THE HIDDEN AGENDA BEHIND HIV

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http://www.sumeria.net/aids/agenda.html

 

THE HIDDEN AGENDA BEHIND HIV

by Bryan J. Ellison

 

Bryan has impressed us all in the past, but perhaps nothing is so explosive as

his revelation that the U.S. Public Health Movement is full of doctrinaires,

dogmatists, tyrants, and public policy disasters. This piece is derived from

some of the material in his new book (with Dr. Duesberg), INVENTING AIDS, sold

to Addison-Wesley (who chickened out at the last moment) and then bought by St.

Martin's (who chickened out at the last moment, and then... .

 

It's only fair to warn you, that this excerpt ends in the middle of a sentence.

If that bothers you, don't read it - but then you may be the loser. Remember, it

is only an excerpt anyway.

 

Despite all assurances to the contrary, the AIDS establishment continues to

fund only research on HIV. Peter Duesberg inadvertently proved this blackout on

all alternative research when he recently submitted a grant proposal to the

National Institute on Drug Abuse. The Institute's clinical director of AIDS

research had personally invited the proposal, which outlined a plan to test the

long-term effects of nitrite inhalants, or 'poppers,' on the immune systems of

mice. The answer came back in December: the anonymous referees had not only

turned it down, but had refused to give the proposal more than a cursory review.

 

Why does such a political correctness continue to dominate the War on AIDS?

After all, public health officials cannot yet demonstrate they have saved any

lives from the syndrome, while its death toll rises steadily. The scientific

predictions have also failed miserably.

 

In contrast to the predicted spread of AIDS in the United States, the epidemic

has remained strictly confined to risk groups; nine of every ten AIDS cases have

been male, and ninety percent of all AIDS victims have been linked to heavy drug

use, whether intravenously or as " fast track " homosexuals.

 

Indeed, epidemiologists have yet to establish that any epidemic at all has

struck among blood transfusions recipients. Even individual AIDS diseases prefer

specific risk groups, such as Kaposi's sarcoma among homosexuals and the

near-absence of Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia among Africans, whose lungs all

contain the microbe.

 

And some thirty-nine percent of AIDS diseases in America have nothing to do

with immune deficiency - witness Kaposi's sarcoma, various lymphomas, wasting

disease, and dementia, for example. In short, AIDS is not an infectious disease.

 

The obsession with an " AIDS virus " has little to do with science or medicine.

Writing in NATURE in 1991 (June 21), British HIV researcher Robin Weiss and

American CDC official Harold Jaffe hinted at the real purpose in an attack on

Peter Duesberg: " But if he and his supporters belittle 'safe sex,' would have us

abandon HIV screening of blood donations, and curtail research into anti-HIV

drugs and vaccines, then their message is perilous. " To whom? If AIDS is not

infectious, such recommendations would simply save the taxpayer money and

anxiety.

 

But perhaps this is the point. A 1989 report by the National Research Council

more explicitly revealed the hidden agenda.

 

Originally sponsored by the Rockefeller and Russel Sage Foundations and then

funded by the Public Health Service, AIDS: Sexual Behavior and Intravenous Drug

Use laid out a plan for social engineering on a massive scale-using AIDS as the

excuse:

 

" The devastating effect of an epidemic on a community can evoke strong

political and social responses, " the committee duly noted, " An epidemic

necessitates the rapid mobilization of the community to counter the spread of

illness and death " (p. 373).

 

The power of such a method to force changes in cultural values is based on

careful manipulation of fear:

 

" Ideally, health promotion messages should heighten an individual's

perceptions of threat and his or her capacity to respond to that threat, thus

modulating the level of fear... What is not yet known is how to introduce fear

in the right way in a particular message intended for a particular audience.

Acquiring that knowledge will require planned variations of AIDS education

programs that are carefully executed and then carefully evaluated, " stated the

committee coolly (pp.267-8).

