AIDS Denialism in the Courts: Science is a Better Defense than Stupidity

The news below makes an important point about the type of legal cases that AIDS Denialist Clark Baker targets for his Office of Medical and Scientific Justice (OMSJ). There are far better legal defenses than AIDS denialism for those accused of HIV-related crimes. Psychopaths aside, no one infected with HIV wants to infect another person. Failure to disclose HIV is a serious consequence of the stigma and discrimination that people living with HIV encounter. People with HIV may also fail to disclose when they believe that they are no longer infectious and use condoms. Reasonable people can differ regarding these dilemmas and their implications of HIV disclosure. What is not reasonable or even rational is to claim that no harm can come from failing to disclose because HIV does not cause AIDS, HIV tests are invalid, or some nutty conspiracy theory. Everyone accused of a crime deserves a competent defense. It looks like Canada is on the right track toward dealing with this issue. (Thanks to Truthy for the tip)

Canada Supreme Court Softens HIV Disclosure Rules

Wall Street Journal Law Blog

By Joe Palazzolo

People with low levels of HIV have no legal obligation to disclose their condition to sexual partners as long as they use a condom, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled Friday.

From the ruling, authored by Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin: The court, in a 9-0 decision, said a low viral load combined with condom protection doesn’t create “a significant risk of serious bodily harm.”

A significant risk of serious bodily harm is established by a realistic possibility of transmission of HIV. On the evidence before us, a realistic possibility of transmission is negated by evidence that the accused’s viral load was low at the time of intercourse and that condom protection was used. However, the general proposition that a low viral load combined with condom use negates a realistic possibility of transmission of HIV does not preclude the common law from adapting to future advances in treatment and to circumstances where risk factors other than those considered in the present case are at play.

The court considered two separate cases, from Manitoba and Quebec. The court ruled 14 years ago that people with HIV had to disclose their condition to sexual partners or face a charge of aggravated sexual assault, which carries a maximum life sentence. Prosecutors from both provinces argued that people with HIV must inform their partners regardless of the risk.

In the U.S., more than 30 stateshave laws that make it illegal for people to not tell sexual partners whether they are HIV-positive.

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AIDS Denier Clark Baker invades the US Military Justice System

I posted earlier that AIDS Denialist and LA Private Investigator Clark Baker is focusing his attention on the US Military justice system. Baker’s storefront business, the Office of Medical and Scientific Justice (OMSJ) is paid by US taxpayers to bring AIDS denialists to the court.

How are AIDS Denialists used as experts in legal cases?

According to the defense attorneys involved in these cases, denialist testimony concentrates on HIV testing, diagnosis and treatment. Court petitions show that their expertise is needed to explain sample processing, the use of testing equipment, interpretation of test results, and dozens of other factors that are necessary to establish whether someone is or is not infected with HIV.

AIDS Denialists testify under oath that people living with HIV infection who are accused of having unprotected sex without disclosing their HIV status cannot possibly be guilty of endangering anyone because HIV does not cause AIDS. And even if HIV does cause AIDS, HIV tests are invalid and cannot be used to diagnose HIV infection.

The defense attorneys themselves are not buying into the OMSJ story. But as one of them told me, if it can get their guy off they will use it. 

OMSJ is not about the truth. Clark Baker is paid to deliver doubt.

Defense attorneys contract Baker because they have been convinced that AIDS deniers can raise doubt, even if based on lies, pseudoscience, and conspiracy theories. Anyone who has listened to AIDS Denialists knows all too well that they can raise doubt. 

And it gets worse when prosecutors call true experts, allowing the AIDS Denialists to create the illusion of a scientific debate.

Is AIDS denialism a competent defense?

There is not a single case where AIDS Denialists actually accounted for an acquittal or dismissal. Despite their trying, AIDS denialists in courts have failed in the US, Canada, Europe, and Australia.

The military case that Clark Baker boasts winning was actually thrown out of court. People close to the case have told me that the judge’s ruling had nothing to do with OMSJ testimony delivered by Nancy Turner Banks and Rodney Richards. In fact there were technical factors regarding the alleged assault that resulted in the dismissal.

