Prosecution Expert Witness Peter McDonald asks ‘Denialist’ Kary Mullis for Help

	From:	Peter McDonald
	Sent:	Saturday, February 03, 2007 1:36 PM
	To:	Kary Mullis
	Cc:	Robyn Richardson, Attorney General’s Department of South Australia John P. Moore, PhD
	Subject:	Appeal at HIV denialist trial in Australia
		I am assisting the prosecution in an Appeal to the Supreme court in South Australia about a conviction for criminal transmission of HIV. The basis for that Appeal is that HIV does not exist and that the PCR technology is flawed. So in effect the technical basis for identification of virus is on trial. The group of denialists giving evidence are people from Perth [Eleopolous-Papdopolous and Turner] who quote you as indicating that PCR technology is erroneous and misleading. Can I ask you to comment on this statement. The Supreme Court Trial will continue for another few days and I would appreciate your comment as a matter of urgency. I look forward to your response Peter McDonald Emeritus Professor

	From:	Kary Mullis
	Sent:	Sun, 4 Feb 2007 14:27:22 -0800
	To:	Peter McDonald
	Cc:	Robyn Richardson, Attorney General’s Department of South Australia David Crowe Christine Maggiore
	Subject:	HIV/AIDS/legal proceeding
		Dear Dr. McDonald: I will not try to convince anyone that PCR can be used successfully to specifically make multiple copies of any nucleic acid sequence that can be uniquely defined by two “primer target sequences” comprising the termini of the sequence of interest. The veracity of this no longer has anything to do with me. I think this has been confirmed by a huge number of laboratories around the world. The rapid spread of this simple technology would not have occurred had it been ineffectual or flawed in any persistent way. The matter which you are considering, if I understand it correctly, is that the presence or absence of a given nucleic acid sequence, as determined by PCR, can be used as a reliable marker for a living organism in a biological sample. This is done quite often in scientific studies, but that does not mean there could never be exceptions. Remember scientific studies are done with the understanding that findings will be subject to scrutiny from colleagues. A nucleic acid segment very similar in size and terminal base could easily, in a cursory examination, be mistaken for the sequence in question. If this happened in the course of a normal scientific finding, somebody would finally notice it. Papers are retracted all the time. I am not aware of the nature of the evidence you are considering, but when it comes to legal issues, retractions don’t necessarily make up for the original mistake, and if I were to offer advice to the courts system of Australia, I would plead that they realize that the AIDS/HIV issue is what is not settled scientifically, not the effectiveness of PCR. I have enclosed a paper I published some years ago which encapsulates my personal opinion concerning the cause of AIDS. I represent a very small minority among scientists who have seriously considered this matter. Many scientific issues which are controversial are often decided in favor of the minority, by experiments. Some of the time the majority gets it right. Prosecuting people based on an unproven hypothesis would seem to be unfair and rash. To cloak the real issues in a veneer of irrelevant technological detail is, in my opinion, a bit of a sham, unworthy of Australians. Sincerely yours, Dr. Kary B. Mullis [Mullis also attached a 1995 Genetica paper entitled “A hypothetical disease of the immune system that may bear some relation to the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome”]

	From:	Peter McDonald
	Sent:	Sat, 17 Feb 2007 15:46:17 +1030
	To:	Kary Mullis
	Cc:	Robyn Richardson, Attorney General’s Department of South Australia David Crowe Christine Maggiore
	Subject:	HIV/AIDS/legal proceeding
		Many thanks for taking the time to respond to my request. Your views were helpful in terms of confirming the validity of PCR in which you were being quoted as “having no confidence in the technology”. Overall I think I share with you some scepticism about the jump from scientific observation to a deduction that HIV transmission and pathogenesis is set in stone and becomes a legitimate basis for criminal prosecution. I personally do not believe that it is appropriate to lock people in jail  for sexual transmission of HIV – but that is the law! I thank you for your assistance and would be happy to keep a dialogue. Kindest regards from down under Peter

	From:	Mark Biernbaum
	Sent:	February 27th 2007 7:04:47 PM EST
	To:	Peter McDonald
	Subject:	Apologies
		Dr. McDonald: I am sure you’re quite busy and that this is an unpleasant and hectic time concerning the trial. I won’t take up much of it. As an AIDS patient, I just wanted to thank you for writing that you had some skepticism regarding HIV pathogenesis and transmission being “set in stone.” I became a dissident in 2005 – was diagnosed HIV+ back in 1998. Have taken many of the treatments. The medicines only seemed to make me sicker. And my numbers never seemed to change all that much. But my doctors all kept saying the same thing: that I had HIV, and therefore, I would develop AIDS and at some point, expire. If even one of them had said that perhaps, HIV pathogenesis, was not “set in stone,” I would have been so much more hopeful about the possibility of having a life. What I am saying is that, contrary to popular belief, we AIDS patients don’t need utter certainty about our collective demise. If it’s true that it’s not set in stone, then there is hope. And if it’s true that it’s not set in stone, then – someone like me might have made a different decision about medication. If this is the truth – that HIV pathogenesis is not known, truly, – then all patients like me should know that. I hope that’s what you tell the judge, and I know it’s none of my business. But I wanted you to know how much hope there was in what you wrote to Dr. Mullis. And I’m sorry for my intrusion. I read the transcript of your testimony. I know you were there at the beginning, like Sonnabend, here. I’ve had some lovely doctors whom I know were doing everything they could to help me. But I think they failed to provide me with a key to hope: some uncertainty. My best regards, Mark   Mark A. Biernbaum, PhD