We live in an “Information Society” where we drown in data, but scientific discussions that threaten vested interests are lost at sea, and scientists who insist on studying controversial theories are cast adrift.

One esteemed scientist turned pariah because he refused to stop questioning a dogma (that HIV causes AIDS) is Dr. Peter Duesberg. Once considered a top retrovirologist - the first to isolate a cancer gene, California Scientist of the Year in 1971 and recipient of an Outstanding Investigator Award from the US National Institutes of Health in 1986 - he fell from grace in 1987 when he published a paper providing extensive evidence that HIV could not cause disease. Since then, none of his government grants have been approved, and he has great difficulty getting his work published.

Robert Gallo, on the other hand, is widely revered as a co-discoverer of HIV. The scientific establishment shuns Duesberg and his ideas, yet treats Gallo’s questionable work as the foundation of a multi-billion dollar research program.

Another researcher who suffered for his integrity was Erdem Cantekin. He published data, without permission, indicating that antibiotics were not effective for ear infections. The issue became not the validity of the data, but whether the lead researcher could control if, when, and how it would be published. After a long legal battle Cantekin ended up shunned by his peers, financially ruined, and with his career destroyed.

Mark Purdey, the man who first questioned the infectious theory of Mad Cow disease (BSE) is an organic farmer turned scientist. The massive British BSE report grudgingly admitted that the use of organophosphate pesticides could be a co-factor, but claimed Purdey’s connection was unproven. Conveniently, funding to test the hypothesis has been difficult to obtain. Only the persistence of Purdey and his supporters has allowed a small research program to proceed and show that the theory is tenable.

For ideas to be censored the mainstream media must also be silent. Mainstream scientists and public health organizations often characterize certain ideas (and open discussion of them) as “dangerous” or “junk science” and usually refuse to debate them in public.

Paul Connett of the Fluoride Action Network has experienced shunning many times. This college chemistry professor has travelled the world offering to debate experts on the safety and effectiveness of water fluoridation. Only on two occasions has his offer been accepted, and then important issues like safety were not debated. Without both sides of an issue being presented, the media often decide there is no story.

Scientists are fatally proud of their reliance on peer-review to ensure that only good science gets funded and published. Yet it has been shown that peer review does not increase the quality of studies and because the anonymous reviewers generally represent established ideas it becomes an effective way to suppress innovation.

Censorship is most effective when the censor’s hand is invisible. Modern science has developed an effective hierarchy for disseminating “acceptable” information and, perhaps more importantly, for excluding work that threatens mainstream scientists and the governments and industries that fund them. Luckily, there are still publications and Web sites outside this web of self-censorship. You should take advantage of this information, use it to formulate your own opinions, and discuss them with friends, family, and colleagues. Small donations of your time and money can make a tremendous difference to the world’s excluded scientists.

David Crowe is a Calgary-based environmentalist and analyst of the scientific justification for modern medicine. He has an HBSc in Biology and Mathematics. He can be reached at David.Crowe@aras.ab.ca.

Source: alive #253, November 2003