AIDS Virus Is Discovered

French and U.S. officials announced that scientists in their respective countries had isolated what was believed to be the virus, or pathogen, that causes AIDS: human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV. The question of which team from which country was the first to isolate and name a virus, however, spurred years of intense international debate. The French, who isolated a virus as early as January of 1983, had been reluctant to make their announcement because they were unsure of the sufficiency of their findings.

Date Spring, 1984

Locale Washington, D.C.; Paris, France

Key Figures

• Robert Gallo (b. 1937), medical doctor, National Cancer Institute
• Margaret M. Heckler (b. 1931), former secretary, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
• Luc Montagnier (b. 1932), virologist at Pasteur Institute, Paris
• Jay A. Levy (b. 1938), medical doctor, Cancer Research Institute, University of California, San Francisco

Summary of Event

By 1984, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control had recorded four thousand cases of AIDS since it began tracking the disease in 1981. Despite the best efforts of physicians, half of the patients diagnosed had died already. With various hypotheses about how the virus was spread, many people were concerned for their health. Scientists remained baffled by the long-lasting disease, which presented the unique challenge of a long delay between exposure to the causal agent and the onset, years later, of immune system failure.

In April, 1984, French scientists announced the discovery of a virus called lymphadenopathy-associated virus (LAV), identified as a possible cause of AIDS. They had isolated the virus in January of 1983. This team, led by virologist Luc Montagnier of the Pasteur Institute, was optimistic but cautious. Montagnier and colleagues judged their findings insufficient to claim definitively that LAV caused AIDS.

In a press conference one week later, Secretary Margaret Heckler of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced that U.S. scientists had uncovered the virus that, evidence suggested, was the causal pathogen for the disease. She reported that the virus was not LAV, as the French team thought; rather, it was a variant of a known human cancer virus, the human T-cell leukemia/lymphotrophic virus type III (HTLV-III), which had been discovered by Robert Gallo of the National Institutes of Health. (Gallo already had applied to patent HTLV-III with the U.S. Patent Office.) Heckler stated further that her hope was that a blood test would be developed within six months and that a vaccine would be ready for testing within two years.

The intent of Heckler’s statement likely was to provide hope in the face of uncertainty. She characterized Gallo’s findings as “the triumph of science over a dreaded disease.” Her statement, however, contained scientific and historical inaccuracies, which would come to cause a major international rift in the field of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) research for years to come. The primary contention resulting from Heckler’s announcement was the question of who, in fact, should be rightfully credited with discovering the virus that causes AIDS, and thus, who should reap the benefits: Montagnier or Gallo, France or the United States? Earlier, the labs of Gallo and Montagnier had shared blood samples and preliminary data, so before this announcement, they were collaborators to some degree. Later, however, legal debates changed them into adversaries.

It was clear, through the use of electron microscopy, that the respective viruses they found were different. Although hotly debated in the public sphere, what remained scientifically unclear, initially, was the question, Which scientist’s findings were accurate? At stake were the reputations of Gallo and Montagnier within the scientific community as well as the extent of the contribution to science and medicine made by their respective countries. Furthermore, discovering and patenting the pathogen that would almost certainly serve as the basis for an AIDS test could yield a significant personal profit.

To address the legal and scientific furor that ensued, U.S. president Ronald Reagan and French prime minister Jacques Chirac announced jointly in 1987 that Gallo and Montagnier would be considered the codiscoverers of HIV. This was the first instance of scientific debate settled publicly at the highest level of government. Eventually, Gallo and Montagnier would come forward with their own accounts of what happened. Despite considerable evidence, and likely because of the public debate, more than a decade would pass before there was widespread agreement that HIV is the cause of AIDS.

Significance

Although identifying and isolating the pathogen responsible for causing AIDS was an important first step in the battle against this virus, a final victory over AIDS remains elusive. A blood test for HIV infection was developed and became available commercially in the summer of 1985, contrary to Heckler’s hope that a test would be developed within six months (meaning early 1985). Since the mid-1980’s, a number of possible vaccines have been tested, but all have been found to be ineffective in controlling the spread of the disease.

In hindsight, it is known that Heckler’s 1984 statement was naively optimistic at best, according to Gallo, and, more gravely, a brazen attempt to best the French and garner undue praise and royalties for the United States, according to Montagnier. Undeniably, Gallo’s earlier, basic scientific work was foundational because it developed the techniques required to isolate and cultivate in the lab quantities of HIV necessary for an adequate study of the virus; that is, Gallo’s earlier work made possible the widespread discovery of HIV. However, it was Montagnier who first correctly identified the virus that causes AIDS, which had been renamed “HIV,” from HTLV-III, in 1986.

Independently and simultaneously, Jay Levy of the University of California, San Francisco, confirmed the presence of HIV in patients displaying AIDS symptoms as well as patients who were asymptomatic HIV carriers. Levy managed to avoid the public controversy and thus his contributions are usually overlooked. Rancorous public and scientific debate ensued, which called into question the specific discovery of the cause of AIDS, shaking the scientific method’s confident reliance on logic.

The significance of identifying the HIV pathogen cannot be overstated, however. With this knowledge, the scientific community proved definitively that HIV causes AIDS (debates continue, however). Scientists and others developed an accurate HIV test, safeguarded the blood supply, and began to squelch the hysteria about modes of transmission.

Bibliography

Fan, Hung, Ross F. Conner, and Luis P. Villarreal. AIDS: Science and Society. 4th ed. Boston: Jones & Bartlett, 2004.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. The Biology of AIDS. 4th ed. Boston: Jones & Bartlett, 2000.

Garrett, Laurie. The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1994.

Mayer, Kenneth H., and H. F. Pizer, eds. The Emergence of AIDS: The Impact on Immunology, Microbiology, and Public Health. Washington, D.C.: American Public Health Association, 2000.

Snow, Bill, ed. HIV Vaccine Handbook: Community Perspectives on Participating in Research, Advocacy, and Progress. New York: AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition, 1999.

Wain-Hobson, S., J. P. Vartanian, M. Henry, N. Chenciner, et al. “LAV Revisited: Origins of the Early HIV-1 Isolates from Institut Pasteur.” Science 252 (1991): 961-964.