This paper was submitted to the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons in 1997. According to that journal it is editorial policy to "welcome personal views of surgeons on a variety of topics", and to publish papers on "current and controversial issues". Although both reviewers accepted the bulk of the scientific arguments and found the paper "interesting reading", they advised against publication because, in their view, an analysis of evidence for the isolation of HIV was of "no real relevance…to a surgical audience" or "would be of little interest or use to the majority of readers of the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Surgery".