NEWS AND VIEWS

Media make AIDS wishes come true

A fuss last week about a crop of HIV infections in Birmingham (England) shows British newspapers, but notably the Sunday Times, at their most fickle.

FALSE prophets are well-known to be im­ mati on appears originally to have been enza from an infected partner on a similar mune to reason and are even able to shrug off leaked to the Birmingham Mail by a physi­ occasion. It is no scandal that estimates of evidence that their prophecies are false, usu­ cian frustrated by the lack of legal restraints the risks are still so uncertain: they can be ally by playing on the wishes of their follow­ on the carrier's activities.) derived accurately only from a detailed ers that the truth were otherwise. So it seems It would have been interesting to see knowledge of the sexual behaviour of in­ to be with the motley crew of British news­ how the Sunday Times would have squared fected people, likely to be as reticent as papers which, having fIrst heard of Dr Peter these reports with its earlier stance on HIV, others on that score. Duesberg at the "alternative" conference on but in the event, it escaped the dilemma. By Similarly, there are many other features AIDS at Amsterdam a month ago (see Na­ last weekend, the tabloid newspapers had of the development of AIDS that remain ture 357, 188; 1992), have since embraced worked out that the Birmingham haemo­ poorly understood. Thus it seems now to be his view that the human immunodefIciency philiac had engaged in anal intercourse widely accepted that the pathogenesis of virus (HIV) is an epiphenomenon irrelevant with at least three of the four whom he had AIDS is not yet understood. Infection by to the causation of AIDS and the comforting infected, and the Sunday Times was able to HIV does not quickly lead to the infection of corollary that people have nothing to fear proclaim on its front page that "NEW each susceptible cell, let alone to their rapid from heterosexual intercourse, provided that EVIDENCE CASTS DOUBT ON BIR­ destruction. Instead, immune defIciency may they do not take drugs or otherwise abuse MINGHAM AIDS SCARE". The implica­ take years to develop. That is why people are themselves with chemicals. tion was that unnatural intercourse was looking for mechanisms to account for this Various tabloid newspapers have taken responsible for the Birmingham episode. prolonged response, auto-immune reactions up this dangerous litany, but the most sur­ Really straight heterosexuals might relax. perhaps. (The mere suggestion last year - prising convert to Duesberg's cause is the This really is a shameful way to carry on. see Nature 353,297; 1991 - that such an Sunday Times. (For a time, it seemed that its Even granted that newspapers seek self­ explanation might get Duesberg off the hook editorially independent stablemate The Times consistency, there is no justification for on which he had impaled himself has been was about to follow suit, but that seems putting consistency before correctness in wrongly interpreted as support for every­ mercifully to have been an aberration; ear­ this way. And the plain truth is that there is thing he had been saying.) And who will lier this week, the newspaper was writing no justifIcation for the suggestion that the deny that an understanding of the about the prospects for a vaccine against extra hazards of anal intercourse are novel, pathogenesis of AIDS after HIV infection is HIV based on the use of the pigtail macaque The most recent evidence to this effect is likely to provide the surest route to therapy? as an animal model of the infection.) Over that published three months ago by the Not, it seems, the Sunday Times. Why is the past few weeks, the Sunday Times has European Study Group on Heterosexual it so perverse? The charitable explanation is reported at length on the spurious contro­ Transmission of HIV, which estimated that that the newspaper is responding to the deep versy stirred up by Duesberg, has given him the relative risks of HIV transmission (from feelings of those infected with HIV, who and his supporters a platform from which to men to women) by anal and vaginal inter­ understandably rage at the 'death sentence' declaim and has dealt dismissively with course are in the ratio 5.1: 1.0 (Brit. med. 1. they have supposedly been given. But there objections from people such as Sir George 304, 811; 1992). is a wider constituency, that of those who Caiman, Chief Medical Officer at the UK Earlier estimates of the relative risk are wish that heterosexual intercourse, however Department of Health. lower. For what it is worth, the European unguarded, has been given the relatively Why a serious newspaper should be fol­ study also showed that the overall risk of clean bill of health it enjoyed in, say, the lowing such a line is anybody's guess. In its transmission from men to women (at 20per 1960s. Even the newspaper that shouldered time, specifically that of a previous editor, cent) is twice that from women to men. Risk the thalidomide cause should give some Mr Harold Evans, it won an excellent repu­ factors (for infection by HIV) other than thought to the huge responsibility that it is, tation for investigative reporting. It has also anal intercourse include intercourse during as on this occasion, wrong. successfully championed important public menstruation and whether one or other part­ There have already been other unwel­ causes, notably that the drug thalidomide ner is in a late stage of AIDS. Because the come responses to the Birmingham affair. was negligently put on the British market. fIgures are based on a survey of partnerships The most sinister development is the de­ But it is also known for having begun seri­ lasting, in some cases, for several years, they mand that AIDS should be made a notifIable alizing 'Hitler's diaries' until they were cannot be directly used to derive the risk that disease, which would bring into play the shown to be forged and, more recently, to a single act of sexual intercourse will be legal powers that allow the compulsory trac­ have bought the serial rights to a book infective, which epidemiologists will have ing of sexual partners (for venereal diseases) claiming that the marriage of the Prince and to continue to estimate by consistency with and even quarantine - an administrative Princess of Wales is in trouble, whose pub­ studies such as this. recipe which would do more harm (by dis­ lication can only make matters worse. None of this is at odds with the proposi­ couraging voluntary testing) than good. And But the Sunday Times's prophecy on tion (which Duesberg and the Sunday Times there is the inevitable resurgence of HIV and the likelihood that AIDS will spread have taken to calling the "AIDS hypoth­ homophobia, made the more vivid by the heterosexually seemed last week to have esis"), that HIV infection is the precipitating smug wish-fulfIlment that no harm will come been denied by a counter-example from cause of AIDS. On that view, the infective to heterosexuals from AIDS because they Birmingham, where it emerged that a single routes are sexual intercourse and direct con­ do only what they have always done, and male carrier of HIV - a haemophiliac in­ tamination of the blood by transfusion or also behave 'naturally'. Sadly, the novelty is fected by contaminated factor VIII - had in injection. Evidently, the chance of infection HIV and the prophecy that heterosexuals tum infected at least four women partners, in a single act of intercourse is small, prob­ have nothing to fear from it is false. one of whom had died of AIDS. (The infor- ably less than the chance of catching influ- John Maddox NATURE· VOL 358 . 2 JULY 1992 13