In another military case, the accused was found guilty after OMSJ experts testified. Not surprisingly, Baker does not have much to say about this case.

US Taxpayers are funding OMSJ in Military Courts

In the Military Justice System, the US government is responsible for both prosecuting the accused and providing a sound defense. That means the prosecution has to ensure that the case is properly tried. Because the Military is responsible for both prosecuting and defending the accused, they are required to clear defense experts and approve their cost to taxpayers.

That is why the Army has required the defense to use Army experts in cases involving OMSJ. (see post below for Baker’s whining about it) And by the way, those Army experts are actually true experts who are very helpful in making the AIDS Deniers of OMSJ look like idiots. The true experts will not lie under oath. Of course, when experts on the same side do not agree it can cause even more confusion and potentially more doubt.

As a matter of military due process, service members are entitled to expert assistance and the military defense has the resources of the government at its disposal to pay for this assistance. The basis for the requests comes from cases such as US v. Garries. It is understandable that the defense has a right to government-funded expert assistance. And at the same time the government has the responsibility not to waste its funds on cranks, quacks and frauds. Hence, the OMSJ experts are most often not accepted as experts and not allowed to testify. 

What's in it for OM$J? 

Baker and OMSJ act as the agents in this theatre of the absurd. The $3500 that is charged for pre-trial consultation goes to Baker. If the AIDS denialist expert testifies, Baker gets another $400+ per hour + travel + fees.

In my previous blog post on OMSJ (see below), I discussed David Rasnick and Rodney Richards. I only mentioned Nancy Turner Banks briefly without much detail. She seems to be on the witness / consultants list for all of these OMSJ Military cases. My previous post raised questions about her perceptions of reality. Here is a more complete accounting.

Nancy Turner Banks received an MD from Harvard in 1978 and a Masters of Business Administration in the area of Finance in 1996. Her most recent professional appointment was as a consultant physician in private practice of Obstetrics and Gynecology in Nyack, New York. She has never held an academic appointment and she has only published one work -- Her self-published book entitled  AIDS, Opium, Diamonds and Empire, the Deadly Virus of International Greed, published by Universal in 2010.  According to Dr. Banks, she “tells the dramatic story of a financial ideology that is damaging to everything that it means to be human. It is the story of a long running global conspiracy and business model that can be traced back to the British East India Company that places profits over people. In the end, it is the story of hope and how we can regain our sanity and our health in a world gone mad.”

In reality, her ideas are firmly rooted on AIDS denialism. This is not surprising given that she is a long-term member of the Rethinking AIDS Society. Nancy Turner Banks believes that AIDS is a conspiracy between secret government agencies, the CDC, and pharmaceutical companies. But what is unique about Nancy Turner Banks is that she includes the DeBeers Mining Company in her conspiracy. These forces are believed to conspire to kill blacks and profit from HIV. To build her case, she cites Andrew Carrington Hitchock’s 2006 book ‘The Synagogue of Satan’ and Eustace Mullins’ ‘The New History of the Jews’.

If you are not familiar with Andrew Carrington Hitchcock, here is a sample of his views.

“Hitler had been doing phenomenally well in turning his country around economically by breaking with the Jewish international bankers and trading by barter

Hitler simply issued what money was needed on the authority of the German Government, which was backed by the productivity of the German labour force, and not the empty promises of Jewish international bankers

The citizens of Germany were able to make Germany the most powerful and prosperous state in Europe in only a seven year period

The Jews could not let this continue as they knew that it would spell the death of their debt driven money system and so World War 2 starts

This is not a war between Germany and the Allies, it is a war between Germany and the Jewish money power”

Nancy Turner Banks herself is a regular on the anti-Semitic radio program ‘The French Connection’. Banks therefore is a rare find – a blend of genocidal conspiracy theories, AIDS denialism and a clear link to Holocaust Denial.