 

The report then identified one of the major targets of change -

Judeo-Christian moral values:

 

" Historically, there has been a strong social reluctance in the United States

to speak or write about sexuality in explicit terms. Despite recent indications

of greatly increased tolerance for sexual explicitness in the media and

literature, that reluctance remains strong in much of the population; it is

particularly strong in instances that involve the education of children and

adolescents " (p.379).

 

The fear of a supposedly infectious AIDS epidemic, however, could be used to

fix such problems. As the report declared:

 

" The committee believes that, during an epidemic, politeness is a social

virtue that must take second place to the protection of life " (p.379).

 

Other public health officials have been even more forthright. As an officer of

the Centers for Disease Control, Donald Francis had in 1984 drafted the CDC's

proposed AIDS strategy. In his 1992 retirement speech at the agency's Atlanta,

Georgia headquarters, Francis voiced the ambitions held by many of his fellow

officers in describing " the opportunity that the HIV epidemic provides for

public health " (JAMA, 9/16/92). He stated in no uncertain terms the radical

nature of the plan:

 

" The cloistered caution of the past needs to be discarded. The climate and

culture must be open ones where old ideas are challenged. Those who desire the

status quo should seek employment elsewhere. The American HIV prevention program

should be the place where the best and the brightest come, where the action is,

where history is being made. This is the epidemic of the century, and every

qualified person should want to have a piece of the action. "

 

The " action " described by Francis was a set of programs that would, as he

fully recognized, need strong political protection from angry taxpayers and

voters. For example, he bitterly attacked public opposition to condom

distribution programs, and called for powerful legal measures to bypass parental

discretion.

 

" The ongoing controversies involving abstinence and condoms typify the morass

into which schools can fall, " Francis complained, " If, in the opinion of those

far more expert than I, schools cannot be expected to provide such programs,

then health departments should take over, using as a justification their mandate

to protect the public's health. "

 

Francis also included proposals for dealing with the AIDS risk of intravenous

drug use - including a call for " prescription of addicting drugs " with Federal

government sponsorship. Even libertarians who advocate legalizing drugs would

balk at such notions, which would ultimately create a massive bureaucracy

encouraging drug use.

 

" Following a more enlightened model for drug treatment, including prescribing

heroin, would have dramatic effects on HIV and could eliminate many of the

dangerous illegal activities surrounding drugs, " he insisted, knowing that only

fear of the AIDS epidemic might make such proposals tolerable to the public.

 

Ignoring the toxic, and possibly AIDS inducing, effects of drugs, Francis

emphasized that:

 

" In addition to treatment, safe injection [!] must be stressed both for those

in treatment programs and those out of treatment. The provision of sterile

injection equipment for drug users should be the standard of public health

practice in the United States. "

 

" Most chillingly of all, Francis saw the possibilities in harnessing other

epidemics to advance similar agendas. As he put it, " if we establish new

mechanisms to handle the HIV epidemic, [these] can serve as models for other

diseases. "

 

The common denominator of these and similar plans is that they originate with

the Federal government's Public Health Service, and especially from its

frontline public health agency, the Centers for Disease Control. Public

perceptions often paint the CDC as a minor office that gathers and publishes

dull statistics on disease. The truth is shockingly different.

 

A sophisticated $2 billion-per-year operation, the CDC employs a staff of

thousands who see themselves as having an activist mandate. They view epidemics

as opportunities for control and for imposing lifestyle changes on the

population.

 

The CDC has traditionally specialized in contagious disease. Its initials, in

fact, originally stood for the Communicable Disease Center, from its formation

in 1946 until its name changed in 1970. And therein lies its bias, for it tends

to interpret almost any epidemic as being infectious. Certainly the CDC has

plenty of raw material with which to work; each year at least one thousand

outbreaks, or " clusters, " of disease strike in the United States - one every

eight hours.

