The bitter, public contest for priority over the discovery of the virus that causes AIDS
was officially closed in 1987 with equal credit being awarded to two parties from opposite
sides of the Atlantic. One was led by Robert C. Gallo of the Laboratory of Tumor Cell
Biology at the National Cancer Institute in the United States and the other was led by
Luc Montagnier of the viral-oncology unit at the Pasteur Institute in France. Using
citation counts from articles published by the scientific community, a process of alloca
tion of credit is examined and compared with this official settlement. A novel pattern
emerges. It is found that the scientific community began to redistribute priority when the
dispute became highly publicized and took little notice of the official settlement. This,
along with the fact that Gallo has now officially been charged with misconduct by an
investigative committee, may mean that Montagnier's team may eventually receive sole
creditfor the discovery of the AIDS virus. The importance of examining priority disputes
from many different angles and the potential for citation analysis in such cases are
highlighted.
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