SCIENTIFIC CORRESPONDENCE generated from a linear model could be a and Ho's] data is remarkable", note that vmons per day is not defined or function of both the baseline CD4 level Loveday et al. 8 report the use of a PCR­ addressed, nor can it be! No one else has and viral loads. Further studies with larg­ based assay and find only 200 HIV "virion access to either the unapproved drugs or er sample sizes are needed to resolve RNAs" per ml of serum of AIDS patients the branch PCR technology! What is the these discrepancies. - 1,000 times less than Ho and Wei. So benchmark rate for the turnover of CD4 Shenghan Lai, J. Bryan Page, Hong Lai much for the "remarkable concordance". cells in the general population? Departments of Medicine, Peter Duesberg To counter the 42 case studies of Wei et Psychiatry and Epidemiology, Department of Molecular and Cellular al. 1 and Ho et al.2, we at HEAL (Health University of Miami School of Medicine, Biology, University of California, Education AIDS Liason) can provide at Miami, Florida 33136, USA Berkeley, California 94720, USA least 42 people who are western-blot-posi­ Harvey Bialy tive for 'HIV', have low T4 cells, who are Bio/Technology, New York, not using orthodox procedures, and have HIV an illusion New York 10010, USA been healthy for years! On the other 1. Maddox, J. Nature 373, 189 (1995). hand, we can also provide you with hun­ SIR - In an editorial' in the 19 January 2. Ho, D.D. et al. Nature 373, 123-126 (1995). dreds of 'HIV+' people with high T4 cells, 3. Wei, X. et al. Nature 373, 117-122 (1995). issue of Nature, John Maddox invited 4. Duesberg, P. & Bialy, H. Genetica Suppl. (in the press). who were then hospitalized with oppor­ "Duesberg and his associates" to comment 5. Piatak, M. et al. Science 259, 1749-1754 (1993). tunistic diseases! Not to mention the 6. Wain-Hobson, S. Nature 373, 102 (1995). on the "HIV-1 dynamics" papers pub­ 7. Cao, Y. et al. New Engl. J. Med. 332, 201-208 (1995). thousands of AIDS cases without HIV lished the previous week, indicating that 8. Loveday, C. et al. Lancet 345, 820-824 (1995). which were conveniently renamed idio­ these new results should prove an embar­ • Peter Duesberg was offered space in pathic CD lymphocytopenia. rassment to us. Although we do not think Scientific Correspondence for 500 words of We at HEAL maintain that what is that a scientist should be embarrassed for his own choice, but declined. - Editor, called AIDS is no more complicated than pointing out inconsistencies and paradoxes Scientific Correspondence. a recreational drug-fear-medical drug in a hypothesis that have only been report­ disease syndrome which, with the excep­ edly resolved 10 years later, we none­ SIR - The most recent AIDS press tion of acute medical care, is out of the theless prepared a fully referenced, releases published as two "scientific arti­ purview of orthodox medicine. 1 2 approximately 2,000-word critique of the cles" in your magazine • indeed are the F. R. Buianouckas Ho et al. 2 and Wei et al. 3 papers that we most clever and, if possible, the most Department of Mathematics believed met the criteria of "not being deadly yet! Since March 1987, when Dues­ and Computer Science, longer than it needs to be, and pertaining berg first published his critique of retrovi­ Bronx Community College, to the papers at hand" that Maddox set rology3 and his proof that the "AIDS City University, Bronx, out in his widely read challenge. virus" is not sufficient to cause AIDS, the New York 104353, USA Unfortunately, he did not share our AIDS/HIV entrepreneurial gaggle have 1. Wei, X. et al. Nature 373, 117-122 (1995). view and agreed to publish only a radically railed against him both professionally and 2. Ho, D.D. et al. Nature 373, 123-126 (1995). shortened version, and only after he had financially. Rather than test Duesberg's 3. Duesberg, P.H. Cancer Res. 47, 1199-1220 (1987). personally "gone over it with a fine-tooth hypothesis or for that matter fund him to comb" to remove our perceived misrepre­ test his own hypothesis, you