peter duesberg

Peter Duesberg (born December 2, 1936 in Germany) is a controversial United States scientist viewed as fringe by most of the established scientific community as a result of his unorthodox claims. His most controversial claims are:

Disputing the importance of oncogenes in cancers (1983).
His claim that recreational and pharmaceutical drug use, and not HIV, are the primary causes of AIDS (the Duesberg hypothesis) (1987/8).
His proposed aneuploidy hypothesis of cancer (1997).

In recent years a small number of scientists have begun to support the idea that aneuploidy may indeed have a role in the formation of some cancers. Research on this subject is ongoing. He isolated the first carcinogenic gene from a virus at the age of 33, at 36 earned tenure at the University of California, Berkeley, and at 49 was invited to the National Academy of Sciences. His controversial hypotheses have caused a withdrawal of financial support. He has been forced to fund his research from charitable contributions and to move to Germany for part of the year. South African President Thabo Mbeki voiced support for the Duesberg hypothesis and suffered substantial political fallout as a result. At the 2000 Mbeki AIDS conference, it was announced that the HIV theory would at last get proper epidemiological testing by a panel of three or four—Helene Gayle, director of the National Center of HIV/AIDS prevention at the CDC; dissenter Harvey Bialy; and Malegapuru Makgoba, head of South Africa's Medical Research Council. Orthodox and dissenter reporting disagree on whether Duesberg was included.