First: Don't be put off by the shrill reactions of other "reviewers" here who don't show any evidence that they have actually read the book. It is not clear to me what could be proven by Duesberg or anyone else injecting themselves with the virus, other than they believe that what they say is true. I don't suppose anyone in the scientific community has sacrificed more to maintain his challenge than has Duesberg. Even a cursory comparison of his career history before and after he became a "heretic" will demonstrate this. I don't think injecting himself with HIV would enhance the already clear and overwhelming evidence of his integrity. (Incidentally, while comparing credentials, check out Robert Gallo's. He started all this, after all. He holds the patent on the stuff their testing our blood with. Evaluate HIS integrity.)

Second: Don't be scared by the size of the book. It is well written, accessible, and engaging. The science is patiently explained for the general reader without being patronizing or condescending. This is coming from someone who has a paralyzing fear of scientific writing. I read the first hundred pages the day I got it. Plus, the last 300 pages are appendices which ought, in any case, to add credibility to the argument, since they present the actual evidence upon which the argument is based.

Third: Keep an open mind. Duesberg is no quack. He is a member of the elite National Academy of Sciences, and before he became a heretic, was on the Nobel prize fast-track for his discovery of the first cancer gene. Moreover, long before AIDS appeared, Duesberg was an eminently respected retro-virologist. Since the reputed source of "AIDS" is supposed to be precisely one of these strange and rare critters (actually not a critter, since viruses are not living things), who better than someone who has devoted his career to studying them to explain what they do, and what they cannot do? Maybe he's obsessed; maybe that doesn't really matter. This book makes a case that should be answered, not vilified by his peers (if they can; I've searched and searched and found nothing more enlightening by way of counter-argument than the reviewer who immediately precedes me here).

Fourth: This book is especially important if you are a person who has tested positive with HIV. The story told here will answer many of your questions, and may lead to some degree of independence. If Duesberg is right (and I think, at least as far as HIV is concerned, he is), then this is very GOOD news for thousands of people who have been infected with what would appear to be a very old and not terribly interesting passenger virus. This is especially true for HIV positive people who have never been sick (except from side effects of the toxic medicines that are currently the protocol of choice among mainstream physicians).

Finally: No great scientific innovation in history has resulted from those who were at the mainstream. From Aristotle to Copernicus, Galileo, Darwin, Einstein, and forward: all were rejected by their peers, vilified, called quacks and condemned as heretics. Admittedly, that doesn't prove anything about the current debate, but it ought to give one pause before raising the argument that usually goes: "How could so many eminent scientists be wrong?" How indeed. This book probably sheds more light on that mystery than it does on AIDS itself.

I gave the book 4 instead of 5 stars because I don't think everything argued here is of equal value. Duesberg's alternative theory what DOES cause AIDS is not as well proven as his case as to what does NOT cause AIDS. Which is not to say that he's not right. But interested readers should also look at the work of Dr. Eleni Papadopulos-Eleopolus and her colleagues of the Perth Group in Australia. Search her name on any search engine and you'll get more than enough. These scientists go farther than Duesberg, suggesting that HIV may not even exist.

I respectfully encourage anyone who has come to visit this page to read the first few chapters of this book, starting with the forward by 1993 Nobel Prize winner (chemistry; developer of the polyemerase chain reaction [PCR] protocol, currently the "gold standard" in virus hunting) Kary Mullis. See if you can put it down.

I first read about Duesberg in a Spin magazine interview about 4 years ago. I was amazed that someone would actually blame something other than a virus for AIDS--news to me. I filed the interview away until a National Review article later on that year about the dangers of AZT. About a year later, I read the hardcover edition of Inventing the AIDS Virus. OK, I'm not a doctor, scientist or what have you (but I do work in a medical library and therefore have access to the articles he cites), but two seconds of thought will tell you that while Duesberg might not have all the answers, he does make many valid points and hypothesis; logic dictates that his theories be tested just like any others. Think about some of the "crisis" that have foisted on us within the past 25 years: asbestos, Alar, radon, Love Canal, EMFs, global warming. Does anybody remember Swine Flu?? I think the man's onto something. I've noticed that those who do not agree with the book or Duesberg cannot disagree without being disagreeable. Why's that??