change your Toxic shock sentations of the issues. We found these model, which has not saved a single life, to new conditions so totally at variance with suit your own purposes, from HIV kills SIR - The recovery rate of CD4 + T cells the spirit of free and fair scientific debate CD4 cells directly, to HIV kills cells indi­ reported by Wei et al. 1 and Ho et al. 2 in that we could not agree to them. rectly, and now back to the latest direct HIV patients following therapy is remark­ 1 2 Readers of Nature who are interested in kill model of Wei et al. and Ho et al. • ably similar to that observed in another these questions, and feel that they do not Wei et al. 1 and Ho et al. 2 describe a acute clinical condition. We have docu­ need to be protected by Maddox from our viraemia that on administration of certain mented lymphocyte counts and propor­ ill-conceived logic, can find the complete drugs drops exponentially and raises CD4 tions of CD4 cells double-staining for text of our commentary in the monograph counts exponentially, seemingly without a CD45 isoforms in three patients during supplement to the most recent issue of trace of "mayhem". What is this viraemia episodes of toxic shock syndrome and one 4 Genetica • Here we would point out only of billions of RNA particles that can only following toxic shock-like syndrome. that the central claim of the Ho et al. 2 and be seen with an undocumented In these clinically defined conditions, Wei et al. 3 papers - that 105 HIV virions branch-PCR or PCR but not with a func­ bacterial superantigen initially induces per ml plasma can be detected in AIDS tional infectivity test? How do the authors massive T-cell and monocyte activation. patients with various nucleic-acid amplifi­ know that these RNA particles are infec­ There is subsequent apoptosis of the acti­ cation assays - is misleading. The senior tious and not defective? Is it reverse tran­ vated CD4 + cells, during which patients author of the Wei et al. paper has previous­ scriptase activity? Is it some protein that demonstrate a lymphopenia3, followed by ly claimed that the PCR method they used is unique to the quasispecies HIV? The the return to normality of the lymphocyte overestimates by at least 60,000 times tests for HIV are all flawed. What is this count as patients recuperate. The mean 5 the real titre of infectious HIV : free virus? How does one have free virus rate of change in the counts in the first 2 100,000/60,000 is 1.7 infectious HIVs per after immune response? Are not sympto­ weeks of recovery was 2.1, which com­ ml, hardly the "virological mayhem" allud­ matic people with AIDS HIV-positive, pares with 2.0 (ref. 1) and 1.8 (ref. 2). 6 ed to by Wain-Hobson • Further, Ho and a that is, don't they have antibodies against The similarity in rates of recovery sug­ different group of collaborators have just HIV? So what is free virus? gest that this rate has some value as a shown7 that more than 10,000 "plasma The Wei et al. and Ho et al. models do common measure of maximal CD4 T-cell virions", detected by the branched-DNA not account for other probable immune output to the circulation in adults. Slower amplification assay used in their Nature activity and the uniqueness of each indi­ rates may be observed, for instance, in paper, correspond to less than one (!) vidual. Haynes and Fauci showed in 1978 patients following radiotherapy or 4 infectious virus per ml. And infectious that hydrocortisone selectively caused chemotherapy • This rate decreases with units, after all, are the only clinically rele­ CD4 cells to hide in tissue. Indeed, what time; it took one patient 14 months to vant criteria for a viral pathogen. effect do multiple drugs have on CD4 reach a final CD4 + lymphocyte count of 9 3 Finally, in view ofWain-Hobson's state­ cells? The notion of clearance of one bil­ 1.4 x 10 cells cm- • The nature or mech­ ment6 that "the concordance of their [Wei lion CD4 cells per day versus one billion anisms of the brake on this rapid prolifer- NATURE · VOL 375 · 18 MAY 1995 197 .