...Regardless of whether Duesberg is right about HIV, his case, like Fishbein's, lays bare the political machinery of American science, and reveals its reflexive hostility to ideas that challenge the dominant paradigm. Such hostility is not unusual in the history of science, but the contemporary situation is dramatically different from those faced by maverick scientists in the past. Today's scientists are almost wholly dependent upon the goodwill of government researchers and powerful peer-review boards, who control a financial network binding together the National Institutes of Health, academia, and the biotech and pharmaceutical industries. Many scientists live in fear of losing...