Nancy Turner Banks is at the center of the OMSJ defense team.

I think that says it all.

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AIDS Denialism in the Court: Clark Baker for the Defense

Clark Baker with the late Kari Stockely who
died of AIDS after falling into AIDS denialism

Clark Baker and his crock business venture, the Office of Medical and Scientific Justice (OMSJ) are back at it. Clark and his team of fake HIV experts are infesting the US Military Justice System with AIDS Denialism testimony.

The cases that Baker targets are tragic -- typically involving HIV positive people who are accused of exposing others to HIV without disclosing their status. Failure to disclose HIV is a complicated and serious issue. No one has the right to knowingly expose another person to a life threatening disease. But we live in a society that has made it enormously difficult to disclose HIV status. AIDS stigma has not gone away. People living with HIV face rejection, discrimination, and even violence when they disclose. They have to deal with disclosure issues every day. When accused of a crime for failing to disclose HIV, they deserve a competent defense.

So it may seem hard to believe that defense attorneys would employ the AIDS Deniers at OMSJ.

In recent cases, Baker and the gang have called into question the reliability of Elisa and Western Blot tests. You know, the package insert says a single test is not diagnostic;  the tests cross-react to all sorts of antibodies; clinical algorithms are circular; PCR is not diagnostic; RNA is not the virus; there is no gold standard for testing HIV antibodies; if a lab tech dilutes the specimen wrong everyone tests positive; HIV diagnosis is a sham. Blah, blah, blah. Nothing we have not heard before.

But when unchallenged by real science, the words of a fake expert can confuse a jury and raise reasonable doubt.

When unexposed as crocks, the AIDS Deniers can easily fool people into thinking they are scientists.

Who are the OMSJ experts?

Looks like anyone listed as a member of Rethinking AIDS Society can sign-up. In the case I am most familiar with there were three OMSJ experts:

Rodney Richards -- worked in biotech until around 1992. He has been an AIDS Denier since seeing Peter Duesberg give a talk around that same time. Since then he has been sort of self-employed. He has never published anything in a peer reviewed journal as first author. In fact, it seems he has never written anything at all. Even his Masters Thesis and Doctoral Dissertation were published with his Major Advisor writing the papers and publishing as lead author. He relies on package inserts and technical manuals from  the testing kits for his claim that the tests are invalid. For example, that a positive Western Blot result 'presumes' the presence of HIV. This tactic can work well on the witness stand when unchallenged by a true expert.

Nancy Banks --  has never worked anywhere relevant to AIDS. Amazingly, she made it through Harvard medical School and then actually treated patients as a Gynecologist. She has never worked in research and, at least according to her CV, has not worked anywhere since the year 2000.  She has no peer reviewed, or even non-peer reviewed papers of any kind. But she has written a book called AIDS, Opium, Diamonds, and Empire: The Deadly Virus of International Greed, in which she exposes the vast conspiracy of Jews who run the pharmaceutical industry and control the media and Federal Government to kill Africans with toxic poisons. She is a rare bird - both an AIDS Denier and Holocaust Denier. Her current whereabouts are unknown.

David Ransick -- best known as Peter Duesberg's sidekick, has never published on AIDS because of a conspiracy to keep him silent. He has never done research because the government is against him. To this day he claims that the CIA is following him. He was the Scientific Director for German vitamin entrepreneur Mathias Rath -- both found guilty of conducting illegal clinical trials in South Africa. He is most notorious for serving on the infamous AIDS panel of former South African President and AIDS Denialist Thabo Mbeki.  Rasnick claims to have been a visiting scholar at University of California Berkley, but the University says otherwise. On Rasnick's CV, he boasts three failed business attempts, no academic appointments and not much else.

OMSJ Experts are paid $400 per hour per 'expert'. The actual cost breakdown looks like this...

Expert Consultation on documents and records $350/hour
Expert dispositions and testimony $400/hour
Travel paid at standard per diem rates
Travel time $350/hour

Keep in mind that in Military cases these are tax dollars.

