Dr. Daniel E. Koshland, Jr.
Editor-in-Chief
Science Magazine
1333 H Street NW
Washington,
DC 20005,
USA.
23 February 1994
Dear Dr. Koshland,
Christine Gilbert has written telling me that Science has decided not
to publish a letter that I submitted concerning the Koprowski vs.
Rolling Stone case over AIDS origin and Science's coverage of
this case and its underlying issue. Her letter says that she had
discussed it with you, therefore presumably the decision not to
publish was partly yours. I write to you therefore to protest certain
points and to ask you to reconsider.
As you know the issue in the background here has very wide
ramifications and implications for human safety as well as for the
conduct of science in general. The contention is the possibility that
the AIDS pandemic originated from contaminated vaccines in the early
polio campaign in Africa in the late '50s. You may remember that in
my submitting letter I gave two reasons why Science should very
seriously consider publishing my text or something close to it. These
were that I discussed "(a) threat to the scientific approach to
knowledge [referring Koprowski's resort to a lawsuit aimed to
intimidate authors and publishers away from any hypothesis that might
reflect adversely on his work], and (b) a hypothesis of
potentially enormous importance." The second issue implies of course
that if AIDS did indeed originate in the way suggested, a very
thorough reconsideration of all ways in which medical
procedures can conceivably facilitate zoonosic transfer of diseases
in the future is essential. Bad as it is the AIDS epidemic could be
just a dire warning. No issue currently facing humanity (other than
possibly the reverse danger, overpopulation) can be more serious than
the possibility of starting a disease as deadly as AIDS but with,
say, the infectiousness of 'flu; and yet an event like this is just
what we are inviting if procedures like whole organ transplants from
animals into humans continue without assessment of the zoonosis risks
involved.
Even the prospect of nuclear war cannot match the destructive
potential of such an event. Thus I think you as editor of Science
have a grave responsibility to humanity to see that these issues are
as fairly discussed as is possible. This is certainly not happening
in the way Science is handling this issue so far. I gave numerous
examples of inaccuracies and bias in the letter from Koprowski that
you did publish and which you thenceforth treated as closing the case
scientifically. I tried hard to do so in a way that would cause
Science a minimum of editorial embarrassment. For example I kept
these points in an appendix that was not destined for publication --
including the matter of the appalling proofing of the letter by
Koprowski and/or your staff, seeming to reflect an uncritical haste
to publish anything that might seem to squash the whole issue.
The matter of the poor proofing of the K letter was mentioned in an
apologetic spirit in the letter I received from Christine Gilbert; on
the other hand her letter addressed none of the 12 inaccuracies
that I had pointed out in Koprowski's letter you did publish. It
all makes me wonder how you can dare to have Science leaving its huge
readership with the impression that a hypothesis of such importance
has been squashed when you have no better backing than the Wistar
Institute's extremely flimsy and biased review (not in any case
reported in Science in any detail) plus such an utterly careless
letter from Koprowski.
The hypothesis is certainly not going to go away. In a year or so,
irrespective of what may have come out in the way of more direct
evidence by then, circumstantial evidence that I know is accumulating
about the Central African polio campaign and about the validities and
locations of the earliest AIDS cases is going to be published. This I
think will be enough to make the hypothesis at last be taken very
seriously indeed. I think that various journals are eventually going
to look bad for the way they have handled evidence and submissions
concerning the theory. If it publishes nothing more than the sort of
thing it has run so far, Science is going to be one such journal.
Formerly hostile Nature already shows signs of a change, as with
their publication of a short piece by Brian Martin (Nature 363, 202,
20 May 1993) making my point (a) as applying to this case. There also
seem to be signs that the idea is beginning to be taken seriously in
Lancet, formerly also very hostile. My first step if I get a second
refusal from you will be to adapt my piece so that it reinforces and
adds to Martin's note and then to see if Nature will publish it.
Christine Gilbert seeks to imply that a letter like mine would much
better be published in a journal like J. Virology. I agree that some
particularly appropriate readers could be brought face to face with
the issue in such a journal. However I disagree entirely that such a
journal is appropriate for the points I tried to make. Firstly it is
virtually certain that J. Virol. will not publish anything resembling
my letter. Various texts much more carefully argued and supported on
this issue than my letter have been refused by medical journals
usually with no critique whatever supplied. Most often submissions
are simply ignored. The medical profession and especially its public
health research sides are so set against this hypothesis even being
considered that any tool from compete silence to magisterial innuendo
(e.g. your Koprowski letter) will be used to squelch it at referee
stage.
Secondly publication in such a journal would not be appropriate even
if the journal would accept it when a major point I want to
communicate is (a) as above -- that there is occurring a breakdown of
the normal standards and criteria of science, including this new use
of lawsuits to oppress dissenters from orthodox and
profession-serving opinions.
Lastly I comment that Christine Gilbert's reference to me as
"superbly qualified to comment" must be just a placatory hyperbole on
her part. I would think it obvious that I am not well qualified to
comment on this issue at all. I mentioned my recent scientific
honours in my first letter just to emphasise that I am not a crank
since people who try to publish on this hypothesis are always being
treated as if they were cranks (see Koprowski's letter plus my
critique of it in my first letter; see also Science's various
editorial comments). I am just scientist with common sense plus what
might be called old fashioned standards plus a feeling that
intelligent lay people should be encouraged to participate in
scientific debates, not shut out. Among the standards I support is
one that says that every idea has to be assessed on its rational
merits and quite independently of vested interests, power structures,
reputations and the like. There are innumerable medically oriented
scientists who are far better qualified to comment than I am but,
firstly, they are part of a clique that sees, consciously or
unconsciously, a short term advantage in dismissing the hypothesis in
question because it threatens the underlying prestige of their
discipline, and secondly if they do speak out on the basis of common
sense and what they find they are likely to be actually oppressed by
their hierarchy. This of course has happened in the case of Dr. Eddy
and the discovery of simian virus SV40 originating from the polio
vaccinations, and I could cite others.
Here in my own department I am finding people far better qualified to
investigate or to support than I am who say to me things like: "Well,
I can see the theory may have a case, but I'm afraid I can't touch
any of that: our grant comes from the Medical Research Council . . .
" or "Labs that could test what you want in Britain are all in the
same boat, they all get money from the MRC or drugs companies. I
don't think you are going to find any of them wanting to be testing
an old vaccine with a risk of turning up something. You just have to
accept this is what the AIDS field is like . . . "
Surely you must realise that the development of this sort of
situation in science is terrible -- literally terrible for all
mankind. Thinking only of the narrow escape in the SV40 case, leave
alone of the possibly worse and determinedly underinvestigated case
of AIDS, anyone should see that the situation ought to be terrifying
us. Those scientists who are best placed to do so ought help to
combat it.
Yours sincerely
[signed]
Professor W.D. Hamilton.
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.