Sumeria

[What if everything we have been told about HIV and AIDS is a lie?]
[The HIV Model Timetable as presented by Project AIDS International]
[Their tithing dollars at work]

What If Everything We Have Been Told About HIV and AIDS is a Lie?

BY JEFF OFSTEDAHL

OCTOBER 17, 1996, ECHO MAGAZINE

Fifteen years into the "epidemic," it has become a multi-billion dollar a year industry which has made millionaires of scientists and drug pushers alike. Some 15 years later, people still are dying. With annual federal funding at more that $7 billion, AIDS research is better funded than any other disease. Yet, it has produced the fewest results. Why?

Some important questions which need to be answered are:

Impossible you ask? Not really. It has happened before. In the American 1930s, a devastating disease began to grip the poverty-stricken areas of the country. They called it PELLAGRA. The condition was marked with skin lesions, gastrointestinal disturbances and nervous disorders.

Because of its "outbreak" appearance, scientists were quick to label the calamity as viral or bacterial in nature. As such, doctors were instructed how to treat their patients. Thousands died before the falsehood was discovered. It turned out, the disease was caused by simple malnutrition due to a B vitamin (nicotinic acid) deficiency.

By the time the truth was discovered, scientists had come up with an elaborate life cycle for this new virus, which they said came from corn mold, involved farm animals, crows, and eventually ended up in people, who then died. In fact, the malady stemmed from an over-dependence on corn in the diet (which has little nutritional value), and the new process of bleaching flour for white bread, a process which introduced toxic cysteine hydrochlorides into the body.

An even greater example of the medical industry's mishandling of a disease occurred in Japan. It came after an observed outbreak of alleged immune suppression lasting from 1955 to 1978.

In this case, subacute-myelo-optico-neuropathy (SMON) also was thought to be caused by a virus. After 20 years and countless deaths, researchers discovered the true cause of SMON: the chemical clioquinol, which was sold in Japan to treat upset stomachs. When ingested, it actually induced the same upset stomach. Thus, more was prescribed and ingested, perpetuating the vicious cycle.

Current day AIDS dissidents believe the SMON model (the treatment causing the very disease it was supposed to fight) parallels what they call the AZT (zidovudine, known generically as Retrovir) cycle precipitating AIDS.

Wait a minute.

You ask: AZT is the cause of AIDS?

AIDS dissidents? Once they were thought to be the fringe of the scientific community. The wackos, if you will. Today, a growing number of distinguished and world-renowned scientists and researchers are joining the AIDS dissident movement.

"[The HIV model of AIDS] is without a doubt the biggest scientific medical error in the history of the world," said Dick Joslyn, founder and director of the AIDS dissidence group SPEAK-UP! The organization has no official membership. It is a network of activists and researchers who question whether AIDS actually is caused by a virus.

"Despite the government's claims to the contrary, HIV has never been proven to cause disease," Joslyn said. "Scientists who have reviewed what researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have offered as proof that HIV causes AIDS have found the evidence to be inadequate, inconclusive and downright fraudulent."

Joslyn's belief is supported by more than 200 distinguished doctors and scientists, some of whom are Nobel Prize recipients. No longer can these people be waved off as the lunatic fringe.

Their arguments begin with the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) itself. Joslyn contends the virus, if it truly exists, is a harmless organism within the body.

To date, he contends no one has isolated the actual virus. Methods to determine the alleged virus include searching for antibodies to the virus through the use of Western Blot and Elisa tests. These labs tests do not isolate the virus. They react to certain antibodies in the blood.

"The tests are inaccurate because there are at least 50 other conditions, including mumps, diphtheria and venereal warts, that will give a false positive," Joslyn explained. "They all produce antibodies that will react to the materials used in labs tests."

"The tests are inconsistent because some people have tested positive, then tested negative three months later," Joslyn said research has proved. "Someone may test positive at one lab, and the same blood sample will test negative at another."

