16 February 1994
Dr. W. D. Hamilton
Department of Zoology
University of Oxford
South Parks Road
Oxford OX1 3PS UNITED KINGDOM
Dear Dr. Hamilton:
Thank you for your letter of 27 January. I have discussed it with Dan
Koshland, and he believes that it would not be appropriate for
SCIENCE to publish it at this time, as we have devoted considerable
space to the topic you address. We recognize that you are superbly
qualified to comment and appreciate the merits of your concern about
getting to the bottom of the AIDS origin hypothesis. However, we
believe that it would be best for the letter to appear in a specialty
journal, such as the Journal of Virology, where it could
stimulate the appropriate researchers to pursue the question, using
PCR and other available modern techniques.
The author of our news pieces, Jon Cohen, and his editors have
received a copy of your letter and are aware of your concerns about
our reporting.
We very much appreciate your thoughtful comments and will keep them
in mind should there be any further developments.
Yours sincerely,
[signed]
Christine Gilbert
Letters Editor
CG:ssl
Polio vaccines and the origin of AIDS
in the subsection on W D Hamilton's rejected submission to Science.
It is located on the website on suppression of dissent.