Robin Weiss, Professor of Virology, Doctor of Spin

14 January, 2004; updated 13 February, 2004; posted 26 February, 2004.

In his concluding speech at the Lincei conference of September 2001, later published under the title “Emerging Persistent Infections: Family Heirlooms and New Acquisitions” [Weiss, 2003], Professor Robin Weiss devoted a section to the origins of AIDS debate.

However, like his other interventions in this debate at the Royal Society conference on “Origins of HIV and the AIDS epidemic”, and in the pages of Nature, this paper contained many observations that were flawed, misleading, or simply untrue.

Let me give specific examples. Continue reading “Robin Weiss, Professor of Virology, Doctor of Spin”

Dephlogistication, Imperial Display, Apes, Angels, and the Return of Monsieur Émile Zola

The paper presented by Edward Hooper at the 2001 Lincei Conference, published in Atti dei Convegni Lincei; 2003; 187; 27-230.

This major essay, based on the speech Ed Hooper gave at the National Academy of Lincei, in Rome, in September 2001, was originally prepared for publication in the house journal, Atti dei Convegni Lincei. It is over 200 pages long, and represents Hooper’s major published response to the web of disinformation and misleading claims that certain members of the scientific community have created in response to “The River”, and in the wake of the Royal Society meeting on “Origins of HIV and the AIDS epidemic”. Hooper suggests that this essay represents useful base-line reading for any visitors to this site who are seriously interested in the question of how the AIDS pandemic began.