Alleged Sabotage of AIDS Experiments at CDC Being Probed
A team from the National Academy of Sciences Friday began investigating allegations that AIDS experiments by the national Centers for Disease Control were sabotaged and mismanaged.
The three-person panel from the academy’s National Institute of Medicine will also try to determine why seven of 13 AIDS researchers left the center in recent months.
Kathryn Lord, a center spokeswoman, said the investigators were invited by CDC Director James Mason to interview “certain members of the staff.”
“They are specifically looking at allegations of impropriety and mismanagement in the AIDS laboratory program,” she said.
The investigation was prompted by Sen. Lowell P. Weicker Jr. (R-Conn.), who first disclosed the allegations.
Two investigators are expected to interview center employees named in newspaper stories and internal center memos concerning the acquired immune deficiency syndrome program.
One report cited infighting so severe among center researchers that some were reportedly sabotaging the experiments of their rivals.
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