I was fortunate to have been called as an expert in a recent OMSJ case.  I will not write about the case itself out of respect for the US Army, the Court, prosecution team, and victims.

I was not called as an expert on AIDS.

I was asked to consult as an Expert on AIDS Denialism because of OMSJ's involvement.

Richards and Banks were at first going to be called to testify on the questions surrounding HIV as the cause of AIDS, testing reliability etc. I testified at a preliminary hearing regarding their views. association with Rethinking AIDS, scientific backgrounds, and connection to AIDS Denialism.

Subsequently, Richard and Banks were not asked to testify at trial.

Rather, on trial day Clark Baker showed up with David Rasnick. AIDS Denialist blogger and 'freelance journalist' Teri Michaels was also present to take notes and chronicle the events.

Clark may not have been feeling well the two days I was in court. He seemed pretty out of it. His eyes were closed most of the time. At times he was definitely asleep. But at other times his eyes were just closed while he shook his leg and coughed quite a bit. In any case, he seemed pretty out of it. Maybe a combination of jet lag and a bad cold? Or perhaps this was Clark's 'normal' state. Hard to tell.

Rasnick, on the other hand, slept through the afternoon on my first day and the morning of the second day. I mean the man was taking some serious Z's.  He did testify, but his expertise was limited to antibody testing. He could not discuss anything else, including PCR, which seemed to sadden him. He was allowed to testify as an expert because he worked at Abbott Labs in 1978.

On the stand Rasnick spoke of how his minority views on AIDS have been silenced by the establishment. He was not sure what journals he had published in that were or were not peer reviewed. He claimed letters and commentaries as peer-reviewed articles. He claimed to be completely unaware of any charges being filed against him in South Africa. He was surprised to find the verdict against him in the case documents -  said he had no idea about it. He said he worked with Rath but was uninvolved in any clinical trials.

Rasnick went on to explain how HIV testing is completely unreliable. When asked about statements made by previous real experts on the stand, Rasnick seemed unaware of what they had said. I suppose because he was sleeping during their testimony.

It was remarkable to see OMSJ deliver crocks and cranks who will actually spew their crazy talk under oath.

I will post updates from the AIDS Deniers and anything public that comes out of this case.  Clark Baker has already started to fill in his Facebook Friends at the Rethinking AIDS Society.

June 29, Rethinking AIDS Facebook page.
(Click on the image to enlarge)

• 14 hours ago · 1
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  Clark Baker unfortunately,, the defendant was convicted on all charges. This is what happpens when the Army forces OMSJ to use Army experts who work in the same office (MHRP) with the prosecution experts. Defense attorney Phil Cave said that there is no way that the conviction reflects negatively against OMSJ in any way. Dr. Rasnick did an outstanding job.
  

  13 hours ago · 1

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AIDS and Climate Change: Are All Denialists Created Equal?

A Cabal of Bankers and Sister Souljah

By Stephan Lewandowsky
Winthrop Professor, School of Psychology, University of Western Australia
Posted on 9 September 2012

One of the many adverse consequences of knee-jerk science rejection is the voluminous noise generated in response to certain events, such as the recent publication of my paper on rejection of science and conspiracist ideation. Whenever baseless accusations are launched, whether against me or other scientists, this detracts attention from other potentially substantive issues.

My inbox has been overflowing with messages relating to my paper, to the point where I can no longer guarantee a personal response to each message. Some emails raise good points and substantive scientific issues. Likewise, the comment stream on my earlier posts contain some interesting points, and I apologize for not being able to engage with the comments to the extent that I would like—I am however monitoring them so I can make a note of important insights.

I will endeavour to take up those substantive issues here as time permits. I consider the following points to be particularly worthy of discussion in connection with my forthcoming paper:

The distinction between conspiracist ideation and meritorious criticism.

Outlier detection and interpretation of extreme responses.
The role of structural equation modelling and how it differs from Excel cross-tabulation.
Details of the methodology and the supplementary online material.

