Professional Documents
Culture Documents
10
Chapter 10
The AIDSThe
Propaganda
War
AIDS
Campaign
I don't pretend to be a doctor by any stretch of the imagination.
But
over the last decade, I learned more about HIV and AIDS than I ever
wanted to know. And now that I acquired this knowledge it scares the
hell out of me to think that this may indeed be the great plague
mentioned in the Bible that could very well be mankind's final scourge.
This fatal disease is far worse than anyone ever imagined, and our
government has deliberately downplayed the gravity of it for years.
But
I'm getting ahead of myself here. Let me backtrack a bit to 1985 ...
assuring ignorance, I believed all that the CDC and it's head Anthony
Fauci put out about the disease, which frankly was not very much other
than the normal safe sex propaganda associated with any STD.
But three events would drastically alter my views about AIDS and the
CDC and one of those events was personal.
a marine
biologist,
His name
Yes, even now in 2000, the social stigma of AIDS is still ugly
Less than a year earlier I had received a wedding invitation from Juan
that had been forwarded to me through yet another friend I had kept in
touch with over the years.
almost six years and by mutual agreement they had put their wedding
plans on hold until they both finished their university studies.
Juan was
had a
reputation for being a smooth ladies man, even when I first met him in
his teens.
Now he was
It was
inconceivable to both me and our mutual friend who now said good-bye
to run off to catch a bus for DisneyWorld in Orlando.
stop
sobbing
and mumbling
"What?"
I a sk e d,
not a b l e
t o understand her. "He wasn't gay. He wasnt gay!" She blurted. I did
my best to calm her down and then tried to restore some conversation
by assuring her that I knew Juan wasn't gay.
In a few minutes we
were both trying to solve the mystery. Juan occasionally smoked some
pot, but never used any hard drugs, and that ruled out dirty needles. All
we could come up with was that he was in the hospital following a
car accident about three years prior to his death.
a broken
slight concussion when his face slammed into the dashboard, and he
was unconscious for about a half hour while his nose bled profusely
from both nostrils.
was
repair
required
to
surgery
his face
of
a second thought,
No one gave
Juan didn't fare far worse in the accident. The car was totalled when
it was smashed from behind by a drunk driver at 40 mph.
At that time
in history, the CDC still was not acknowledging that the HIV virus could
be transmitted through a blood transfusion,
phone that night, Juan's death remained a real mystery to both of us.
The second event that hit home with me was the TV news disclosure
that Arthur Ashe's
ultimately
That
press conference news clip remains etched in my mind and the more I
thought about Juan, the more I replayed that clip over and over again.
Yet the CDC remained strangely silent.
again, I'm no doctor and I knew almost zilch about contagious diseases
and immunology. But my extensive Red Cross training taught me that
malaria, dengue fever, and hepatitis could all be transmitted by tainted
blood so I always had lingering doubts about this relatively new HIV
disease. After all it too was a virus, not merely a bacterial infection that
could be chased off with antibiotics..
167
168
HIV and AIDS but almost all the reports and statistics being published
originated with either the CDC, U.S. Surgeon General or U.S. Public
Health Service. They all seemed to be singing from the same hymnbook
however, and they all insisted that HIV could only be transmitted by
sexual contact or dirty needles.
Somehow
the library began carrying copies of research papers and Journals of the
famous Pasteur Institute of France and they were aggressively chasing
down the origin, cause, and effect of AIDS. They knew our HIV virus by
a different name - HTLV. Same identical virus, just a different label.
The Pasteur Institute didn't beat around the bush nor try to
sugar coat the brutal facts about AIDS. But the more I read the sooner I
began to realize a major difference of opinion.
powerful one that said "current research in lab tests indicates infection
can occur through contaminated
blood transfusions".
Further, the
Pasteur
mutant -
probably
pass through
the
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pores of most condoms. I was floored. How could two modern medical
communities be so far apart on such crucial issues on such a dreadful
disease?
It seemed the only thing the two organizations actually agreed on was
that the HIV virus itself was virtually undetectable and that it could go
undiagnosed for months or even years until visible symptoms were
recognized in victims.
that
too would go undetected. A noticeable weight loss is most often the first
real visible symptom.
mystery was finally solved. To be sure I sent off a letter of inquiry to Dr.
