heard in the background.
Hoffmann (chuckling): He [his colleague] just fell off his chair! Absolutely ridiculous! You know, one thing really irritates me a bit. How can a German university invite someone like this to give a talk? Who's behind it? These are really stupid, completely outdated ideas.
MM: I think someone in the public health office organized it.
Hoffmann: Are you sure it wasn't one of the leftist student groups? You know who publishes his book, don't you – the MLPD, the Marxist-Leninist Partei Deutschlands. Maybe it was the Stasi [East German intelligence]. That's a joke, of course.
MM: I don't know. But why should it matter? This is supposedly a question of science.
Hoffmann: You should look into it, because I have good contacts with the Federal Ministry of Health, and I can tell you that we dismissed the Segal theory from the very beginning as totally absurd. The lecture in Aachen that I attended some years ago was organized by the Greens, whose environmental ideas aren't bad, but they're terribly left.
MM: My problem is simply that I would like for Segal to be wrong, but I can't convince myself of that without counterarguments in some form or other, in a debate or a scientific journal, or whatever. As long as his ideas are not discussed, and as you say simply dismissed out of hand, I can't resolve it in my mind.
Hoffmann: What do your American friends and colleagues think of all this?
MM: They don't even know about it. Segal's book hasn't been published in English.
Hoffmann: Well, that should tell you something. You have to remember that we – at least at my institute – are underfinanced, understaffed, and we have a lot more important things to spend our time on than Mr. Segal's silly theories. We think the best thing is to ignore him completely. You can lose months trying to refute whatever crackpot claims he might make. He has no proof at all, but the other guy, he has to have proof! That stuff about anybody being able to make HIV in the laboratory, for instance. Totally impossible.
Why months? I thought. Segal says it can be done easily, in two weeks, by anybody with access to the component viruses and research facilities. Hoffmann had such access, presumably. He could do the experiment, and if it was negative, it would be good publicity. I could picture the headline: "Hoffmann Proves Segal a Quack – U.S. Government Not Guilty." Wouldn't that be worth a few days' work?
MM: There's also that Pentagon document from 1969. I know that's authentic, because I've seen it. That proves that the government did want to create an AIDS-like virus, and considered it feasible, as early as 1969.
Hoffmann (ignoring this point): I suspect my American colleagues think the same way I do, that the best way to handle such nonsense is to ignore it. Let it play itself out, die a natural death, which it will because there's nothing to sustain it. Just wild hypotheses. That's why he goes to universities like Kassel, which doesn't have a medical school and might have a strong leftist contingent, so he thinks he can get away with it.
Handle it? This didn't sound very scientific. I didn't want him to handle it, I wanted him to refute it, if he could.
MM: That's why I'd like to get someone like you or somebody from your institute to come here and debate with him.
Hoffmann: No, I'm sorry, absolutely not. We really have better things to do. There's a saying: The more water you pour on the wheel, the more it turns. The best thing is just to let Segal run himself out. There are plenty of idiotic theories that can't be scientifically disproved. We can't spend our time refuting every ideologue that comes along. Maybe philosophers have time for that, but we don't. If I refute him it means I take him seriously, and I don't. I think he's a nut.
MM: All right, Professor, I guess I'll just have to see how it goes. I mean, I don't have that much time either. Certainly not enough to try to become a microbiologist at this stage of the game. There must be a better way, but I don't know what it is.
Hoffmann: Why bother with it then? Who's forcing you to go to this lecture?
MM: Well, nobody, of course. I'm just interested. Thank you very much for your time, Professor Hoffmann.
Hoffmann: Not at all.
I was getting pretty discouraged. Another year went by, and I decided to make one more stab at the "science" question. I made up the following questionnaire and sent it to all the AIDS researchers whose addresses I could find:
I am a layman who has been trying for years, without success, to get a straightforward answer to a straightforward question on a matter of science. Hence this survey, which I hope you will help me with, because whatever the results, it should show something.
1) Is it possible to produce HIV-1 or HIV-2 in the laboratory (by manipulating or combining other organisms or substances by gene surgery or other means)?
____ Yes.
____ No.
____ I don't know, because
____ no one has done the work to find out.
____ it is not scientifically possible to find out.
____ the information cannot be divulged for security reasons
____ I have not looked into the question.
____ (other reasons – use reverse side if necessary):
If the answer to 1) is "Yes":
2) With what components?
3) Since what year has this been possible (using either "shotgun" – trial-and-error – methods or more precise methods)?
In any case, bibliographical references and/or comments will be appreciated (use reverse side if necessary):
The information below will be kept strictly confidential.
Name:
Address:
Professional position:
Would you like to receive the results of this survey?