I look forward to posting on those issues (roughly in the above order) in the near future.

I would do so sooner if my time weren’t also occupied with other, comparatively trivial matters, such as the identity of those “skeptic” bloggers whom I contacted for my study. I have several phone conversations scheduled for tomorrow, Monday, W.A. time, with the ethics committee at my university. I will report on the outcome as soon as a decision has been finalized.

I want to offer some further thoughts on the crucial notion of “triage”, that is, the separation of an intellectual signal from the noise of the echo chambers:

One must differentiate between the organized purveyors and pushers of science denial on the one hand, and the “consumers” of such denial on the other. While the former legitimately attract moral scorn because their conduct causes much human pain, the latter are in a very different category. This distinction can be brought into sharp focus by considering AIDS denial: The purveyors of pseudo-scientific nonsense who convinced South Africa’s President Mbeki that antiretroviral drugs were “racist” medicine deserve little other than moral contempt. Their actions have killed—330,000 people in South Africa alone, based on the peer-reviewed literature—and their actions continue to kill.

The sick and desperate people who turn to the purveyors of denial to deal with their tragic illness, by contrast, deserve not contempt but compassion, however ill-informed and counter-productive their actions may have been. The triage between the perpetrators and the victims of science denial is, alas, frequently very difficult and I can only highlight that dilemma without being able to resolve it.

In this context, it is of interest that my forthcoming paper on the rejection of science found a stronger link between conspiracist ideation and the rejection of sciences other than climate science (including rejection of the link between HIV and AIDS). To date, however, this fact has been overshadowed by the eager self-immolation of the climate-denial community, who has seen fit to respond to my paper with more conspiracist ideation than my modest survey could have ever uncovered.
There are subtle indications that even among climate “skeptics” a penny has dropped. Ardent “skeptics” suddenly recognize the need to address their own fringe. This is best illustrated by the moves of Mr. Andrew Bolt, a right-wing blogger and Murdoch columnist, who commands a large audience in Australia despite his high-profile conviction for racial vilification.

Mr. Bolt has referred to me variously as a global warming evangelist or smearer. Despite those obvious failings, Mr. Bolt publicly distanced himself from the “Galileo Movement.” The Galileo Movement is an Australian climate-denial outfit that variously reminds me of Monty Python and Fox News.

Although initially listed as one of their "advisors", together with other practicing scientists such as Australia's most famous shock jock, Mr. Bolt discovered that the Movement's views about climate science comprise an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory involving a “cabal” of bankers who strive to dominate the world via carbon trading (or something like that, I apologize if I have not penetrated the full nuances of this theory).

If even Mr. Bolt is concerned about anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, then we have arrived at a Sister Souljah moment for climate denial.

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Montagnier Joins Mullis in the Nobel Prize Crackpot Club

Nobel laureate joins anti-vaccination crowd at Autism One

By Steven Salzberg for Forbes magazine

If you’re reading this from anywhere but Chicago, you just missed the Autism One conference, which ends today. This conference, run by Jenny McCarthy and Generation Rescue, purports to tell parents “the truth” about autism.

The conference is a veritable festival of unproven claims, offering a powerful but false message of hope to parents who are desperately searching for new treatments for their children. It’s also a nexus for anti-vaccinationists, who run special seminars educating parents about how to get vaccine exemptions so that they can enroll their unvaccinated children in public schools.

A look at the presentations reveals that rather than presenting “the truth,” one speaker after another is making unsupported, unscientific claims and then offering their own special therapy. The one thing that most of these presentations have in common is that the speaker is making money from selling their so-called treatments. For example, Anat Baniel offers her self-named “Anat Baniel method” and is promoting it through ads in the conference program. Other speakers are offering special diets, hyperbaric oxygen therapy, and in perhaps the most damaging treatment, Mark and David Geier’s chemical castration therapy. Mark Blaxill is there, still pushing the thoroughly disproven link between mercury and autism, and hawking his book on the topic.

