Ending Plague

by Francis W. Ruscetti

  This simple difference in perspectives, nearly forty years ago, beautifully illustrates so much of my relationship with Judy over the decades. We were both right, with simply a difference of opinion on how we measured success.

  Although Judy was certain she’d blown the interview, I was impressed. This was a person who spoke her mind, without worrying much over what I’d think. I went to the human resources manager and asked that she hire Judy.

  The human resources manager refused to hire her.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Because she’s a troublemaker,” the human resources manager replied.

  “How does she make trouble?”

  “She asks too many questions.”

  “In science you’re supposed to ask questions,” I shot back. “Hire her or I’ll have your job.” I didn’t usually lose my temper like that, but my experiences with corrupt practices the previous few years had sharpened my tongue. Enough was enough!

  On June 6, 1983, Judy Mikovits officially started working for me. We always celebrate that day, and humorously note that it’s the same day as the D-Day invasion of France in 1944 during World War II.

  Although it took the allies less than a year from the day that they landed on those beaches to defeat the Nazis, our fight for the truth in science has been going on much longer, with the outcome still highly uncertain.

  ***

  As a young investigator arriving as an exile from a prominent lab run by a dictator, I probably should have focused my lab on research projects as far away from Gallo as scientifically possible.

  However, Dr. Ron Herberman, the program head, constructed a BioSafety Level 3 for me specifically to study these disease-causing human retroviruses. The lab would be in wing three of Building 560 at the Fort Detrick facility, while my clean lab and office were just across the street in Building 567.

  One fateful day in the summer of 1983, I was visited by Raoul and Kurt, two senior investigators at the NCI. They had a proposal that we should look for a virus in this new disease called Gay-Related Immune Deficiency (GRID), but which the world would later come to know as Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS).

  Anthony Fauci was then a branch chief at the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and he’d been seeing GRID/AIDS patients at the NIH’s Clinical Center. Raoul and Kurt talked me into going to a meeting with Fauci in his office. Raoul and Kurt were at the meeting, as well as Cliff, Fauci’s clinical point man. I presented our case for a retroviral etiology for GRID/AIDS, and Fauci agreed that NIAID would provide blood samples from suspected patients, subject to two conditions.

  The first was that Fauci be given complete authority over authorship on any manuscript, and that Fauci wanted to go on television. (He must love today’s exposure.) Cliff talked specifically about wanting to go on The Tonight Show, to be interviewed by Johnny Carson.

  Alarm bells should have been going off in my head. I do recall thinking, Right! I discover another virus and I’m sure to get fired again. I still ask myself to this day why I entered into a collaboration that might once again bring me into conflict with Gallo, and headed as it turned out by a man, Fauci, who apparently had little or no moral compass or integrity.

  In May 1983, French researcher Luc Montagnier and his team had reported in the journal, Science, their discovery of lymphadenopathy virus (LAV) in GRID/AIDS patients.4 This virus would eventually be designated the Human-Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV). This paper showed that the virus isolate was not related to HTLV-1. The publication had been largely ignored because Gallo and his associates had three papers published in the same issue of Science claiming HTLV-1 was linked with GRID/AIDS. Gallo was first author on the major paper (no one stood up to him, unlike with HTLV-1).5

  The suggestion that only one retrovirus caused every new disease, like AIDS, was at the time, and still is today, profoundly unscientific.

  Yet, Gallo was so convincing that almost the entire medical and scientific community believed in the validity of Gallo’s HTLV-1 theory as it related to AIDS. The suppositions in those three HTLV-1 papers that this was an independent viral isolation was so flimsy they could’ve been knocked over by the slightest breeze. I found myself wondering what had happened to the critical thinking skills of my colleagues.

  Three years earlier, nobody of any importance believed that retroviruses could cause human disease, and now the single disease-causing retrovirus discovered, HTLV-1, was being put forward as the cause of all new disease entities. How quickly they had forgotten that Gallo had always been a serial abuser of the truth

  At least conceptually, science shouldn’t be that difficult. But this schizophrenic back and forth between retroviruses don’t cause any problems, to they cause all problems, was disturbing to watch play out in real time.

  It was painfully obvious to all of us who knew Gallo—save his legion of sycophants—that he was trying to steal the credit by having all retroviruses including Montagnier’s LAV (later called HIV) virus to be a member of the family of human retroviruses he discovered. When Gallo was forced to admit that HTLV-1 had no connection to HIV or AIDS, he tried to refer to HIV as HTLV-III. It’s as if the failure to get the scientific community to believe one lie meant he’d just make up another one. Gallo tried to force a connection where none existed, and his behavior was neither scientifically nor morally correct. His continued inability to follow the science where it was leading was a mark of a mediocre scientist.

  To me, Gallo’s behavior was a double human tragedy. First, it prevented the world community from recognizing the crucial French discovery of Montagnier as early as possible. Second, it was clear that Gallo had no interest in improving public health unless he got the credit.

  Gallo had these patients’ blood on his hands and few in the scientific community ever called him on it.

  ***

  I had met Montagnier twice when he visited Gallo’s lab. First, showing him how to grow T-cell cultures and second, how to care for them.