Name and address of others who could respond to this survey:
In April 1992 I received what I expect will be the last reply to my questionnaire, unless I send it out again. It was from an American professor of pharmacology, whom I'll call Professor Smith. I had not sent the questionnaire to him, so someone had forwarded it. Here is my reply to him:
June 6, 1992
Dear Prof. Smith,
Thank you very much for responding to my questionnaire. Your reply is in fact the most important one I have received, and I've been walking around with it now in my briefcase ever since I got it, not quite sure what to do next. Perhaps you can help me.
Let me first tell the results so far (without mentioning names, since I promised not to). Of the couple of dozen people I sent the questionnaire to, 8 people have replied.
5 said "No" (not possible to produce HIV-1 or -2 in the laboratory).
2 (one was you) said "Yes." Another person said "Yes – in theory, but not practical."
The other unequivocal "Yes" came from someone who is apparently "only" a secondary school science teacher, but he is writing a book on the subject and enclosed an extensive bibliography. His answer to "With what components?" was:
HIV-1: Visna, CAEV, BVV + minor component, either from another virus, or picking segments of original human DNA. HIV-2: SIV (SMM) + minor segments picked after selection from human cell culture (evolution in test tube) – the reverse may also be true.
His answer to "Since what year has this been possible?" was:
HIV-1: trial-and-error, since ca. 1970. HIV-2: since the exploration of the SIVs, ca. 1985, by mistake probably earlier.
The "theoretically Yes" answer was from an American researcher and professor, whose answer to "With what components?" was:
One could provide equivalent genes from other retroviruses and then synthesize those unique to HIV.
His answer to "Since what year has this been possible?" was:
(underlining "possible"): "Mid-1980s."
The other 5 respondents – a couple of whom are "heavyweights" in the field (since even I have heard of them) – said "No" categorically, without further comments, except for one person, (professor, MD, public health scientist), who added to his "No":
I'm not a molecular biologist etc. but am virtually certain, from reading and discussions, that HIV-1 and HIV-2 arose from "wild" viruses and that when they arose we did not have the technology to create them. We may however be developing the technology which could allow us to produce "new" or modified dangerous viruses in the future. (But if we use the technology reasonably we can use it against disease.)
I think from these results you can see why your response strikes me as extremely significant. Even if it had been only 1 out of 100, it would have been significant.
What I would like to do now is write back to the other respondents and see if I can elicit a response to what you have said. I will not identify you, of course, unless you wish, but if there is anything you can add to what you wrote on the questionnaire (further remarks, bibliographical references), I would like to include it.
You wrote, in case you don't recall, in answer to "With what components?":
Ribonucleotide triphosphates, enzymes, salts & buffer, RNA synthesizing machine.
In answer to "Since what year has this been possible?," you wrote:
HIV-1 1985; HIV-2 1986 (once the nucleotide sequence of the viruses was known).
I find it very difficult to understand, if this is only a matter of science, why even my little survey has produced such different answers.
I purposely limited my question and treated it as a purely scientific one, because I know that the further questions and implications are highly political and sensitive (to put it mildly). I don't want to ask you to comment on any of that, but if you wish to (just for my information, not for the letter I'm thinking of sending to the other respondents), of course I would be very interested to know your opinion.
I assume that you know what I'm talking about: the question of an artificial origin of AIDS has been around for some time, though ignored by the mass media. There are the recent polio (and earlier smallpox) vaccine theories, the theories of Jakob Segal, John Seale, Robert Strecker, etc. If the viruses cannot be produced artificially now, however, the question of an (accidental) artificial origin some years ago, though it does not disappear, is more speculative. If the viruses can be produced in the laboratory now, as you say they can, the next question is clear: How can one be sure that this capability did not exist prior to 1985-86 (e.g. in secret military research, the results of which can remain unpublished and unknown even in the "scientific community" for years)? (I don't know if you are aware that the DOD wanted, considered it possible, and asked Congress for the money to create an AIDS-like virus – though the term "AIDS" was not used – as early as 1969. I have the documentation if you'd like to see it.)
But as I said, I don't want to ask you to speculate on these questions. My primary purpose is still to get a reasonably satisfying "scientific" answer to the question I have posed. You have said the viruses can be made in the laboratory today, and that is certainly reason enough to wonder why the others say no. No one said they didn't know, that the answer is not yet known, unknowable, etc., although I specifically mentioned these possibilities. So I am left with flatly contradictory opinions by presumably equally qualified experts. Though obviously this may happen on many questions, I don't see how it is possible on this particular question, because it is testable by experiment.
What would be necessary to prove that what you say is correct – which would mean, of course, that the others are wrong? Has anyone actually made HIV-1 or -2 in the lab? Would that be the only incontrovertible proof that it is possible? Would it be difficult? Time-consuming? Legal? Would you need access to controlled substances or special facilities (e.g. a P-4 lab)?
Sincerely,
Michael Morrissey
I did not hear from Professor Smith again.