 

These can range from flus and pneumonias to closely-occurring cancers, but

most outbreaks involve no more than a handful of people each; since the polio

epidemic, none have posed serious threats to the general public. However, by

falsely labeling any arbitrarily chosen outbreak as infectious and blaming it on

a virus or other microbe, the CDC can quickly generate public fear and political

mobilization behind almost any agenda.

 

The CDC has actually engineered a number of false alarms or misdirected

campaigns over the past four decades, neutralizing scientific dissent and calmer

voices when necessary. AIDS, though not the first example, has now become the

most successful epidemic by far.

 

Two powerful weapons in the agency's arsenal, both unknown to the public at

large, have made this possible: a semi-secret wing of the CDC known as the

Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS), and a quiet " partnership " program with

private organizations.

 

 

The Epidemic Intelligence Service

Among epidemiologists, it is often half-jokingly referred to as the " medical

CIA. " Founded in 1951 by public health professor Alexander Langmuir, the EIS was

first designed to act as an elite biological-warfare countermeasures unit of the

CDC. Langmuir was hired because he also served as one of the select advisors to

the Defense Department's chemical and biological warfare program.

 

The first EIS class of 21 recent medical or biological graduates underwent

several weeks of intense training at the CDC's Atlanta headquarters, before

being dispatched on their two-year assignments on loan to various state or local

health departments around the country. They acted as the eyes and ears of the

CDC, carefully monitoring for any possible outbreak of war-induced disease.

While on their tours of duty, each EIS officer could be sent elsewhere in the

country on a 24 hour-a-day basis. In case of war, the EIS would operate under

any emergency powers granted the CDC - potentially including quarantines, mass

immunizations, or other drastic measures.

 

In an article written for the American journal of Public Health (March, 1952),

Langmuir made clear that membership in the EIS did not end with the two year

assignment, but was permanent. He wrote that " ... as a result of their

experience, many of these officers may well remain in full-time epidemiology or

other public health pursuits at federal, state, or local levels. Some, no doubt,

will return to civilian, academic, or clinical practice, but in the event of war

they could be returned to active duty with the Public Health Service and

assigned to strategic areas to fulfill the functions for which they were

trained. "

 

Every year since 1951 has seen a new crop of EIS recruits, some classes over

one hundred members in size. The nearly 2,000 alumni have gone on to high

positions in society, though rarely advertising their affiliation. Indeed, the

CDC has now made the EIS more secretive than ever, having suppressed the public

availability of the membership directory since last year.

 

Members can be found in the Surgeons General's office and elsewhere in the

Federal government, as well as in the World Health Organization, state and local

health departments, universities, pharmaceutical companies, tax-exempt

foundations, hospitals, and even as staff writers, editors, or news anchormen

for major newspapers, scientific journals, and television news departments. In

these positions, EIS alumni act not only as the CDC's surveillance arm and

emergency reserve, but also as seemingly " independent " advocates for CDC

policies.

 

In time, the fear of artificial disease epidemics faded. But Langmuir and

other top CDC officials had always held bigger plans for the EIS. Langmuir, for

example, an apostle of Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger, involved the

EIS in the population control movement by the 1960s. The CDC has gained most,

however, from EIS activities in natural disease epidemics, to which its " disease

detectives " have turned their attention.

 

The flu, being truly an infectious disease, often proved itself most valuable

to the CDC. Although the winter following the end of World War I was the last

time a flu epidemic caused widespread death, the CDC has pushed annual flu

vaccinations up to the present day. At times, the agency has even rung the alarm

over an impending flu crisis, hoping to use memories of the 1918 epidemic to

gain emergency powers and impose mass vaccinations. By using such tactics in

1957 over the Asian flu, the CDC managed to wrangle extra money out of Congress

to expand the EIS and crash-produce a vaccine. But the flu season was already

winding down by the time the vaccine was ready, and the flu itself turned out to

have been as mild as in any other year.

