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Letter by Serge Lang
23 January 1995

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To the cc list for the Gallo file:

Robert Gallo, Council of the National Academy of Sciences, Suzanne Hadley, John Dingell, Bruce Alberts, Paul Doty, John Edsall, John Cairns, Fred Richards, Bob Shulman, Kenneth Ryan, Gerald Fischbach, Mark Ptashne, Gerald Koocher, James Darnell, Günter Blobel, Philip Siekewitz, Charles Park, Bill Paul, Gunther Stent, Don Glaser, George Trilling, David Goodstein, Samuel Broder, Harold Varmus, Alexander Kamb, Charles Andrews, Dan Koshland, Ellis Rubinstein, John Crewdson, Dan Greenberg, Barbara Spector, Nicholas Wade, Gina Kolata, Neville Hodgkinson, etc.

§1. Enclosure of the Dingell Subcommittee Staff Report.

The Dingell Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigation is no more, because of the Republican majority victory last November. However, I am sending you:

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The Subcommittee Staff Report confirms the findings of the IG Memorandum and the ORI Offer of Proof, as far as they went. We shall see what happens to the Subcommittee Staff Report, now that it is available for the whole world to evaluate.

§2. Failure of the scientific press and the mainstream media.

The main scientific press, notably Science, Nature, The Scientist, have been extremely derelict in the way they have reported past events of the Gallo case. For example, The ORI Offer of Proof was not covered. I documented some concrete defects in various mailings (including the Science Rubinstein file, spring 1994). The HHS Inspector General's Memorandum was covered tendentiously by Jon Cohen in Science, which reported on an even basis the factual statements of the memorandum and the false statements issued by Gallo's attorney, without giving its readers documentation which would make them able to evaluate the falsehoods. The Scientist, instead of covering the IG report and the ORI Offer of Proof (which I sent to them in September 1994), published a tendentious article and interview with Gallo on 14 November 1994.

With the exception of the Chicago Tribune, what I have seen of major papers in this country (Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, etc.), has been grossly negligent reporting. In earlier days the New York Times adequately reported on the Gallo case via articles by Philip Hilts and others. Since Nicholas Wade became science editor, I have documented in my mailings how the New York Times has systematically misreported the Gallo case, as in Nicholas Wade's essay "Method and Madness - The vindication of Robert Gallo", NYT Magazine, 26 December 1993. The New York Times misreporting included the suppression of essential information (e.g. the ORI Offer of Proof and the HHS IG Memorandum). On the other hand, Crewdson reported on the Subcommittee Staff Report ("In Gallo case, truth termed a casualty" Chicago Tribune, 1 January 1995). Crewdson was backed up by an editorial "Defending the indefensible Dr. Gallo" (6 January 1995). The New York Times has not yet followed up this story, let alone provided editorial support.

§3. Failures of scientists.

The National Academy of Sciences has evaded responsibility from the beginning, especially after electing Gallo in 1988. Most scientists have not spoken out publicly so far. In 1992, using information available from some original documents, and the reporting of Crewdson as well as Science and Government Report, I had mailings documenting the way NIH Director Bernadine Healy personally selected a committee of scientists to bypass the Richards panel, and how she manipulated scientists. In the Executive Summary of the Subcommittee Staff Report, you will find pieces of information we did not have before, for instance, here, that this handpicked committee decided Dr. Gallo should be fired as an NIH laboratory chief. One member of her handpicked committee expressed this determination as follows:

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Fred Richards expressed one conclusion via Dan Greenberg's Science and Government Report (15 May 1994): The "major purpose of this whole investigation was to find out whether they stole the virus. The answer is, they stole the virus. But we didn't know that at the time these [investigative] reports came out." Apparently there was no scientific institutional official avenue for such a conclusion, let alone for the documentation on which this conclusion was based, to be made available. As for the press, Science, Nature, The Scientist and the New York Times sure didn't report it.

§4. Will scientists finally look at the evidence and speak out?

In the Baltimore case, some scientists finally looked at the evidence, and came out in the open with published letters, notably John Cairns and Paul Doty. The Executive Summary of the Subcommittee Staff Report ends by quoting from these letters, as follows:

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The availability of the Subcommittee Staff Report provides one more opportunity to learn or acknowledge the facts, and to speak out. The leaders of science, scientists at the grass roots, and the mainstream press are in a position to make a difference. I challenge them to do so.

Serge Lang

Enclosures:

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