Anthony
When I didn't even receive a form letter reply from him nor his staff, my
suspicions were confirmed in my own heart and mind.
I was angry to even think that our own government knew that the
Pasteur Institute was right on target with their findings yet would not
acknowledge it. Why would they hide such crucial information from the
public? After all, this voracious virus was poised to claim millions of lives
with no known cure or vaccine even on the horizon. I would discover the
answer to this question some six years later. For now I was headed to
prison. I had lost my appeal on the IRS case and Uncle Sam demanded
it's due. So off I went to serve what I was told would be a 11-13 month
stint in the pokey.
But even behind bars, I had access to a small library and continued to
read up on AIDS.
and getting current news of the disease was not easy. But by luck,
WSVN Channel 7 of Miami began running a health segment on it's
nightly news program that almost daily mentioned some news about
AIDS research.
mind you but, his level of knowledge far exceeded my own and I always
had a bag of questions for him every time we'd bump into one another.
Through question and answer periods that could last up to an hour, I
was slowly getting an abbreviated course on virus detection, symptoms,
and diagnosis.
Doc was a good teacher but our class time grew less
At MCC Miami, very few people actually served their sentences there.
This was what's called an "intake facility" where people awaiting trials or
sentencing are kept. Once they are sentenced they are usually sent off
to another prison to do their time. So it was rare to be at MCC Miami for
more than a year or two.
medical magazines and journals he had subscribed to. They were all in
Spanish but it was a special day for me to inherit all this condensed
knowledge. All the reading materi al sure helped to distract my mind
from the dark world of prison.
The more I read, the more I began to realize that the CDC could not
possibly be so ignorant about the AIDS epidemic. It appeared to me at
least, that our government didnt trust the public enough to tell us the
truth.
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I then recounted all the past cases of government cover-ups like the
Tuskeggee Syphillis experiments,
The Navy's mustard gas
experiments,
experiments,
the Air
Forces
radiation
lab rats without advising them of the deadly consequences. and suddenly
it wasn't too wild to believe that Uncle Sam might not be so forthright
about AIDS with the public either, especially since there were rumors
floating
about
that
HIV
was
an
Army
biological
warfare
experiment designed for use in Vietnam that had gone awry. To me,
who had my own personal experiences with the government, all things
were possible and nothing could be ruled out.
companies
whose
lobbyists
pounded
the
pavement
in
committees and the pressure was exerted upon the CDC to keep AIDS
cases to a minimum. But how do you control such a thing?
It's not as
hard as you may think if you are as creative and deceptive as the CDC
was in the 80's and early 90's.
artificial standard - determining where HIV infection ends and full blown
AIDS begins. This is done by counting T cells in an AIDS patient. Let
me explain in the simplest of terms ...
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Even though everyone who is HIV positive (infected with the HIV virus)
will m o s t l i k e l y eventually die prematurely of AIDS, or complications
related to AIDS, they are not really considered to be AIDS patients by
the government or insurance companies, and therefore are not entitled
to very many if any benefits or coverage with most medical plans. So the
CDC arbitrarily decides that if a person has X amount of T-cells in a
blood sample, they merely are HIV patients, but if they have X+ amount
of T-cells, they are magically transformed into genuine AIDS patients.
What this does, is allow the government and insurance companies to
save billions of dollars by not officially acknowledging that someone will
die of AIDS
until they
have
progressed
to the
point of advanced
infection. If they would acknowledge all HIV infection as AIDS cases (as
I believe they have a moral and ethical obligation to do), the lives of
millions of people could be extended five or even ten years with earlier
treatments and attention.
down to money. The CDC has the sole discretion to decide what number
of T cells constitutes AIDS, and their number was almost twice as
as
the
European
medical
community's.
The
high
insurance
175
200,000 cases of AIDS were reported for 1999, in reality, about three
million people were really infected with the HIV virus and would, without
the discovery of a cure, die of AIDS.
Why three million and not two million? More counting chicanery. Even
the CDC and Pasteur Institute agree that one third of those people
infected with the HIV virus don't even know they are infected yet, and
won't until they either 1) have the occasion to be hospitalized for
something else and get a routine blood test, 2) infects someone else
who gets hospitalized and gets a routine blood test, or 3) symptoms
finally appear and a diagnosis is made.
months to realize or
that 18-24 months, they will unknowingly infect others. Some people
have gone more than three years before symptoms surfaced. HIV is a
very sneaky virus that can latently hide within you for months and years.