 

By 1976, CDC director David Sencer wanted to try again, though on a grander

scale. After one soldier in Pennsylvania died of a flu-related pneumonia in

January, Sencer predicted that a pig-borne human virus, nicknamed the " swine

flu, " would soon devastate the United States.

 

Panicked with visions of impending doom, Congress moved to authorize the CDC's

immunization plan for every man, woman, and child in the country. Unexpectedly,

the legislation suddenly stalled when the insurance companies underwriting the

vaccine discovered that it had seriously toxic side effects.

 

Sencer had to do something fast. He immediately set up a " War Room " in

Auditorium A at the CDC headquarters, and put the EIS network on full alert to

search for any disease outbreak that might resemble the flu. Within weeks, the

War Room received word of a pneumonia cluster among men just returning home from

the Philadelphia convention of the American Legion. Several Philadelphia-based

EIS officers and alumni had detected the outbreak, and acted as a fifth column

that not only helped arrange an invitation for the CDC to come in, but also took

their orders from the arriving team of CDC and EIS officers. Even the New York

Times staff writer sent to cover the story, Lawrence Altman, was himself an EIS

alumnus.

 

The CDC team allowed media rumors to circulate that this Legionnaires' disease

was the beginning of the swine flu. Within days, Congress decided to pass the

vaccine bill. Only later did the CDC admit that the legionnaires had not been

infected by the flu virus, too late to stop the immunization program. Some 50

million Americans received the vaccine, leading to more than a thousand cases of

nerve damage and paralysis, dozens of deaths, and lawsuits awarding almost $100

million in damages. In the ultimate irony, no swine flu epidemic ever

materialized; the only destruction left behind by the phantom swine flu resulted

from the CDC's vaccine.

 

The agency later blamed Legionnaires' disease on a common soil bacterium, one

that clearly fails Koch's postulates for causing the disease and is therefore

actually harmless. The legionnaires' deaths are not so hard to understand, since

the pneumonias struck elderly men, many of whom had undergone kidney transplant

operations, and who had become particularly drunk during the Bicentennial

celebration - the classic risks for pneumonia. Thus " Legionnaires' disease " is

not an infectious condition, but merely a new name for old pneumonias.

 

Using its EIS network, the CDC has applied similar tactics to other outbreaks

of disease. During the 1960s, for example, the EIS helped fuel the National

Institute of Health's growing Virus-Cancer Program by tracking down every small

cluster of leukemia cases, trying to create the impression that some virus was

responsible for the cancer. Robert Gallo was one of the many scientists so

impressed with the CDC investigations that he devoted the rest of his career to

finding a human leukemia virus.

 

More recently, the CDC managed to have a team of EIS officers invited into New

Mexico to investigate a cluster of pneumonia cases among Navajo Indians. By June

of 1993, the CDC began insisting that the brief and relatively small outbreak

was caused by a rat fecal virus, the Hantavirus. But as a letter in the January

1 issue of the Lancet pointed out, most of the affected Navajos actually tested

negative for the virus. And unlike a contagious disease, this pneumonia never

spread beyond the first few dozen victims. Again, the CDC's " disease detectives "

used a high-profile investigation to create media publicity and frighten the

general population, rather than troubling themselves with the scientific method

and its more boring answers.

 

Of all the epidemics mismanaged by the CDC, AIDS proved the most spectacular

in achieving political success. By 1981, the EIS had so thoroughly penetrated

the medical and public health institutions in the United States that it could

now detect even the smallest and most loosely-connected " clusters " of diseases,

no matter how far apart the victims were in time and space.

 

The original AIDS cases were all found in homosexual men in the " fast track "

lifestyle - those having hundreds or thousands of sexual contacts and using

enormous amounts of hard drugs to make such promiscuous activity possible. For

the CDC, the trick was to make the illness seem contagious; a simple

drug-induced epidemic among homosexuals would hardly have frightened the public,

nor have allowed the CDC to accomplish its radical public health agenda.

