The five categories under the prize umbrella are those of peace, chemistry, physics, physiology and medicine and literature.

This year, Los Angeles Times reported Tuesday, the Nobel committee awarded the prize for physiology and medicine to French researchers Luc Montagnier, Francoise Barre-Sinoussi and German scientist Harold zur Hausen.

The former are credited with discovering the human strain of the AIDS virus, the latter with proving the “papilloma virus causes cervical cancer.”

Controversy has often surrounded the Nobel Prize and its originator, Swedish dynamite creator Alfred Nobel, and this year’s share centers around two of the aforementioned physiology and medicine winners.

Montagnier and Sinoussi’s discovery was a source of much contention in the 1980s as American researcher Robert Gallo claimed to have discovered HIV himself. The dispute reached a level so bitter that in 1987, President Reagan and French Prime Minister Jacques Chirac negotiated split royalties.

But Gallo’s relief was to be short-lived as 1991 saw his role in the discovery challenged by Montagnier and the French government. While Gallo said he had isolated a virus exactly like the one Montagnier had, Gallo’s patients exhibited a different strain, raising the question that Gallo may have used samples not his own.

In 1994, the U.S. government agreed the French should receive the heftier side of the royalties, a concession that implied Montagnier did, indeed, have a greater, if not the full, role in the momentous discovery than Gallo did.

Within each category, the medal may only be awarded to a maximum of three people. As many research teams require the assistance of many more individuals, that number seems both too small and, depending on the context, inappropriate.

Gallo received neither a prize nor mention. This year’s Nobel citation said that “after the discovery of the virus, several groups contributed to the definitive demonstration of HIV as the cause.” No one specified who those “several groups” were. Gallo did not get the prize simply because of its three-person cap; the committee did not deem his contribution worth even a nominal head nod.

But I have some problems with that. Granted, the Nobel Prize has not always erred on the side of wisdom and foresight. Gandhi was nominated for the peace prize five times, but when 1948 would have made him that winner, he was assassinated. Rather than grant a posthomous medal, though, the committee opted to dole out no peace medals at all that year.

I find both the committee’s intractability and insensitivity ridiculous. Clearly, they didn’t merely neglect Gallo out of deference to the numerical limit. To them, Gallo was insignificant enough to merit a complete lack of acknowledgement. I think that’s tacky at best.

Why not expand the winner number? Or if the alternate individual doesn’t seem worthy of a prize, why not at least issue some verbal recognition?

The Times wrote “Montagnier said he wished that Gallo had shared in the award.”

“‘It is certain that he deserved this as much as us two,’” the winner said.

So whether or not this is a case of Academy Award-like euphoric condescension “all of you deserve this as much as I do, but I’m only saying that because now I’m in the position to have won and to feel magnanimous toward my former rivals” doesn’t matter. Whatever his motives, Montagnier came forth and admitted Gallo deserved a significant degree of credit.

So if the scientist admitted it, why couldn’t the Nobel judges?

Gallo may not have been the sole researcher to have discovered the “human AIDS virus,” and Montagnier may have had a bigger part to play, but that ratio doesn’t strip Gallo the right to some honor (perhaps even his own award?).

Any prize is, by nature, competitive. It cannot belong to all contenders. Otherwise there’d be no point in distinction; if everyone’s distinguished, no one is. But I do think Gallo could have borne some Nobel recognition. These scientists’ discoveries are far too important to accommodate such negligence.

* In the Northern Hemisphere, that is.