The CDC knows this better than anyone, yet they make no effort to
factor in these latent, yet undiscovered cases in their counts, which as I
said, they admit could be a third more than known cases. It may very
well be fifty percent mor e than actual known cases - nobody really
knows for sure. To be fair, the CDC does, or did at the time rely heavily on
input from the NIH and the two organizations would often quote each other
for political convenience and to convince the public their numbers we real.
But the point is, clever and deliberately deceptive counting policies at
the
CDC
make
AIDS
actually is for the sole purpose of saving both tax dollars and big bucks
for the insurance companies. When I learned about this fraud at the CDC,
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I was determined to expose it to the public. But being behind bars did not
make it easy for me.
editors
to
key
I attempted
to write
a few
letters
to the
I therefore
decided that when I was eventually released from prison, I would seek
out and join up with some AIDS awareness group and use their public
forum to address the government AIDS fraud.
Uncle Sam
pays millions to these groups every year, and at first I was impressed
and felt maybe those in the government's ivory towers might be
compensating for a little guilt.
free money was
exposed
when
I discovered
that
in order
to
literature, mission
groups
leaders
to
statement,
and
resumes
on
the
that only those groups that promoted the government's official line on
AIDS got the bucks.
This
Running an AIDS
the
well-subsidized
groups.
This
178
one
of
the
leaders
of
such
a subsidized
organization
on live
By this time, I had come to learn that exposing the CDC's phony AIDS
statistics would be a futile effort if I kept pursuing AIDS groups that were
funded by the government establishment. It would be easier to sell a
stereo system to a deaf man.
and form my own organization that would tell the unedited, uncensored
version of the AIDS dilemma to the public. After my experience with the
Ramey Community Council, I felt confident that I could muster up some
volunteers and crank out a few thousand flyers on the streets of Miami if
nothing else.
as a non-profit volunteer
organization
and
We
agreed that the five of us would each volunteer four to six hours every
weekend and one day per week at lunch time handing out flyers. We
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had to start somewhere and this was our first step of a very long and
frustrating journey.
Our first issue was the biggest one - transmission of the disease, and
we put out flyers warning the public that they could get AIDS a dozen
different ways without ever even having sex.
As incredible as it
sounded it was absolutely true and we listed the various ways with
blood transfusions at the top of the list. We cited the Pastuer Institute
as our source and we were besieged with calls to our answering
machine of people wanting more information.
We were contemplating
sent us $5,000 in the mail with an anonymous note that simply read
"Keep up the good work. The truth needs to be told".
Considering that
our group was only a month old at the time, this gift could not
have
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During our second monthly meeting, we set a goal to pass out 50,000
flyers by the end of the month, and to buy a used automatic dialing
machine so we send our message out by telephone as well. And since
we didn't have a telemarketing crew just yet, the machine would have to
do.
per day on the answering machines of Dade County residents. And true
to our basic core policy, we never solicited money from anyone.
We
In
retrospect, I can now say it was probably these flyers that ticked off the
government-funded AIDS establishment. We were now in effect publicly
calling the CDC deceptive. Around this time, someone had donated two
used computers to our group and told us about a program that would let
the computers fax out two thousand of our flyers every 24 hours. It was
like having two full-time volunteers standing on a downtown street
corner. He showed us how to program the computers and make it spew
out our flyers by fax.
learned about two South Florida companies that were well aware of the
contaminated blood problem and proposed their own solution of a
homologous blood bank, where people could store their own frozen
blood in case they ever needed a blood transfusion.
I befriended these
people and would soon go to work and later invest with one called
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my conscience
would no longer let me work for the Red Cross as detailed in Chapter 8.
I could
not falsely
pledge
my allegiance
to an organization
that
my
Red
Cross
blood
banking
Ramos who
hosted
her own
controversy
in the
Miami
AIDS
community
and
our donations
182
p ar t - ti m e a c ti vi t y a n d
Kathy Lynch from Miami's Health Crisis Network would also be a guest,
but made that discovery upon my arrival at the studio.
