How did Gallo move from cancer to AIDS research?
Rasnick: In the early ’80s, gay men were showing up in emergency rooms with a variety of simultaneous illnesses and infections. At the time, medical journals speculated that the diseases were drug-related. Gay men had been abusing toxic, immune suppressing and even carcinogenic drugs like poppers, cocaine and amphetamines on a daily basis for the better part of the ’70s. In 1983, Luc Montagnier, a French scientist at the Pasteur Institute, claimed to have found a new retrovirus in AIDS patients. But nobody paid attention, because he hadn’t isolated a virus, and he hadn’t found a single viral particle in the blood – remember the titer was zero, undetectable. Seeking some academic support, Montagnier sent a cell sample to Robert Gallo at the NIH. Gallo took the cell-line Montagnier sent him and modified it slightly. Then he did something strange. He stole it. In 1984 Gallo called an international press conference and together with Margaret Heckler, the head of the Department of Health an