Inquiry Clears AIDS Expert of Misconduct : Medicine: Federal investigation finds that Dr. Robert C. Gallo did not steal AIDS virus from French researcher. Dispute has been brewing since ’85.

A major federal investigation has cleared prominent AIDS researcher Dr. Robert C. Gallo of any scientific wrongdoing in the 1984 discovery of the virus that causes AIDS, according to sources at the National Institutes of Health.

The Office of Scientific Integrity, an independent body established by NIH to conduct inquiries into charges of scientific fraud and misconduct, has concluded in a report that Gallo did not, as had been alleged, steal and later claim as his own a sample of the human immunodeficiency virus that had been provided to him by Dr. Luc Montagnier, a French AIDS researcher.

“He’s clean,” said one knowledgeable source who requested anonymity. “He’s clean and has been all along.”

The report was approved about three weeks ago by NIH Director Bernadine P. Healy, who forwarded it to the Office of Scientific Integrity Review, an office within the Public Health Service that also must approve the findings.

It then also must receive an OK from Dr. James O. Mason, assistant secretary of health and human services, who is expected to approve the report.

“The report said that perhaps there was some sloppiness on his (Gallo’s) part, but there was no scientific fraud--so they cleared him,” one source said.

Gallo has been the target of accusations and criticism since 1985, when an international dispute erupted between the United States and France over which researcher actually discovered the AIDS virus--Gallo or Montagnier.

In May, 1983, Montagnier was the first to publish that he had found a virus, which he called LAV, in an AIDS patient. But he did not claim that it was the cause of AIDS. Nearly a year later, Gallo published a paper describing a virus that he had identified and said it was the cause of AIDS. He called it HTLV-III. Gallo, a pioneer in research involving a family of viruses called retroviruses, was the first to identify the AIDS virus as belonging to that group.

Gallo also developed a blood test to detect antibodies to the virus.

It is not unusual for researchers working on similar problems to occasionally share information. Early in the research process, Montagnier had sent a sample of his virus to Gallo.

After Gallo published his paper, Montagnier insisted that he had been the first to discover the AIDS virus and charged that Gallo had used his sample to develop the test. But Gallo claimed that he had used his own samples.

The French researchers filed a lawsuit seeking millions of dollars in patent royalties from the blood test, which initially became the basis for large-scale screening of blood supplies, and later for diagnostic screening in humans.

Ultimately, leaders of both countries reached an agreement declaring that the men were co-discoverers of the virus and that royalties would be split evenly.

The new report is a major vindication for Gallo, who has refused to comment throughout the inquiry.

“Gallo has not been allowed to talk about this while it was going on, but once all of this gets through official channels, then you’ll hear his side of the story,” one source said.