  I always found the man to be honest, bright, compassionate, and caring.

  I went into the project believing we would either confirm the findings of the Montagnier team or discover additional retroviruses in AIDS patients from different cohorts.

  Little did I know that Gallo was already hedging his bets.

  The game for me was over before it started.

  After a September 1983 AIDS conference in Cold Springs Harbor, Gallo proclaimed that Montagnier did not have a virus because all the HTLV-1 reagents tested on his virus were negative. In other words, the HTLV-1 reagents were the only possible way to test for a retrovirus, and therefore since nothing was detected, nothing existed. I got a message from Montagnier’s colleague, Françoise Barré-Sinoussi, through her old mentor at the NIH, telling me that Gallo had requested another sample of Montagnier’s virus. Barré-Sinoussi wanted to know my opinion.

  My reply was, “Please tell Luc not to do it. Gallo will find some way to steal it.”

  Unfortunately, Montagnier, whose goal was to help the stricken patients, trusted Gallo and sent a second sample of his virus to the Gallo lab. However, he did make sure the transfer was documented. It turned out that the so-called HTLV-IIIB isolate was genetically identical to one of the isolates sent to him by the French, which is probably why the Nobel Prize committee gave Montagnier and Barré-Sinoussi, and not Gallo, the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 2008.

  Meanwhile, as we worked on the isolation of the retrovirus in our lab, it was difficult to maintain cultures because the retrovirus caused the cells to die at a rapid rate. We worked to develop additional human cell lines which would support the growth of these AIDS viruses. First, we received a concentrated blood pack once a week from the NIH blood bank as a source of healthy human lymphocytes. Next, we used our most potent biological preparations of IL-2 to maintain the growth and viability of the infected T-cells. Finally, we used a clone of the human T-cell line, Hut-78, which could support virus production and allow us to grow
enough of the virus so we could characterize it.

  Our breakthrough was to show we could first infect primary human T-cells with this virus, then showed we could transmit the virus to the Hut-78 cell line.

  This clearly showed the LAV virus family was infectious AND transmissible.

  We quickly put together a first draft of a manuscript and sent it to our collaborators at NIAID, Anthony Fauci and Cliff. We were excited to get their comments, and since Fauci was in a different institute, we believed he would keep the information confidential.

  That was a big mistake and since I was traveling, it put Judy Mikovits in a terrible position.

  Unbeknownst to me, Gallo and Fauci were having lunch once a week and swapping information. Research data is supposed to be kept “confidential” until publication, not known outside of the group of scientists working on the problem. How long had this unethical transfer of information been going on? The only explanation which makes sense to me in light of subsequent events, is that Fauci shared our research with Gallo, an ethical violation, in addition to being scientifically corrupt, for together they were making plans to help one another’s interests.

  I was away at a European conference when Gallo called my lab, with Fauci on the line. Since the manuscript had been sent to Fauci, it was probably thought necessary to have him on the call to give it the appearance of legitimacy.

  Judy answered the phone.

  Gallo and Fauci identified themselves and said they needed to see a copy of our paper, and, in addition, Judy was to hand over the virus we’d isolated.

  Judy said as a technician she didn’t have the authority to hand over those materials and they’d have to wait until I returned and take it up with me.

  Gallo and Fauci started yelling at Judy that she needed to give them the paper and the virus or else they’d have her fired for insubordination.

  Judy reiterated that she didn’t have the authority to give it to them.

  Gallo and Fauci started yelling even louder and increasing their threats, promising she’d never work anywhere in science.

  “Fine! Fire me!” Judy replied and slammed down the phone.

  A few lab techs in the outer office heard this conversation and warned her of the power of those two men to harm her career. But Judy wouldn’t back down.

  Judy was upset she might have ruined her career in science and her dream of going to medical school would be shattered, had several sleepless nights, and a boyfriend even suggested she get a gun for protection.

  When I came back to the lab and she told me what had happened, I was shocked. “You did that for me?” I asked.

  The tension of the past few weeks must have broken in her because she lashed out, saying, “I didn’t do it for you, asshole! I did it because it was the right thing to do. Why is it so difficult for people to have principles?” she asked and stormed out of the lab.

  Yes, Judy has a fiery personality.

  But, as I learned over the years, it wasn’t about personal loyalty to her. It was about having integrity, regardless of whom you’re dealing with. In the years to come I’d often delight in telling that story, especially the part where she called me an “asshole.”

  It never fails to get a laugh out of Judy.

  ***

  Shortly after I returned from Europe, I got a call from Gallo. He didn’t even make a little small talk but dove right into the reason for his call.

  “Frank, what are you doing in Frederick?” he asked.

  I replied, “You know damn well what I’m doing considering all the spies you have.”

  Gallo proceeded to tell me that he, and not Montagnier, had discovered the viral cause of AIDS and had submitted four manuscripts to Science. But Gallo was always paranoid about loose ends which might deflect his credit. He said, “The US government does not want to be put in the awkward position of supporting two viruses for the same disease.” He wanted me to send my virus to him for comparison.

  I said, “You could send me your virus.”

  The conversation didn’t go well after that.