It was a live
whose
getting
more
subsidies than telling the public the truth about AIDS. No arguments
erupted
but it was clear to the audience that the AAAA was not
anyone's puppet.
the schools, and one or two other issues. After the show, Kathy
approached me and said "I admire your passion and dedication, but
don't you think your group will just cause people to panic?"
My
response to her was the same that I would always give when asked that
question many times "I'd much prefer to panic and remain healthy and
alive, than to remain calm and get myself infected and die". I think most
people would choose the same if given the choice. But not giving them
the choice to learn the truth at all is grossly unethical.
Shortly thereafter we made a move that got the AAAA some incredible
publicity, lots of criticism, but saved over 320 lives. We established and
introduced our "AIDS Amnesty Program" which was two fold.
First we
provided a way for people to get a totally anonymous AIDS test (free for
the homeless and unmarried couples) and secondly,
notify former
those who tested positive. We had assumed that these were things that
government health agencies were already doing, but were shocked to
learn that in Florida at least, the only social AIDS programs offered
"Confidential" AIDS testing that required all who took the blood test to
identify themselves and be included on a government database.
This
sending a
once
the
letters
were
sent.
The
letter
read
"Dear
activity
until they
do.
ethics I did not report nor disclose the identity of a single patient I
counseled as all counselors were required to do in strict confidence even
though some HRS officials were enriching themselves by secretly (and
Illegally) selling databases to insurance companies for $500,000 or more.
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legal beagles and The ACLU director Robin Blum came to our aid
confirming that our program was well within the law and that the
government did not have the exclusive right to notify people that they
may be infected. Most people I spoke
with
agreed
that
if the
have to.
In retrospect,
notifications of which 817 were already infected, BUT, 320 of them didn't
even know it until they received our notice and got themselves tested.
So to me at least, and probably 320 other people and their sexual
partners, all the criticism we endured was well worth the final results.
What really ticked
from our
Someone in the government leaked a fake tip that I had initiated this
program only o drum up more business for the AIDs testing centers I
invested in, but in reality more than 70% of the letters mailed out were to
recipients in other Counties and States where I had no business interests.
Florida has the highest transient rate in America of all the states. Instead of
embracing a program that worked, as we clearly demonstrated, the
government did not want to upset their own applecart. Any changes might
quickly expose the fact that the AIDs epidemic was being grossly
underreported, and certainly not just a gay men disease as President
Reagan wanted the world to believe. In fact, in some countries as much as
50% of all HIV infections are women. In the U.S. it is approximately 33%.
See below
Authors Note: Please note the dates on these charts which were what
was available when I finished writing this chapter in 2009. The data has
not much changed since. Just be sure to rely on accurate data from The
Pasteur Institute, World Health Organization and UNAIDS. Every
government has a tendency to play down its own medical problems,
except when they are applying for foreign aid and grant moneys.
especially if they have a large tourism industry.
186
187
If nothing else, all the publicity created by the Herald and New Times
actually helped us grow to the next level as we were invited on even
more radio talk shows, did some editorials for WPLG Channel 10 and
got a bigger forum
and audience
idea, and over the next three months, we gathered all our data together
and produced a two hour video tape which I narrated. It was entitled
"AIDS-WHAT YOU DON'T KNOW CAN KILL YOU" and it included
video excerpts from various news programs and interviews with Dr.
Lorraine Thompson, Dr. C Everett Koop, and others. We sent the video
out to public schools throughout South Florida and the government
threatened yet another law suit if we didn't stop.
Deputy Director within the CDC and it ordered all staff that if they received
any media inquiries about AIDS statistics, they were not allowed to make
any comment whatsoever and were required to refer every inquiry directly
the office Anthony Fauci. There was also a ominous sentence in the memo
that threatened CDC staff with termination if these instructions were not
strictly followed.
189
"Shirley"
Washington.
from
something
called
the
AIDS
Coalition
in
AIDS Amnesty program but eventually suggested that our group would
qualify for a $250,000 grant which she suggested "could even be used
to pay the salaries of an administrative staff'. I played along and asked
her how we'd go about getting this grant. It was no big deal according to
her. We'd only have to fill out some forms and an agreement to
distribute the AIDS awareness material they provided us which she
boasted was "glossy full color quality booklets".
and told her to send me the forms and some of the fancy booklets we'd
have to pass out. When her package arrived, we all had a good laugh
when we discovered all the booklets were published
by the U.S.
government printing office for the CDC, Peace Corps, USPHS, and the
USA agency.
