duct".(13) The final draft report of the OSI, completed in January 1992, was immediately criticised by the Richards Panel as well as Senator Dingell. This led to a review of the OSI report by the Office of Research Integrity (ORI), which found Gallo guilty of scientific misconduct. Nonetheless, the scientific misconduct is said not to "negate the central findings of the [1984 Science] paper".(13,14) In other words, despite the above findings, at present, it is still accepted, as Gallo and his colleagues concluded, "The results presented in our four papers provided clearcut evidence that the aetiology of AIDS and ARC was the new lymphotrophic retrovirus, HTLV-III"(15) [ARC=3DAIDS related complex]. Although the findings of the Gallo investigation are of considerable importance, in what follows, with few exceptions, we will consider that there were no "differences between what was described in the paper and what was done". However, the data will be critically analysed with regard to the following: 1. Whether the experimental method described constitutes irrevocable evidence of viral isolation; 2. Whether the authors have presented evidence proving a causal role for HIV in AIDS. To facilitate this analysis it may be useful to consider what is generally accepted as retroviral isolation. Retroviral Isolation Peyton Rous (16) is credited with the discovery and isolation of the first retrovirus. In 1911 he was able to repeatedly induce tumours in a particular breed of chickens by means of tumour derived, cell free filtrates. It is instructive to repeat Rous' own thoughts on his observation: "The first tendency will be to regard the self-perpetuating agent active in this sarcoma of the fowl as a minute parasitic organism. Analogy with several infectious diseases of man and the lower animals, caused by ultramicroscopic organisms, gives support to this view of the findings, and at present work is being directed to its experimental verification. Bu...
