Other scientists complained that they could not reproduce Gallo’s success. Subsequently, two groups of US researchers literally made a monkey out of Gallo’s discovery—if not Gallo—by proving his HL-23 virus was actually a humiliating laboratory contamination consisting of a mélange of three viruses from a gibbon, a woolly monkey, and a baboon.16 Instead of a Nobel laureate, Gallo became a laughing stock.
