Dr. David Rasnick (original) (raw)
Dr. David Rasnick
Dr. David Rasnick is a protease specialist and has been in AIDS research for 20 years. He and Duesberg work in collaboration on cancer and AIDS research. Both Rasnick and Duesberg were advisors on President Mbeki's South African AIDS panel.
"In 1983, Luc Montagnier, a French scientist at the Pasteur Institute, claimed to have found a new retrovirus in AIDS patients. But nobody paid attention, because he hadn't isolated a virus, and he hadn't found a single viral particle in the blood - remember the titer was zero, undetectable. Seeking some academic support, Montagnier sent a cell sample to Robert Gallo at the NIH. Gallo took the cell-line Montagnier sent him and modified it slightly. Then he did something strange. He stole it.
In 1984 Gallo called an international press conference and together with Margaret Heckler, the head of the Department of Health and Human Services, announced that he'd discovered the "probable cause" of AIDS. It was a new retrovirus called HTLV-III, (later re-named HIV). Later that same day, he patented the modified cell-line he'd originally gotten from Montagnier. He hadn't published a single word of his research. Robert Gallo, a government-backed scientist, simply announced that a retroviral-epidemic was on its way.
He sold the cell-line to Abbot Labs, a pharmaceutical company that makes HIV tests. The French government demanded that all patent rights be returned to Montagnier. Gallo refused, claiming it was all his work. In 1987, Gallo and Montagnier were forced by President Reagan and French Prime Minister Chirac to meet in a hotel room to work out the HIV patent rights. In 1992, Gallo was officially convicted of theft by a federal scientific ethics committee."---Dr. David Rasnick The AIDS Debate The Most Controversial Story You've Never Heard By Liam Scheff