Without a doubt, Duesberg has written THE book on the scandalous AIDS epidemic sponsored by the CDC and Dr Robert Gallo. He painstakingly walks the reader through the history of the epidemic and cooly examines the data so readily accepted by doctors and scientists. He demonstrates how the media jumped on the AIDS bandwagon before scientists could examine HIV for themselves. This is a disease founded on pseudo-science and announced in the media rather than in a scientific journal or paper.

If you want to know the TRUTH about the so-called AIDS epidemic and how this "disease" breaks all the rules of science and logic, then you owe it to yourself to read Duesberg's book. Inventing the AIDS Virus will change your view of AIDS. It exposes the official AIDS establishment for what it is....a downward spiral into madness.

Nor does it pretend to be. I am disappointed that some of my fellow reviewers have actually critiqued this work according to standards I normally reserve for treatises.

Yes, Mullis is a hedonistic, puerile man with an ego of whopping proportions who wrote a book about himself.

Yes, he engages in some very unscientific hypothesis. Frankly, I'm glad he's stepped outside of the lab a time or two. It made for an interesting read. Further, I wouldn't hesitate to blame natural selection for any casualties resultant from literal interpretation of this work.

Mullis seems to enjoy a colorful square as much as he does a gold star. Seems to me that he's had a healthy dose of both, right in the middle of his forehead.

I found his tribute to himself refreshing in its honesty. In my book (and apparently his), feigned humility is a bit cloying. I'd think pretty highly of myself if I were a nobel laureate. Actually, I think pretty highly of myself without one. I don't necessarily believe self-confidence should be reserved for professional athletes only. Would Mullins' critics have allowed him to join in the reindeer games if he had titled the book, "Why, This Old PCR?"

After spending far too long in a huge cardboard moving box, then almost three months on my "to read" shelf, "Dancing Naked in the Mind Field" was selected purely by chance as my companion on a weekend journey by train from New York City to Philadelphia.

It was an amusing trip.

I first heard of Kary Mullis in 1994, when I read his Chemistry Nobel Prize acceptance speech in Angewandte Chemie, my favorite Chemistry journal. I was then still employed as a researcher with the company that gave us better living through chemistry. I ended up reading the multi-thousand word account of his speech three times, without pause. It was simply brilliant, yet hardly had a word of science in it! Instead, it talked about what it means to be alive and human. I have read "Dancing Naked in The Mind Fields" in two sittings since its arrival at my door earlier this week. It does have science in it, but a whole lot more of other things. It also deals with living and being human. All of it is worth reading, re-reading, digesting, and learning. A more compact course in critical thinking does not exist. Nor a more humorous one. Nor a more honest one. Dr. Mullis is one of those extremely rare human beings that truly can be classified as a genius. He is equally at home at the forefront of DNA research as he is on his surfboard, at a nightclub, or studying up on planetary motion and its relation to the diversity in human personalities. There is nothing too preposterous for him to rigorously investigate (and often attempt) and learn something valuable from, just as there are very few "truths" that we all accept in which he cannot find some fundamental fallacy. These include "truths" presented to us by the dogmatic kingdom of post WWII science. His anecdotes along these two divergent yet symmetrical paths -- from his curious adventures as a boy to his often hilarious (and, sadly for society, illegal) encounters as a world famous scientist -- leave the reader fluctuating between uncontrollable fits of laughter and a deeply serious concern for our over-regulated and blatantly unethical, dollar-chasing post-modern world. The book's only flaw? A few very minor and silly typos/oversights. For example, at one point, Dr. Mullis claims to be 22 years old in 1968 and born in 1944. On second thought, he may have put these teasers in on purpose, to prove that nobody is perfect... Reading this book left this reader entertained, amazed, embittered but, most of all, inspired. It is essential reading for anyone whose IQ is higher than the hottest shade temperature ever recorded in the USA, in degrees Fahrenheit. Oh, by the way, how did you spend your 10,000th day?

