Virus: The Co-Discoverer of HIV Tracks Its Rampage and Charts the

parts of the text updated to 1998). Since these books are by the co-discoverers of HIV, they are an important part of the HIVIAIDS story. Both are self-laudatory and distinctly self-serving. Each reads much like a pompous soap opera: the characters are black-or-white, either the best (those who side with the author) or the worst. From the viewpoint of the continuing controversy, whether HIV causes AIDS, their greatest interest is that-mostly implicitly but sometimes even explicitly-they afford evidence for the still-unorthodox view that HIV does not cause AIDS. Most observers believe Gallo to be guilty of incompetence or misconduct. The "HTLV-111 " he discovered is the "LAV " that Montagnier had sent him, and the now universal, compromise term "HIV " resulted from international litigation. Gallo's book does not enhance his credibility, for example in his explanation (especially pp. 210-21 1) of how LAV turned into HTLV-111 in his lab; as another reviewer com-mented, the book "will add more heat, but little light, to the controversy " (Shelton, 1991). Part of Gallo's defense, eschewing false modesty, is to point to others wh