co-author Rasnick previously worked for Matthias Rath, a vitamin entrepreneur who sold vitamin pills as AIDS remedies. In the article, Duesberg questioned research reporting that drug policies implemented by the South African government on the advice of Duesberg, Rasnick and others had led to excess AIDS deaths. Observing that the overall population of South Africa has increased, Duesberg claimed that HIV must be a harmless "passenger virus" that has not caused deaths in South Africa or elsewhere. Duesberg stated that HIV does not replicate in the body and that antiviral drugs, which he calls "inevitably toxic," do not inhibit HIV. Scientists expressed concerns to Elsevier, the publisher of Medical Hypotheses, about unsupported assertions and incorrect statements by Duesberg. After an internal review and with a unanimous recommendation of rejection by five Lancet reviewers, Elsevier stated that the article was flawed and of potential danger to global public health. Elsevier permanently withdrew the Duesberg article and another AIDS denialist publication and asked that the editor of the journal implement a peer review process. Letters of complaint to the University of California, Berkeley, including one from Nathan Geffen of the South African Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), prompted university officials to open an inquiry into possible academic misconduct related to false statements and failure to disclose potential conflicts of interest. The investigation was dropped in 2010, with university officials finding "insufficient evidence...to support a recommendation for disciplinary action." The investigation did not evaluate the merits of the research but found that publishing the article was protected by the principle of academic freedom. References Works cited Further reading - a five-part article in Science systematically examines and discredits Duesberg's assertions. External links Duesberg's homepage and faculty webpages Mainstream scientific opinion 1936 births HIV/AIDS denialists Cell biologists American virologists Living people University of California, Berkeley faculty Goethe University Frankfurt alumni Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences People from Münster Cancer researchers