He points to the fact that Dr. Robert Gallo, the man co-credited with the discovery of HIV, filed for the patent (worth billions) on the HIV test only three days after he fraudulently announced he had discovered the virus which causes AIDS.

Gallo's discovery itself is the root of all questions pertaining to the viral causation of AIDS. Since 1984, it has been assumed that HIV is the sole and direct cause of AIDS. The announcement didn't come in the form of published reports in medical research journals from which other scientists examine the data, retest the hypothesis and either prove or disprove the theory. The announcement came from a highly publicized Reagan administration press conference announcing an AIDS "cure" now was within grasp.

At that time, the country was demanding progress in AIDS research. AIDS activists were in the streets. It was an election year. Jeremy Selvey director of Project AIDS International (PAI) maintains that never once has the HIV hypothesis (which is HIV= AIDS=Death) been proven scientifically.

Even the alleged HIV co-discoverer Gallo admitted two years after his landmark "discovery" announcement, in 1986, that he "saw no evidence" that LAV (the French version of HIV) was the cause of AIDS.

In 1988, Gallo retracted his hypothesis of the "direct killing" of T4 cells by HIV, and he suggested perhaps more important mechanisms than HIV are contributing to T4 cell depletion in patients diagnosed with AIDS.

In 1992, Gallo was convicted of science fraud by the US Office of Research Integrity (a department of the National Institutes of Health (NIH)) for claiming he had discovered HIV. The discovery was then credited to French researcher Dr. Luc Montagnier who has stated on numerous occasions: "I do not believe that HIV is in and of itself the cause of AIDS. I believe we should place as much emphasis on potential co- factors as we have on HIV."

According to Selvey, Gallo who has since left the CDC and is working independently for a university is under investigation by Congress on various charges of science fraud. This, Selvey contends, further casts doubts on the validity of all Gallo's research.

Dissidents to the HIV hypothesis, like Selvey, claim Gallo who for decades unsuccessfully tried to prove a virus was the cause of cancer latched onto AIDS to revitalize funding for his research, and to take attention away from his disappointing cancer research.

Further, they claim the US government eager to disseminate any new positive developments on the AIDS front, and thus get AIDS activists off its back over-anxiously grabbed onto Gallo's "discovery" and touted it as a miracle development.

"Based on Gallo's unproven hypothesis that HIV is the sole and direct cause of AIDS, the US Public Health Service has embarked on a campaign of implied terror and misinformation that has continued to state HIV, the virus which causes AIDS,' can be controlled by getting tested for the AIDS virus' and starting early intervention' in the event of a positive test result.'" Selvey writes.

"HIV, the virus which causes AIDS," Joslyn restates for emphasis. "If you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes fact." "It is like a high priesthood in science," Joslyn explains. "What they believe is what is passed down to other scientists, doctors and the media. We're on the lowest rung on the totem pole, and we're supposed to believe everything they've told us."

Joslyn believes doctors have no idea what research at the highest level entails. Most merely prescribe the course of treatment based on the dictates of the CDC. For the sake of argument, let us imagine that everything we have been told about HIV and testing for HIV antibodies is based on false presumptions.

What, then, causes AIDS?

Enter AZT, the drug nicknamed "AIDS by prescription" by HIV dissidents like Dr. Peter Duesberg, professor of molecular and cell biology at University of California-Berkeley. A member of the National Academy of Sciences, pioneer in retrovirus research, the first scientist to isolate a cancer gene, and author of Inventing The AIDS Virus, Duesberg brings a world of credentials to the AIDS dissident movement.

But he is not new on the scene.

Duesberg has been challenging the HIV hypothesis for the past ten years. He believes AZT is one of the factors which, at the least, makes AIDS worse.

