Friday, 10 March 2006

Dear John,

Robert Gallo MD, Nathan Geffen, Gregg Gonsalves, Richard Jefferys, Daniel R. Kuritzkes, MD, Bruce Mirken, John P. Moore PhD, and Jeffrey T. Safrit have attempted to rebut the article entitled Out of Control: AIDS and the Corruption of Medical Science by Celia Farber in the March 2006 issue of Harper's Magazine. The rebuttal is given at http://www.actupny.org/reports/denial_ErrorsInFarber.pdf

They claim that there are fifty six errors noted in the table.

In my opinion the rebuttal by Gallo et al. is not very effective. The introductory part involves a lot of name calling and impugning of their opponent's honesty. This kind of a beginning is very impolite and uncharitable. One should always concede the possible good will and honesty of one's opponents in a rational debate. Then one can demolish the opponents' arguments by their own statements as well as statements from others.

In the first box of the first table of the rebuttal, Gallo et al. claim that Farber's statement that a pregnancy can cause a false positive HIV indication is misleading. But right away they also concede that two tests are needed.

In the second box they claim that the statement that a test called PACTG 1022 which gave antiviral drug to poor pregnant ladies to test the toxicity of the drug probed the “outer limits of bearable toxicity” is misleading. An ordinary observer would think that this statement is not misleading but self evident, since at least one subject apparently died from the experiment.

With two such non-starters under their belts, I don't think that Gallo and company succeed in discrediting the Farber article.

But this article will give the public the chance to judge between the latest positions of the two scientific groups that have been going after one another hammer and tongs for years. I hope that a Congressional Committee or the Pontifical Academy of Sciences or some other eminent disinterested body will look into the whole thing.

This topic is very relevant to the liability of the Catholic Church, since many Catholic hospitals, orphanages and nursing homes are involved with HIV research and treatment. After so many years of controversy on this topic, I cannot think that ignorance of the situation will be a convincing excuse if the harmfulness of the antiviral drug regime is finally accepted as valid.

Best regards,

Frank Kelly
President
The Catholic Association of Scientists and Engineers