The other major theme of the conference is conspiracies: how the government, big pharma, and the scientific establishment are all conspiring to hide “the truth” about autism, which the speaker will reveal to the audience. Coincidentally, many of the speakers also offer treatments, for a fee.

This year’s speakers include Jenny McCarthy and Andrew Wakefield, as usual, but also a new entry: Luc Montagnier.

Jenny McCarthy has been a leader of the anti-vaccine movement for over a decade. She’s a former Playboy playmate and MTV host, with no medical qualifications whatsoever, who is convinced that vaccines caused her son’s autism. She’s been spreading her anti-vaccine message very effectively, with particular help from Oprah Winfrey and Larry King, who gave her prime television exposure countless times. Oprah even offered McCarthy her own show, until McCarthy ditched Oprah for NBC.

Andrew Wakefield, the thoroughly discredited doctor who falsified data in order to push his false hypothesis that autism is caused by the MMR vaccine – whose medical license was revoked in the UK, and whose famous 1998 paper on autism and vaccines was retracted after it was shown to be fraudulent – claims that his talk ”offers solutions [that] will be ignored by those in power and the more dire of its predictions will result.” Too bad I missed that one.

It’s no surprise that Jenny McCarthy and Andrew Wakefield, leaders of the anti-vaccine movement, are speaking at AutismOne. Much more surprising is the presence of Nobel laureate Luc Montagnier, co-discoverer of the link between the HIV virus and AIDS. What is he doing at this festival of pseudoscience?

Well, apparently Montagnier has gone off the deep end into pseudoscience himself. He claims that his new group, Chronimed, has discovered in autistic children

“DNA sequences that emit, in certain conditions, electromagnetic waves. The analysis by molecular biology techniques allows us to identify these electromagnetic waves as coming from … bacterial species.”

What the heck? In what seems to be a desperate effort to stay relevant, Montagnier is promoting wild theories with little scientific basis, and now he is taking advantage of vulnerable parents (see his appeal here) to push a therapy of long-term antibiotic treatment for autistic children.

This is truly a wacky theory. Montagnier hasn’t been able to publish this in a proper journal, for a very good reason: it’s nonsense. He claims that quantum field theory – an area of physics in which he has no qualifications – explains how electromagnetic waves emanating from DNA can explain not only autism, but also Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, Lyme disease, and rheumatoid arthritis. Montagnier makes these claims and more in a self-published paper that heposted on arXiv.

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Death by Denial: Maria Papagiannidou dies of AIDS

"It is said that a cure for 'AIDS' cannot be found, but I was 'HIV-positive' for 10 years, had full-blown 'AIDS' for another 12 years and have now become perfectly fine again without any doctor's intervention or medication."
Maria Papagiannidou


Word has spread that Maria Papagiannidou  has died. She became hooked into AIDS Denialism and paraded about by her pals at The Rethinking AIDS Society. She gained media attention in her home country of Greece when she proclaimed AIDS was a myth. She chronicled her denial in her book Goodbye AIDS! Did you ever exist?
Ms. Papagiannidou is the most recent in a long succession of AIDS Deniers who have died of AIDS. They made the misinformed choice not to take antiretroviral medications; dying earlier than they could have if treated. 
Once again, the leaders of AIDS Denialsim -- David Crowe, Peter Duesberg, David Rasnick, and Henry Bauer are living to very (very) ripe old ages, while those who listen to them die young. 
The leaders of Rethinking AIDS have much in common - they are all crazy old white men.
Those who listen to them and die have much in common too -  they are young, men and women, racially and ethnically diverse, HIV positive, and refuse treatment. 
Fortunately, the AIDS Deniers are becoming increasingly irrelevant. 
I would like the old guys at Rethinking AIDS to hold one more AIDS Denier's conference before they completely disappear. I want one more chance to say Goodbye AIDS Denialists! Did you ever exist?

