Subject: Gallo's Report on AIDS Is Criticized As Being Based on Flawed Methodology 
Date: Published: 3/15/91 (92 lines)
Source: Wall Street Journal. Copyright Dow Jones & Co. Inc.

    Gallo's Report on AIDS Is Criticized
    As Being Based on Flawed Methodology
    ----
    By Marilyn Chase
    Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal

    A scientific report touted two weeks ago as proving the
 integrity of an American AIDS researcher was attacked this
 week as erroneous and based upon a flawed methodology.
    Gerald Myers, head of the database for the acquired immune
 deficiency syndrome virus at the Los Alamos National
 Laboratory in New Mexico, criticized a report by Robert Gallo
 and co-workers at the National Institutes of Health for
 exaggerating differences between French and American virus
 samples when, according to Dr. Myers, the two are "the
 closest sequences that we're aware of."
    In a report in the journal Science, Dr. Myers contended
 the Gallo team used a nonstandard method of comparing genetic
 codes of the two viruses -- such that minor differences or
 "gaps" in the code, which are discounted by most scientists,
 were counted as representing real genetic diversity.
    "Nobody does that," Dr. Myers told Science, "and it's
 leading to widespread misunderstanding that these viruses are
 very different."  He concluded that the viruses were only 5%
 different, rather than 8.5% different as the Gallo report had
 stated.  In addition, Dr. Myers said he counted up to 20
 typographical errors in the Gallo team's report, published
 Feb. 28 in the British journal Nature.
    The Nature report attracted unusual interest because of
 persistent questions about similarity between the French
 virus LAV and the American virus HTLV-IIIB. Critics have
 questioned whether there was misappropriation or
 contamination of viral samples exchanged by the Pasteur
 Institute in Paris and the National Cancer Institute, a unit
 of NIH. An inquiry by NIH is still pending.  But the Nature
 paper said the virus sample sent by the French in 1983 was
 distinct from the genetic fingerprints of both the French and
 American viruses as later published by the two teams.  That
 suggested to some that any possible mixup, or contamination,
 came later.
    Dr. Gallo's attorney Joseph Onek, who had earlier
 disseminated the Nature report as vindication of his client,
 dismissed this week's challenge by Dr. Myers as "a tempest in
 a teapot."  Dr. Myers could not be reached for comment.
    In a telephone interview Dr. Gallo said, "There's no
 question that there are mistakes (and) that it's an
 embarrassment."  But he said he stood by his team's conclusion
 that "these are two different viruses."  He said future
 studies will try to resolve how the later contamination may
 have occurred.
    Dr. Gallo's colleague Marvin Reitz, who co-authored the
 disputed report, acknowledged in an interview that the way he
 analyzes genetic sequences "is probably not the way most
 people do things."  He said he based his analysis on a
 commercial computer program, Micro-Genie made by Becton
 Dickinson.
    "It's the way I've always done it," said Dr. Reitz.  "Maybe
 it's simple-minded.  But it doesn't change our basic
 conclusion that the difference (between the French and
 American virus strains) appears too great for one virus to
 have originated from the other."
    Dr. Reitz said there were 12, not 20, typographical errors
 and promised a correction would shortly be sent to Nature.
 Further, he and others at NIH asserted that even when using
 Dr. Myers's method of analysis, the original French virus
 sample of 1983 was more like a San Francisco virus than
 either LAV or HTLV-IIIB. 
    Howard Temin, a Nobel laureate and professor of oncology
 at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, said neither
 method of comparing genetic sequence was right nor wrong.
 However, the Gallo team's chosen method "was a choice in
 hindsight I think they could have done without."
    Dr. Temin said he is more troubled that the controversy
 has caused a major diversion of scientific energies away from
 solving AIDS.  "What disturbs me most is I get the feeling
 that people think the epidemic is over.  It is not."
    Separately, the NIH team got another blow when Dr. Gallo's
 longstanding vaccine collaboration with French researcher
 Daniel Zagury was suspended pending resolution of allegations
 that Dr. Zagury gave his vaccine to African children without
 necessary approvals.
    ---
    Hilary Stout in Washington contributed to this article.

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