Wellcome's fellow

IN CARRYING a withering review of my book, AIDS: The Failure of Contemporary Science (THES, November 15), I think it would have been fairer if you had stated that the reviewer, Jon Turney, is Wellcome Fellow in science communication at University College, London.

The book includes criticism of the Wellcome Trust, the world's richest medical research charity, which until a decade ago owned 100 per cent of shares in the Wellcome pharmaceutical company. The company has profited greatly from its promotion of AZT, the controversial anti-HIV drug.

Although forbidden from supporting the company's activities, some of the trust's work has had a direct bearing on HIV and Aids and critics have argued that its enormous power of patronage helped foster a climate in which the anti-viral approach to Aids squeezed out almost all other lines of inquiry.

Neville Hodgkinson

Nunehan Park

Nuneham Courtenay

Oxford