AZT is a nucleoside analogue DNA chain terminator. In other words, it kills human cells indiscriminately by terminating DNA synthesis, which is the central molecule of life. AZT was claimed as the only drug of the AIDS crisis at a time when desperate AIDS patients had lost all hope. Burroughs-Wellcome alleged they were the creators of AZT. This was "only after realizing that a very profitable market existed for long-term' treatment with the drug," Selvey said. It was uncovered by PAI that AZT originally was created in 1961 by NIH researcher Dr. Richard Beltz. The discovery was the result of his research on nucleoside analogues dating back to 1951.

According to Beltz, the reasons AZT was abandoned were: 1) Its extreme toxicity made it unsuitable for any chemotherapy, even short-term, and 2) It was carcinogenic (cancer causing) at any dose.

Duesberg said, "Since AZT cannot distinguish HIV-infected cells from uninfected cells, and only one in one thousand CD4 cells is ever infected, AZT must kill 995 healthy cells for every one infected cell. AZT suppresses HIV by suppressing the manufacturing of CD4 cells, predictably causing anemia, immunodeficiency and other degenerative diseases."

In its defense, Burroughs-Wellcome cites numerous studies to substantiate its claims that AZT both "prolongs life" and "enhances its quality." PAI contends all studies that tout AZT's benefits were made possible, either directly or indirectly, by grant money from Burroughs-Wellcome. Impartial studies done without the influence of Burroughs-Wellcome indicate that AZT neither prolongs life or enhances its quality, PAI charges, based on unreleased data from studies conducted by the CDC.

Following is a Burroughs-Wellcome list of side effects from AZT, the drug it says "improves the quality of life:"

Anemiavomiting
cancerneuropathy
bone marrow depletionskin rashes
nose bleedsanxiety
hematologic toxicitynausea
feverdizziness
malaiseimpotence
loss of mental acuitydepression
atrophyvertigo
diarrheahearing loss
diaphoresisphotophobia
headachesnervousness
insomniaseizures
anorexiaconfusion
leukocytopenia, the immunodeficiency of white blood cells

In addition to the above, studies indicate that the original toxicity profile of AZT was fraudulently reported. It actually is 1,000-times more toxic to human cells than was originally reported, PAI documents. AIDS and gay activists ACTing-UP and demanding expedited drug approval, Selvey and Joslyn claim, played right into the hands of Burroughs-Wellcome's bottom line.

Perhaps we should overlook the fact that, according to Joslyn, BURROUGHS-WELLCOME PAID NIH A REPORTED SUM OF $300 MILLION FOR THE RIGHT TO MARKET AZT, WHICH PAI SAYS NIH DEVELOPED WITH TAXPAYER FUNDS.

At the sinister level, Selvey has published a report which states he has a tape-recorded conversation with a low-level attorney who represented Barr Labs of Canada which was working to try and wrestle patent rights for AZT. The attorney allegedly explained to Selvey the trouble Barr Labs was having compared to the powerful Burroughs-Wellcome.

Selvey wrote:

"Calmly [the attorney] said NIH sold AZT to Wellcome. Wellcome was supposed to kick-back a large portion [of the profits] to the FDA, NIH and the CDC, and the NIH would make grants to the private AIDS organizations to promote the sale of more AZT, and the money would be spread around. He stated that the FDA studies showing AZT's effectiveness were so well done and the publicity campaign was comfortably in place, no one expected this degree of success. Instead of following through with kickbacks, Wellcome just grabbed the ball and ran with it,' and paid the AIDS organizations directly."

After the senior partner of the law firm representing Barr/NIH was informed of the taped conversation, the junior attorney was dismissed, Selvey said.

Additionally, PAI has a copy of a check (which was viewed by Echo magazine) it says Burroughs-Wellcome "laundered" through an NIH foundation called FAES (Foundation for the Advancement of Education and Science) to Dr. Sam Broder, who was on the NIH drug approval team, for $55,000. The date on the check is July 7, 1985, about the time AZT was licensed and approved for use on AIDS patients.

How convenient.

