Dr. Bialy at Rockwell has posted another fascinating piece of the AIDS puzzle -- how even the "smart" guys confused association with causation to lead AIDS researchers and the general public down the wrong path.
Analogy: You see a crowd of people. A mini-riot of teenagers. Nothing deadly. Think Saturday Night on Telegraph Ave in Berkeley. There is noise. There is a bit of confusion, but no major violence. A storefront is shattered. Who caused it?
Yes, Bobby, Teddy, Jeff, Chris, Dennis, and David were all there at the site, hangin' out, whistlin' at girls, talkin' trash on the block. They were THERE. That means there is an ASSOCIATION: Teenagers=>Broken window
However, just being THERE, is INSUFFICIENT to establish who actually smashed the window. In fact, it could have been a gaggle of kids who already fled. It could have been an innocent accident.
To establish CAUSATION requires a more sophisticated inquiry as to who actually did what.
Same thing with disease. Your body is sick. You have millions of microbes. That's ASSOCIATION. Finding which microbe (if any) is causing the disease, however, requires a sophisticated scientific inquiry. In fact, it might not be a microbe at all, since many are present when you are healthy. It might be a deficiency in something (Lack Vitamin C => Scurvy)
JUST FINDING A VIRUS IS NOT ENOUGH. Every high school kid knows this.
Rewind to 1984: Gallo found (allegedly) a new virus in 26 of 72 AIDS patients (36%). Is that sufficient to establish CAUSATION? Of course not. Why? Because any person with a brain would ask, What is causing AIDS in the other 46 patients, who DON'T HAVE THE VIRUS?
Yet, Gallo boldly (fraudulently) claimed at press conference that he found the "probable cause" of AIDS (actually Heckler said these words.) Quite convenient, that said virus just happened to be called, Human T-Cell Leukemia Virus III , when old Bob had previously claimed to discover Human T-Cell Leukemia Virus I (1980) and Human T-Cell Leukemia Virus II (1982).
Bob already determined that he was gonna find a virus, preferably his own, before he started looking!
From this original sin, the viral-AIDS hypothesis took off, the virologists closed ranks, (except for 1 courageous fellow!) and they've been endlessly milking the gov't cash cow ever since.
Hank,
Bialy makes a good point that even though it appeared that there was a sexually-transmitted pathogen, the wrong steps were taken in running with that assumption (which it was) and creating public health policy out of tunnel vision.
I still think one of the more bizarre overlooked aspects of this debacle is simply when GRID morphed into AIDS. The press conference was significant, no doubt. But I also think it was an important turning point when GRID became AIDS. GRID was confined to gay men, but when "AIDS" "appeared", it opened up the floodgates!
Posted by: Dan | June 22, 2006 at 03:23 PM
The words "the perfect storm" come to mind.
A gay establishment, a liberal establishment, and a conservative establishment all pulling hard at once looking for a virus. A panic to find an answer.
And now, no matter how badly Gallo gets discredited, an establishment has formed around his initial shakey hypothesis, and they fear to re-examine the founding assumption for fear of what it will bring.
Not one dime for research on any other hypothesis. Tens of billions of dollars, 20+ years...
Posted by: Dean Esmay | June 22, 2006 at 04:07 PM
Hey Dan,
One of the epic tragedies of the time, was the stigma and scapegoating of gay men.
One of my enduring regrets was not speaking up forceful enough on behalf of gays. True, I was only in High School in 1981. And macho male personas ruled the era, including myself. But I wish I woulda been stronger and more broad-minded. Intolerance to gays was, sadly, a general meme at the time --even in blue state, blue city where I went to school.
The sex=gay=death=virus convergence just overwhelmed most people, scientists and politicians included.
And, then, AIDS inc. got smart and started buying off the gay activist groups to join the cause.
Won't let that happen again, my friend. But it may take a decade or so to undo this mess.
I'm patient, though.
HB
Posted by: HankBarnes | June 22, 2006 at 04:09 PM