We toyed with the idea of signing the papers to get the $250,000 and
then using the money to print up more of our own simple two color
brochures that we used for months, but ultimately decided that just
wouldn't be right.
name or corporate
information, I asked for our friend Shirley. "Whose calling?" they asked.
When I stated who I was, I was put on hold for a good three minutes
before the receptionist came back on line an politely informed me that
"There's nobody here by that name" and hung up.
Gee I wondered, it
190
took them three minutes to figure out they had no one named Shirley in
their office? Oh well ...
I often reflected upon an old colonel that I met on the Magic Bus and
started to see if any of his pieces fit about Fort Dietrich and the special
project he was assigned to. I decided that I would make some inquires.
staff
Koop
calls we
himself.
from C.
Dr.
Koop
problems, he hesitated and just replied I cant be sure, but they would
certainly not be pleasant .
Like I said at the beginning of this chapter, I learned far more about
AIDS than I ever wanted to know. But after counseling over a hundred
AIDS patients, I know in my heart that even though we didn't change the
world, we made a big difference in the lives of a few hundred people,
saved some lives, and created a provocative, but healthy debate about
AIDS in South Florida. I would venture to suggest that the residents of
South Florida are now some of the best-educated citizens when it
comes to AIDS awareness and our group can claim at least some of the
credit for that achievement.
When you're
sitting across from someone who knows they will not only be dead in a
year or two, but have to endure an agonizingly painful and humiliating
death, suddenly all of our own problems seem so petty and insignificant.
The emotions double when you learn that the patient has toddlers at
home waiting to play or be tucked in. All the money and material things
it can buy means squat if you don't have your health to enjoy it. From a
selfish point of view, I only wish I had this enlightening experience
before I went off to prison and not after.
child. And I'd be remiss if I didn't close out this chapter by saying each
and everyone of us is affected by and vulnerable to AIDS whether or not
you even know anyone who is HIV-Positive or not.
All it takes is a
single one night stand, a blood transfusion, a single tattoo, ear or body
piercing, infected dental instruments, or even a pedicure or manicure
cut to get infected (if the instruments are not sterilized after each use).
The odds are indeed remote, but you are never beyond the reach of
this awful disease. Your best defense against AIDS is knowledge.
Please Read all you can about AIDS and never be so nave to believe that
it cannot happen to you..
I further wish to balance my comments about Dr.Fauci who is a welleducated and dedicated scientist. It is only the role that he played in
supporting the governments deception in the late 80s and early 90s that
infuriated me. Perhaps he felt it was for the common good to keep the
majority deceived about the real severity of the crisis since there was no
cure in sight at the time. Perhaps like Colin Powell, he was duped and
used by the Whitehouse unwittingly. Whatever the reasons, the public
trusted him as our battlefront warrior against AIDS and he gave millions of
Americans a false sense of security. We all moved on and he has certainly
made contributions in many other battles and for 20 years he has not
abandoned the war effort. He is certainly a competent and capable scientist.
Perhaps he may not have risen to the top of his field without doing the
favors requested of him by the White House. Just as Ws regime told
scientists to play down the effects of Global Warming, I have no doubts that
Reagan and Bush father asked him to go along with their ploy to minimize
the deadly effects of AIDS and blame gay people for its spread. At the time
there was very little social tolerance for gays in America so the public was
193
ripe for yet another deceptive illusion and policy. Had Fauci been truthful
about the true scope of AIDs, millions of people could have recived
treatment 2-3 years earlier, but insurance companies would have minimal
profits - If any.
UPDATE: This Chapter was written well over ten years ago and the world
of medicine has made great strides in reducing the spread of AIDS in the
West and in prolonging the lives of those infected with a variety of cocktails
that inhibit the cell growth of the HIV virus.
China now is also coming to grip with AIDS, as a disease and not a scouge.
Dr. Ray Yip and others in Beijing and every Province have formed teams to
educate and prevent.
proposal was submitted recently and typically a reply may take 1-3 months
here in this huge government bureaucracy. There is indeed hope for a cure
as Timothy Brown of Germany recently demonstrated when an experimental
treatment removed the HIV virus completely from his tissues.
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