I became aware of the subjects of this book almost by accident. In the early 1980s, when HIV/AIDS so unexpectedly came upon the world, I was invited by that fine epidemiologist turned international civil servant, Dr Jonathan Mann, to join the World Health Organisation inaugural Global Commission on AIDS. This experience threw me into close contact with some of the leaders of medical science at the time, including Robert Gallo and Luc Montagnier, the two scientists who first isolated the virus that causes AIDS. I was soon attending meetings with leading biomedical experts and hearing them describe their experiments, their dreams and hopes