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AIDS Denialist Marco Ruggiero: Destined for a Duesbergian Career

Inquiry launched over AIDS contrarian's teaching

Academic freedom should not be misused to spread theories that opponents say lack scientific evidence.
Zoë Corbyn  Nature News 19 March 2012

The University of Florence has launched an inquiry into the teaching activities of an academic who assisted on a course that denies the causal link between HIV and AIDS, and supervised students with dissertations on the same topic.

The Italian university's internal 'special commission' will examine the "teaching behaviour and responsibility" of molecular biologist Marco Ruggiero, a university spokesman told Nature.

The move follows a letter to the institution's rector, Alberto Tesi, by an Italian campaign group called the HIV Forum, which represents people infected with HIV and others concerned about the disease. It calls on him to disassociate the university from the "science and activities" of Ruggiero, who, the group says, is "internationally known" for denying the widely accepted link between HIV and AIDS, and promotes a potential cure for HIV involving an enriched probiotic yoghurt for which there is no proven evidence.



Tesi replied on 29 February to announce the special commission. This "will examine whether professor Ruggiero's conduct complies with the institutional guidelines on teaching contents and adherence to the objectives of the official curriculum of biological sciences", says university spokesman Duccio Di Bari, who adds that any misconduct would be dealt with internally. The commission comprises Elisabetta Cerbai, the university's vice-chancellor for research; Paola Bruni, the dean of the School of Science; Sergio Romagnani, an emeritus professor and expert in immunology; and Massimo Benedetti, who is responsible for university legal affairs. They will hold hearings behind closed doors.

Death denial

The investigation is the latest twist in the fallout from a paper published in December in the Italian Journal of Anatomy and Embryology (IJAE) by researchers including Peter Duesberg, an academic at the University of California, Berkeley, well know for denying the link between HIV and AIDS. The paper, which challenges estimates of HIV-AIDS death tolls in South Africa, has received heavy criticism from scientists, who have questioned how it could have passed peer review, and has led two members of the IJAE editorial board to resign in protest (see 'Paper denying HIV-AIDS link sparks resignation). That Ruggiero was one of the paper's nine co-authors prompted the HIV Forum to write to the rector.

The forum cites two student dissertations mentored or co-mentored by Ruggiero that argue against the consensus that HIV causes AIDS. “Most available evidence does not support a causative role for HIV in AIDS,” they both conclude.

The HIV Forum also refers to a short elective course, consisting of two half days, which Nature understands ran twice in the 2010/11 academic year, and which Ruggiero collaborated on, entitled: ‘The revolution of immunotherapy: prospects for the treatment of cancer and AIDS’. According to the description, the course teaches “the role of HIV in the pathogenesis of AIDS; association but not causation”.

“What devastating effects can such false teaching have on future physicians and their patients?,” asks the HIV Forum, stressing that although academic freedom is fundamental in teaching and research, it should not be misused to spread theories that they say are "lacking any scientific evidence”.

“We hope the Commission will be scientifically rigorous and we hope that it will state that the best way to protect academic freedom is to teach according to the worldwide recognized scientific method,” says a forum spokesperson.

Parallel lines

Ruggiero, whose supporters have also written to the rector, says he has always operated with scientific integrity and is confident he will be able to give any explanations that the committee asks for. He draws parallels with an inquiry the University of California held two years ago into the conduct of Duesberg, which resulted in no charges.

“Florence is famous for having been the city of Galileo Galilei, the worldwide recognized symbol of the predominance of scientific freedom over dogmas. I am convinced that freedom of teaching and research is a stronghold of our university system,” he says. He adds that the student dissertations and the course were approved by the university.

The commission was welcomed by Fabio Marra, a professor of medicine at the university, who says the institution must shed “full light on the events”.

“I believe that every researcher has the right to submit his or her work through peer-reviewed journals, no matter how little credibility that data may have,” Marra says. “What is not acceptable is that personal theories, that are not supported by the weight of evidence, are taught to students that do not yet have the skills to form an independent opinion and to discriminate what they are being taught from what the bulk of the literature has shown.”

The special commission is due to report by 15 April.
Nature doi:10.1038/nature.2012.10250

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