The treatment of Peter Duesberg has become a cautionary tale in AIDS science—but not in the way the consensus often claims. Instead of simply discrediting weak arguments, the fierce, moralized reaction to Duesberg created a climate in which any deep structural critique of the HIV/AIDS paradigm could be dismissed as “denialism” by association, chilling freedom of inquiry and making it nearly impossible for more careful dissenters like Rebecca Culshaw to be heard on their own terms. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih +3 From one scientist to a taboo category In the late 1980s and 1990s, Duesberg challenged the HIV–AIDS causal model in high‑profile venues, arguing that retroviruses were not known to kill cells and that drugs and other factors were more important in AIDS pathogenesis. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih +1 Over time, his name became shorthand for “AIDS denialism,” a label formalized in policy, declarations, and academic treatments, which present “HIV denial” as paradigmatic pseudoscience with dir...