Imagine this hypothetical scenario from a drug company's point of view:

What do you have? A billions-of-dollars-a-year cash cow revolving around treating people who are not clinically ill by giving them a toxic course of treatment based upon an unproven hypothesis.

It's not a matter of just picking on AZT. Other antivirals such as ddI, ddC, D4t and 3TC, Joslyn says, also wreak havoc on the body's immune system. Selvey is more specific. He said these "synthetically manufactured molecules are being integrated into the genes of all human cells; therefore, they block the replication of genes; thus causing a deficit in new cells. Sooner or later there exists a lack of newly produced immune cells which causes the condition called AIDS."

What about tracking the amount of HIV in the bloodstream via the new "viral load" tests? "Viral load PCR tests to measure the amount of HIV in the blood (if that is what they really measure) are meaningless," Joslyn contends, "because HIV does not cause AIDS."

The answers will shock and surprise you. One thing is certain. The gay community will not be amused.

What If Everything We Have Been Told About HIV and AIDS is a Lie?

Part Two

BY JEFF OFSTEDAHL

Author's note: In our last issue, we began the first of a two-part series outlining the arguments of the AIDS dissidence movement. Does HIV actually cause AIDS? A growing body of research scientists believe HIV does not. These articles are not an endorsement of the dissident position. They are merely an attempt to allow their voices to be heard. They raise questions which need to be answered. These are questions everyone who is taking toxic drugs should be asking themselves.

The first part of this series outlined arguments by AIDS dissident groups that say HIV is not the cause of AIDS. They claim that scientists, who focus solely on a viral answer to AIDS, are leading the fight down the wrong path. Additionally, prominent researchers assert that nucleoside analogues like AZT do more to harm the immune system than HIV does. Thus, they believe these drugs cause the very condition they are supposed to prevent.

"Even if all positive HIV tests are accepted as accurate, most Africans qualifying for AIDS diagnosis test negative. How can HIV cause AIDS in people who are negative?" Paul Philpott, publisher and editor of the AIDS dissidence newsletter Reappraising AIDS asked.

Regarding the scientific community's absolute focus on HIV as "the virus which causes AIDS," Tom Bethell, another AIDS dissident, wrote, "The first law of government agencies is that they are always on the lookout for ways to increase their funding. A viral cause, whether of cancer or AIDS, was politically attractive to both homosexual activists and to NIH scientists because an infectious disease puts us all at risk,' thereby creating pressure for more funding. We can now see that virologists have been fashionable because they have the latest in lab technology with the utmost in political appeal."

In other words, Bethell says, the scientific community needed a new and infectious virus so the government would poor millions of dollars into research. The gay community politically, in turn, needed AIDS to be caused by something other than drug abuse and promiscuity.

AIDS dissidents say no one has actually been able to isolate HIV. Also, they say, no one has been able to absolutely prove HIV is the agent killing T-cells. In fact, a group of scientists at the Royal Perth Hospital in Australia have offered a $5,000 reward to any scientist who actually isolates the HIV virus. To date, no one has been able to take them up on their offer. [N.B. This is erroneous, according to my information. It is Continuum, London which has offered a reward of 1,000 pounds sterling. Fred Cline, S.F.]

Celia Farber, an AIDS writer covering the dissident movement wrote: "[People with AIDS] have taken highly toxic medications out of fear. Many have committed suicide, and yet it is the AIDS dissidents who are in the cultural doghouse.

"It seems to evade our critics that there is real, actual, quantifiable doubt as to whether HIV causes AIDS, and that if it doesn't, it would be the height of scientific or journalistic immorality to continue to pretend that it does strictly to enforce sexual behavior control. On some level they seem to be saying, what we mean by HIV causes AIDS' is that we all have agreed that is does, and until we disagree otherwise, that is reality."

For the sake of argument, let's say the dissident movement is on the right track. If HIV is not the cause of AIDS, what is?

Dick Joslyn, founder and director of the group SPEAK UP!, said he believes AIDS is a multi-factorial diagnosis. The diseases associated with AIDS are the result of high-risk-activity-based degeneration of the immune system.

