The New York Times - April 29, 1984
Philip M. Boffey

It was the most significant advance yet made in the fight against AIDS. It was also the signal for the scientists and institutions tracking the disease to grapple for a share of the spotlight.

Before the latest findings from the National Cancer Institute could be published in a journal and announced at a press conference, the news trickled out. First came a flurry of items emphasizing the accomplishments of Dr. Robert C. Gallo and his colleagues at the Cancer Institute and associated laboratories, who had identified and mass-produced a virus known as HTLV-3, which they consider the likely cause of AIDS. These news stories were based largely on information leaked by scientists close to the research.

Then came a flurry of articles shifting attention to a virus called LAV, which had been discovered by French scientists at the Pasteur Institute a year earlier but had attracted little interest in this country. These articles were based on interviews with key figures at institutions that were competing with Dr. Gallo to find the cause of AIDS, including Pasteur, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and the Centers for Disease Control, whose researchers had worked with the French and were close to confirming the French findings.

Next came the press conference at which Margaret M. Heckler, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, left no doubt as to where she thought the credit should go. Her department had been sharply criticized for failing to move rapidly against AIDS. On Monday, she proudly announced that "the arrow of funds, medical personnel, research and experimentation, which the Department of Health and Human Services and its allies around the world have aimed and fired at the disease, has hit the target." Mrs. Heckler acknowledged the seminal work of foreign scientists almost as an afterthought. She singled out the Pasteur Institute, which had "previously identified" a virus that, she said, "will prove to be the same" as that identified by Dr. Gallo.

Divide and ConquerThe Federal program, which Mrs. Heckler said was mobilized "without a day of procrastination," but which was accelerated at the insistence of Congress, has spent $75 million. Another $54 million has been budgeted by the Reagan Administration for the next fiscal year.

The bulk of the money has gone to the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md., where Dr. Gallo has laboratories and the institute's own scientists are studying the disease. Lesser amounts have gone to the Centers for Disease Control, which are keeping track of all cases and conducting laboratory studies to identify the cause of AIDS, and to the Food and Drug Administration, which is dealing with the transmission of AIDS through blood and blood products.

By week's end, officials of all the agencies, here and abroad, were playing down the competition and blaming the press, in part, for playing it up. The history of AIDS research looks like this:

Dr. Gallo is unquestionably the pioneer in identifying and studying the family of viruses central to AIDS; indeed, his laboratory trained several members of the French team. His initial discovery was HTLV-1, which appears to cause leukemia in humans. It is widely accepted as the first human cancer virus ever identified.

Last May, in papers published in the journal Science, Dr. Gallo and his co-workers broadened their inquiry by suggesting that the same virus might also cause AIDS. At the same time, the French team singled out a variant of the virus, which they named LAV. The French buttressed their claim in a recent issue of The Lancet, a British medical journal. Now, the Gallo researchers have tacitly acknowledged that their original theory was off target, concluding instead that the real cause of AIDS is yet another virus variant called HTLV-3 - the one Mrs. Heckler said is probably identical to LAV. If it is, the French can claim credit for identifying the cause of AIDS first. "What's been lost in all this," said Walter Dowdle, director of center for infectious diseases at the Centers for Disease Control, "is that Gallo deserves tremendous credit for developing a cell line that makes it possible to grow these viruses" - that is, to mass-produce them, generating ample amounts for study. What has also been lost is the fact that the French have not had access to the cell line, which has slowed their work. Dr. Gallo's research was hailed as "a turning point in the struggle with this epidemic," by Dr. Jerome E. Groopman, an AIDS expert at New England Deaconess Hospital in Boston. But some scientists felt that Mrs. Heckler had raised false hopes by proclaiming "the triumph of science over a dreaded disease." Much more work is needed to verify that HTLV-3 or LAV is the cause of AIDS rather than an infection that often invades the weakened bodies of AIDS victims.

Federal scientists said the new finds mean that a test to detect the AIDS virus in blood supplies should be ready in six months. Some are predicting that a vaccine to prevent AIDS will be produced within two years. Others side with Dr. Anthony S. Fauci of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, who told reporters at a recent medical convention in Atlanta: "To be perfectly honest, we don't have any idea how long it's going to take to develop a vaccine, if indeed we will be able to develop a vaccine."

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