Peter Duesberg

Peter Duesberg
Berkeley cancer meeting, 2017
Born (1936-12-02) December 2, 1936 (age 87)
Münster, Germany
Alma materUniversity of Frankfurt
Known forOncogene research
AIDS denialism
Scientific career
FieldsCancer
InstitutionsUniversity of California, Berkeley
ThesisFraktionierungen von Proteinen – besonders Enzymen – mit Ionenaustauschern und Molekularsieben <vom Typ Sephadex> (1963)

Peter Heinz Hermann Duesberg (born December 2, 1936) is a German-American molecular biologist and a professor of molecular and cell biology at the University of California, Berkeley. He is known for his early research into the genetic aspects of cancer. He is a proponent of AIDS denialism, the claim that HIV does not cause AIDS.

Duesberg received acclaim early in his career for research on oncogenes and cancer. With Peter K. Vogt, he reported in 1970 that a cancer-causing virus of birds had extra genetic material compared with non-cancer-causing viruses, hypothesizing that this material contributed to cancer.[1][2] At the age of 36, Duesberg was awarded tenure at the University of California, Berkeley, and at 49, he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences. He received an Outstanding Investigator Grant from the National Institutes of Health in 1986,[3] and from 1986 to 1987 was a Fogarty scholar-in-residence at the NIH laboratories in Bethesda, Maryland.

Long considered a contrarian by his scientific colleagues,[4] Duesberg began to gain public notoriety with a March 1987 article in Cancer Research entitled "Retroviruses as Carcinogens and Pathogens: Expectations and Reality".[5] In this and subsequent writings, Duesberg proposed his hypothesis that AIDS is caused by long-term consumption of recreational drugs or antiretroviral drugs, and that the retrovirus known as 'HIV' is a harmless passenger virus. In contrast, the scientific consensus is that HIV infection causes AIDS;[6] Duesberg's HIV/AIDS claims have been addressed and rejected as erroneous by the scientific community.[7][8][9] Reviews of his opinions in Nature[10] and Science[11] asserted that they were unpersuasive and based on selective reading of the literature, and that although Duesberg had a right to a dissenting opinion, his failure to fairly review evidence that HIV causes AIDS meant that his opinion lacked credibility.[11][12]

Duesberg's views are cited as major influences on South African HIV/AIDS policy under the administration of Thabo Mbeki, which embraced AIDS denialism. Duesberg served on an advisory panel to Mbeki convened in 2000. The Mbeki administration's failure to provide antiretroviral drugs in a timely manner, due in part to the influence of AIDS denialism, is thought to be responsible for hundreds of thousands of preventable AIDS deaths and HIV infections in South Africa.[13][14] Duesberg disputed these findings in an article in the journal Medical Hypotheses,[15] but the journal's publisher, Elsevier, later retracted Duesberg's article over accuracy and ethics concerns as well as its rejection during peer review.[16][17] The incident prompted several complaints to Duesberg's institution, the University of California, Berkeley, which began a misconduct investigation of Duesberg in 2009.[18][19] The investigation was dropped in 2010, with university officials finding "insufficient evidence ... to support a recommendation for disciplinary action."[20][21]

In 2021, Peter Duesberg had a stroke that left him with severe aphasia affecting speech, reading and writing, according to his partner.[22]

  1. ^ Duesberg P, Vogt P (1970). "Differences between the ribonucleic acids of transforming and nontransforming avian tumor viruses". Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 67 (4): 1673–80. Bibcode:1970PNAS...67.1673D. doi:10.1073/pnas.67.4.1673. PMC 283411. PMID 4321342. 4321342.
  2. ^ Biography of Peter Duesberg, hosted by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. Accessed 2010-06-11.
  3. ^ Gorman, Sara E. (2021). Denying to the Grave: Why We Ignore the Science that Will Save Us (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press. p. 88. ISBN 978-0197547458.
  4. ^ Lenzer, Jeanne (June 15, 2008). "AIDS "Dissident" Seeks Redemption... and a Cure for Cancer". Discover. Retrieved May 16, 2008.
  5. ^ Duesberg P (March 1, 1987). "Retroviruses as carcinogens and pathogens: expectations and reality". Cancer Res. 47 (5): 1199–220. PMID 3028606.
  6. ^ "The Evidence That HIV Causes AIDS". National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease. Retrieved April 29, 2010.
  7. ^ Cite error: The named reference Kalichman was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  8. ^ Schechter M, Craib K, Gelmon K, Montaner J, Le T, O'Shaughnessy M (1993). "HIV-1 and the aetiology of AIDS". Lancet. 341 (8846): 658–9. doi:10.1016/0140-6736(93)90421-C. PMID 8095571. S2CID 23141531.
  9. ^ Weiss RA, Jaffe HW (June 1990). "Duesberg, HIV and AIDS". Nature. 345 (6277): 659–60. Bibcode:1990Natur.345..659W. doi:10.1038/345659a0. PMID 2163025. S2CID 802158.
  10. ^ Cite error: The named reference Goertzel was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  11. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference Cohen-1994 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  12. ^ Cite error: The named reference Maddox1993 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  13. ^ Chigwedere P, Seage GR, Gruskin S, Lee TH, Essex M (October 2008). "Estimating the Lost Benefits of Antiretroviral Drug Use in South Africa". Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes. 49 (4): 410–415. doi:10.1097/QAI.0b013e31818a6cd5. PMID 19186354. S2CID 11458278.
  14. ^ Nattrass N (February 2008). "AIDS and the Scientific Governance of Medicine in Post-Apartheid Africa". African Affairs. 107 (427): 157–76. doi:10.1093/afraf/adm087.
  15. ^ Duesberg PH, Nicholson JM, Rasnick D, Fiala C, Bauer HH (July 2009). "WITHDRAWN: HIV-AIDS hypothesis out of touch with South African AIDS – A new perspective". Med Hypotheses. doi:10.1016/j.mehy.2009.06.024. PMID 19619953.
  16. ^ Corbyn, Zoë (April 7, 2010). "Editor digs in over Medical Hypotheses reform". Times Higher Education.
  17. ^ Goldacre, Ben (September 11, 2009). "Peer review is flawed but the best we've got". The Guardian. UK.
  18. ^ Miller, Greg (April 16, 2010). "AIDS Scientist Investigated for Misconduct After Complaint". Science.
  19. ^ Cartwright, Jon (May 4, 2010). "AIDS contrarian ignored warnings of scientific misconduct". Nature. doi:10.1038/news.2010.210.
  20. ^ Martin Enserink (June 21, 2010). "Berkeley Drops Probe of Duesberg After Finding 'Insufficient Evidence'". Science - AAAS. Retrieved May 24, 2019.
  21. ^ Bidwell, Allie; Cook, Caroline (June 22, 2010). "Professor Did Not Violate Campus Policy, Investigation Finds". The Daily Californian. Archived from the original on May 11, 2022. Retrieved December 14, 2020.
  22. ^ "Les secrets de " La mafia médicale " : Dénialisme (Radio-Canada)". ici.radio-canada.ca (in French). January 2024. Retrieved January 10, 2024.