Seeing a Nobel Laureate say, and write about, things like Kary Mullis is indeed refreshing. Mullis is an avid thinker, and shows that in his acceptance of drug use, and his inability to dismiss anything. Indeed a gem in the rough of scientists who are so close minded that they dismiss things like astronomy and other metaphysical principles. I, for one, and not saying that these are truth, but saying that throughout the book Mullis refuses to believe anything unless it has proof to back it up, which is a scientific methodology, and this is why he refuses to dismiss astrology as "wishful thinking". For the man who created PCR--one of the greatest breakthroughs in biochemistry and genetics--to be talking about such things as astrology, astral travel, and drug use, openly is an amazing phenomenon. At some points, yes, he sounds like Timothy Leary, and at others, Feynman.

Science is a close-minded profession, run by people who are close-minded. In many ways the science community of the world is no different from the church in its inability to consider the outlandish (i.e. Einstein): Kary Mullis is one of too few exceptions.

Dancing Naked in the Mind Field is an excellent book. In tandem with what Carl Sagan said about the book I would like to say that it should permeate schools and colleges alike. It should be read by anyone who is going into the sciences and has the patience, and the freedom to read it without disgust or feeling personal attack. I can think of many teachers, professors, and even religious leaders that I would like to see read this book: it MIGHT do them some good.

Bravo Dr. Mullis!

Christine's book helped me understand all the inconcistencies of where the HIV=AIDS myth goes wrong. With a compelling directness, she pulls apart the misleading statistics and lies the perhaps well-meaning AIDS industry and 'gay leaders' have forced upon us for the past 15+ years. You will learn: HIV has never been scientifically proven to cause AIDS or any illnesses at all (Nobel laureates and others are offering Big Money Rewards to anyone who can do so!). You'll learn: The commonly-prescribed AIDS medications are every one of them toxic and capable of creating in the patient the very illnesses they are supposed to prevent, and more. I am "HIV+" of over four years, totally healthy and free of those horrible AIDS meds I have watched friends get sick on, and some of them die from taking! My friends who are longterm diagnosed Positive who are NOT taking meds are generally healthy, my friends who took or who are taking the meds are sick, and/or dying. None of the drugs have completed scientifically-published studies to prove their 'effectiveness' and if you look at their ads carefully or their product inserts, you'll see them admit in the small print everything Christine's book is saying. Read the label. Buy the book. Don't swallow those drugs, and do not take that unsupportable HIV test. Stop AIDS funding! The book's bibliography lists many other helpful books and resources, and meeting groups to help you de-program from the HIV=AIDS lies.

Having been a social worker in the AIDS field for six years, I first picked up this little book hoping to find some answers and solutions to help my work. What I found, instead, was a series of questions I had never before considered--why are AIDS deaths counted cumulatively instead of annually like other diseases? why is the definition of AIDS and the interpretation of the HIV antibody test different in different countries? why hasn't AIDS effected men and women equally like all other infectious diseases?--questions that Christine poses without fear of the political-correctness patrol and with the mind of a true critical thinker. Though answers to these questions are offered, the reader is left with more questions than answers, and this little book's purpose is to encourage critical thinking, introspection and further research. Christine does not pretend to have all the answers, but she realizes that the answers we have been given are severely inconsistent and suspect. Thanks to this book and others, I have stopped my involvement with the AIDS industry and hope to contribute to the exposing of the myth of HIV. Also of interest: The AIDS Cult (John Lauritsen & Ian Young, eds), The Stonewall Experiment (Ian Young) and Inventing the AIDS Virus (Peter Duesberg).

well I'm convinced. Christine Maggiore came and taught an alternative AIDS class at my high school and it was one of the most interesting experiences in a class I've ever had. We didn't just talk about AIDS but about how the pharmaceutical companies are running our country and how your doctors get corrupted by the money. I know it sounds crazy but it seriously makes a lot of sense when you learn all about it. Christine is really smart and this book is very well written. I highly recommended if you have an open mind and are interested in learning a different point of view then the norm. An excellent book.