  Gallo’s boss, Dr. Bruce Chabner, the director of Cancer Treatment at the NCI, the man who canceled my first position at the Frederick facility because of Gallo’s pressure, called me up and said I had to send both the manuscript and the virus to Gallo.

  I called Gallo and told him, “I’d rather flush the virus and the manuscript down the toilet than give it to you, because I know you’d compromise the truth.”

  Fortunately, about a month later another researcher, Jay Levy, published the isolation of HIV-1 in Hut-78 cells, confirming Montagnier’s work.6 The next year, our lab published our HIV isolation paper, and Gallo’s name wasn’t on it.

  An associate of Fauci later called me to say, “Tony is sorry about what happened and wants to give you some intramural funds in your lab budget for your lab research.”

  I understood the catch to accepting the money was that they were trying to bribe me into silence, and Fauci was getting his claws into me for his good friend, Robert Gallo.

  “What’s the catch?” I replied.

  I was told Fauci still wanted control over authorship.

  I turned him down.

  ***

  I learned one other lesson during this sad affair, which was how far the United States government would go to protect one of its own.

  At the US government press conference of April 1984, Secretary of Health and Human Services Margaret Heckler constantly referred to Gallo as “our prominent scientist.” Not only did Gallo claim he had discovered the virus, but he had tested it against Montagnier’s virus, and they were not the same.7 I could not believe all the lies which were coming out of Gallo’s mouth.

  The government jumped in as Gallo’s willing partner.

  In May 1985, the US government issued a patent for Gallo’s AIDS test, yet made no mention of Montagnier’s AIDS test patent application filed eighteen months earlier. Did they really overlook Montagnier’s patent application? Was it an honest mistake? It’s hard to believe that’s what it was. There wasn’t any larger health crisis at the time than the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

  It still bothers me today that the scientific community put up with all of Gallo’s machinations, and he escaped without any significant punishment. Had Gallo become like a bank that was too big to fail, no matter how egregious the crimes?

  The sad thing is that this mediocre scientist had thrown away all the advantages our discovery of HTLV had given him. In January 1982, a full year ahead of Montagnier obtaining his sample from a French patient, Gallo was sent blood material from ten AIDS patients seen in Los Angeles, California, by a member of the NCI’s epidemiology branch. We had already shown Gallo how to isolate and prove a novel retrovirus from T-cells and show that they were causing disease. It was all so straightforward that several labs with virologists would have found the virus. Gallo would have been first. It later turned out all ten samples were positive. Many others published several viral isolates between 1984 and 1985.

  What did Gallo do instead of performing the obvious science?

  Gallo concocted this crazy theory that HIV was really HTLV-1 and used reagents designed to test for HTLV-1. Then when those showed up negative, he declared there were no retroviruses in the sample. Subsequently, Gallo then claimed to have discovered HTLV-III (which was really HIV and Montagnier’s discovery), used different reagents, and found the virus! And all of this was applauded by the sycophants in the US government research community as if he was a brilliant scientist rather than a concocter of fantasies and a thief.

  Gallo’s approach displayed a complete disregard for the scientific method and squandered the advantages given to him by the work Bernie Poiesz and I had done.

  The evidence is clear that Gallo’s lab was growing Montagnier’s LAV/HIV virus, and Gallo knew it before his May 1983 publications in Science. The viral preparation sent to the Frederick Cancer Research Facility electron microscopy lab by Gallo to visualize the viral particles was labe
led LAV, which was the designation given to Montagnier’s virus before it was changed to HIV.

  An honest mistake by the sender of the sample? Probably not.

  One of the French isolates and Gallo’s HTLV-IIIB were identical.

  As Dr. Gerald Myers wrote in a private letter to Dr. John LaMontagne and other HIV scientists on April 8, 1987, and later quoted in a Congressional investigation:

  [I]t is the astonishing and unforeseen variation of the virus [HIV-1] which exposes the fraud … I suggest that was have paid for this deception in more than the usual ways. Scientific fraudulence always costs humanity … but here we have been additionally misdirected with regard to the extent of the variation of the virus, which we can ill afford during the dog days of an epidemic let alone during halcyon times.8

  One of the most disturbing parts of the response of Health and Human Services, as well as the NIH, was how Gallo’s interests became the same as those of our government. This meant that these agencies, which were supposed to be objectively protecting scientific integrity, were instead protecting the honor of Robert Gallo from any possible slander. It is shocking to me how quickly public health and science were submerged into defending the behavior of Robert Gallo. I agree with Don Francis, who wrote:

  The facts in the Gallo case are clear. Unbiased scientists in the field know what happened. I, because of my position as head of the CDC’s AIDS laboratory, saw it up close. In my opinion, Dr. Gallo’s behavior was disgraceful, an insult to the integrity of all scientists. Dr. Gallo purposely tried to rob the credit for the discovery of HIV-1 from the Institut Pasteur. It was not passive or an oversight … The stories of Dr. Gallo’s unprofessional behavior go on and on.9

  One story which made the rounds was that Gallo was so crazy with paranoia that he told both his gardener and next-door neighbor that he’d been cheated out of not one, but two Nobel prizes.