 

The epidemic officially began in 1980 after Michael Gottlieb, a new

immunologist at the UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles, decided to test the

brand new T cell-counting technology. He put out an informal request to fellow

physicians to refer cases of immune deficiency to him. Over the next several

months, colleagues sent him four such cases, all male homosexuals with

Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia.

 

Sensing that the CDC might take an interest, Gottlieb called active EIS

officer Wayne Shandera in the Los Angeles health department. Shandera had heard

an isolated report of a fifth homosexual with the same problem, and compiled a

report for the CDC.

 

Ordinarily, each of the five cases would have been seen by separate doctors,

leaving nothing to suggest the word " epidemic " to anyone. But having a

pre-positioned EIS agent like Shandera certainly helped the CDC gather such

cases together as a potential cluster. Shandera's report fell on the desk of

James Curran, an official in the CDC's venereal diseases division; the 1987 book

And the Band Played On records that Curran wrote " Hot stuff. Hot stuff. " on the

report (p. 67). He had the agency publish it immediately.

 

By the time the report appeared on June 5, 1981, Curran was already organizing

a special Kaposi's Sarcoma and Opportunistic Infections (KSOI) task force to

lead an investigation of the five-victim epidemic. EIS members Harold Jaffe and

Mary Guinan, also from the venereal diseases division, helped run the task

force. The first order of business was to find as many similar patients as

possible, thereby causing the epidemic to " grow. "

 

Next was to explain the syndrome; to the CDC, this meant trying to find an

infectious agent. This would be no simple task, since essentially all of the

first fifty cases admitted to heavy use of poppers, a drug preferred by

homosexuals as a means of facilitating anal intercourse. Even if this toxic drug

presented itself as the obvious explanation, the CDC investigators had no

intention of letting the evidence interfere.

 

According to historian Elizabeth Etheridge, " While many of the patients were

routine users of amyl nitrites or 'poppers,' no one in the KSOI task force

believed the disease was a toxicological problem " (Sentinel for Health, 1992,

p.326).

 

So the EIS was activated to prove AIDS infectious. EIS officer David Auerbach

and others confirmed that these extremely promiscuous homosexuals were often

linked to one another through long chains of sexual encounters. To prove that

AIDS was " spreading " to other people , other officers scoured hospitals to find

heroin addicts with opportunistic infections, and blamed their needle-sharing

rather than the heroin use, itself a classic risk factor for pneumonias and

other diseases.

 

Bruce Evatt and Dale Lawrence, both members of the EIS, discovered one

hemophiliac in Colorado with an opportunistic pneumonia as a side effect of

internal bleeding, but rediagnosed the patient as an AIDS case.

 

Even Haitians in Florida and Haiti were interviewed by EIS officer Harry

Haverkos, who renamed their endemic tuberculosis as AIDS.

 

Not understanding the loaded nature of such investigations, the outside world

completely bought the CDC line. Soon the race was on for scientific researchers

to find the guilty virus. But this search, too, had been rigged. Donald Francis,

an EIS member himself since 1971, decided just eleven days after the original

Shandera report that the syndrome should be blamed on a retrovirus - with a

latent period, no less. Using his various contacts in the retrovirus field,

Francis spent the next two years pushing Robert Gallo to isolate a new

retrovirus. Eventually Gallo did take a interest, and claimed credit for finding

HIV.

 

With his April 23, 1984, press conference, Gallo completed the crusade begun

by the CDC and its EIS. As the tapes rolled and the cameras flashed, Gallo and

Health and Human Services Secretary Margaret Heckler launched the nation into a

War on AIDS. Few people knew the true story behind the announcement, or of the

political agenda that Don Francis and others were preparing to foist on the

American people.

 

 

The Partnership Program

The CDC's second major weapon for mobilizing public support lay in its

assistance programs for private organizations. By funding or otherwise

supporting groups not affiliated with the CDC, the agency could create

apparently spontaneous mass movements. Spokesmen claiming to represent various

communities could all simu... .

 

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