It’s possible, and I’m just surmising here, that when folks at some of the smaller news agencies and aggregators ran stories this week on a member of the National Academy of Sciences and senior professor at one of the US’s leading research universities who says that cancer fills the bill as more of a new species that has evolved inside oneself than a mere derangement of a gene in one’s own cells, the result of some little point mutation, they figured (if they figured anything) it was a solid piece of news for sure.

And one might also surmise that for awhile, until perhaps a few emails or other tips came in, they wondered why no major news outlets touched it.

After all, the press release did not spell out for them the history of the professor at the University of California, Berkeley, who is lead author of a new paper: Peter Duesberg. One asks – what professional journalist, in alliance with professional and experienced editors, would use such a story without mentioning that Duesberg has near saint status among those who deny that the human immunodeficiency virus is the cause of AIDS? Other scientists known for impactful work tend to see that mentioned should they do something else that makes the news. If Jim Hansen, of climate change fame, invented a revolutionary new weather balloon instrument, his testimony to Congress and his relentless campaign for carbon taxes  and a flat ban on new coal plants would get at least some mention. (To be clear here, I’m a big Hansen fan.)

More likely, seasoned reporters and editors took one look at the press release, saw Duesberg’s name, and moved on. Just guessing again, but it is easy to believe that a spontaneous blacklisting arose against a man whose fine-toothed analysis of HIV, of the formal rules of epidemiology such as Koch’s postulates, and mindful of the usual harmlessness of retroviruses, led him to conclude some years ago that  HIV could not possibly cause AIDS. Epidemiology be damned. He thus helped propel a deadly and delusional mischief. HIV denial abetted derailment in some nations of public health campaigns built around life-saving anti-HIV medications. Now Prof. Duesberg has looked at the definition of new species, at the whole-scale reshuffling of chromosomal sections in many tumors, and other oddments of tumor behavior and declared that because the appearance of cancer thereby can be squeezed into the definition of a speciation event, that is what it is.

The relabeling may not make much difference to curing cancer, but it is an offbeat and interesting point of view. From most anybody else with a PhD in a pertinent field and at a fine research institute, it’d make a small but broad news splash. It could have merit, it might lead to new insights for all I know.

None of the stories I’ve seen mentions Dueseberg’s history. The press release from UC Berkeley, written by one of the more experienced public affairs writers in the university world, makes no mention of it. Why exactly it is mum on the topic is hard to say; perhaps it is because such background is not routine for other press releases so why make an exception here? But it is safe to say that a press release is a press release and is therefore a tip to a story. It can never be assumed to be the whole story. Thus one further suspects that the news outlets that ran with the story, at face value and no value added from, uh, reporting, were clueless and made little effort to get one.

The news was on the web yesterday. I waited a day to see if any stories ran with both Duesberg’s new big idea, and a mention of his most famous previous one. None so far from straight news outlets. I cannot even find any blogs that make the association. There must be some.

The paper behind the press release and news is in the journal Cell Cycle, which explicitly promotes itself in part as a vehicle for scientists whose papers were rejected by Science, Nature, Cell, and others.

Stories:

• Popular Science – Rebecca Boyle: Cancers are Newly Evolved Parasitic Species, Biologist Argues ;
• Discovery News – Jennifer Viegas: Cancers Might Be Newly Evolved Species ;
• io9 – Alasdair Wilkins: Biologist says cancers might actually be newly-evolved species inside your body ;
• Salon – Peter Finocchiaro: A different beast entirely ; Based on a rewrite by another outfit, PhysOrg, of the Berkeley press release.
• SF Chronicle blog – Cameron Scott: Is cancer a new form of parasite? 
• Gizmodo : Are Cancers Actually a Newly Evolved Parasitic Species?
• Earthweek: Cancers Are Actually New Evolved Species: Biologist:  I thought I had found one that included some back story. It says “controversial” prominently. But it’s all about speciation – and does not even demonstrate that any controversy is underway about anything.

*UPDATE: On the other hand…this came in over the weekend.

• Discover – Veronique Greenwood: Are Cancers News Species? Probably Not – and it Probably Doesn’t Matter ; A vigorous demolition of the paper, in context.

 

Grist for the Mill:

UC Berkeley Press Release ; Journal abstract ; Peter Duesberg faculty page, UCB Dept. of Molecular and Cell Biology.

- Charlie Petit

 

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