Since winning the Nobel Prize, Mullis has been criticized in
The New York Times for promoting ideas in areas in which he has no expertise.
[5] He has promoted
AIDS denialism,
[6][7][8][9][10][11] climate change denial[6] and his belief in
astrology.
[5][6]
(...)
In his 1998 autobiography, Mullis expressed disagreement with the scientific evidence supporting
climate change and
ozone depletion, the evidence that
HIV causes AIDS, and asserted his belief in
astrology. Mullis claims climate change and the HIV/AIDS connection are due to a
conspiracy of environmentalists, government agencies and scientists attempting to preserve their careers and earn money, rather than scientific evidence.
[6] Mullis has drawn controversy for his association with prominent AIDS denialist
Peter Duesberg,
[7] claiming that AIDS is an arbitrary diagnosis only used when HIV antibodies are found in a patient's blood.
[8] The medical and scientific consensus is that Duesberg's hypothesis is
pseudoscience, HIV having been conclusively proven to be the cause of AIDS
[23][24] and that global warming is occurring because of human activities.
[25][26][27] Seth Kalichman, AIDS researcher and author of
Denying AIDS, "[admits] that it seems odd to include a Nobel Laureate among the who's who of AIDS pseudoscientists".
[9] Mullis also wrote the foreword to the book
What If Everything You Thought You Knew About AIDS Was Wrong? by
Christine Maggiore,
[10] an HIV-positive AIDS denialist who, along with her daughter, died of an AIDS-related illness.
[28] A
New York Times article listed Mullis as one of several scientists who, after success in their area of research, go on to make unfounded, sometimes bizarre statements in other areas.
[5] An article in the
Skeptical Inquirer described Mullis as an "...AIDS denialist with scientific credentials [who] has never done any scientific research on HIV or AIDS".
[11]