"There is no proof that people who are HIV-positive and free of other risk factors go on to develop AIDS more than people who are HIV-negative," Joslyn, a gay man who has tested positive for HIV, said. "It is a lifestyle disease, not an infectious disease," he claims.

According to Joslyn, there are several factors which place people at risk for developing the opportunistic diseases associated with AIDS. Recreational drug use tops Joslyn's list.

Since the colon directly absorbs into the bloodstream, "taking loads of [foreign organisms] and the toxic build-up from other people and having it get absorbed into the bloodstream has got to bring down your immune system," Joslyn said.

Therefore, according to Joslyn and others, the entire "safer sex" message surrounding HIV prevention programs is doing little to curb AIDS.

"The problem with the safe-sex campaign is that people think that a condom is going to protect them, a clean needle is going to protect them, when it is all the other things the risk factors and the drugs that are going to get them," Joslyn said. "It's the combination of drugs and the booze we drink, and staying up all night, that contribute to our poor health. But no one is telling [the gay and AIDS communities] that. Everyone is focusing on The Virus.' "

It is important to note here, that Joslyn believes safe-sex is imperative in reducing the transmission of immunosuppresive STDs. However, Joslyn and Jeremy Selvy, director of Project AIDS International (PAI), say the "safer-sex" message unwittingly may have helped to make people ill by encouraging people to use water-based lubricants which contain harmful chemicals.

Selvy asserts that AIDS is caused by a chemical toxification consistent with other syndromes such as Toxic Oil Syndrome in Spain, Subacute Myelo-Optico-Neuropathy (SMON) in Japan, and others, including Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.

"There may be minute differences in symptomology between these toxic causes of immune suppression," Selvy said. "We propose that such differences are based on the route of administration of the toxins, whether oral or rectal absorption. [They also are] dose-dependent as is evidenced in toxins such as benzene or its derivatives and their interactions with other compounds."

Selvy continued, "We [PAI] state that the chemical reactions to these compounds are the causative factors of immune suppression, rather than HIV."

Benzene is a chemical solvent developed in the early 1800s. Since it is cheap to manufacture, and such an effective solvent, it routinely is used in manufacturing. It is added to glues, paint thinners, rubber cement, acetone, varnish and shellac removers, various petroleum products and gasoline. VBenzene and its derivatives also are found in many water-based sexual lubricants.

Belonging to the family of aromatic hydrocarbons, benzene was determined to be a highly toxic substance. Because of its known danger as a carcinogen, and the leukemia-like affects it has on the body, worker exposure to benzene strictly is regulated by the EPA.

The epidemiology of AIDS has always been in question with regard to the viral hypothesis, Selvy points out. "The inordinate ratio of men to women has been staggering. Homosexual to heterosexual, even with the inclusion of bisexuals, does not correlate with viral causation." For example, he said, "Hemophiliacs who are recipients of HIV-tainted' blood never develop Kaposi's sarcoma (KS) unless they are gay or bisexual."

Therefore, PAI suspects AIDS in gay men, especially prior to the advent of AZT and other immunosupressive drugs, is caused by "dose-dependent" toxins, which lead to immune-suppressive disorders. "Such a product would have been marketed to the gay community no earlier than 1978, the approximate time the first GRID/KS/PCP cases began to appear," Selvy said.

Advertisements in gay magazines in 1978 touted a "new," "specially-formulated" anal lubricant not previously used. Earlier, gay men were using KY-Jelly, which is designed for internal use. They also used Crisco and various baby oils.

"These new lubricants were sold in Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York just months before the first outbreak of AIDS in the USA, and exported some 2-3 years later," Selvy said. "However, visitors to the US were exposed during this time frame and returned to their home countries with symptoms of AIDS; yet they never passed the disease to others."

According to testing conducted by PAI, one sample of a 1979 "Lube" brand lubricant contained almost three times the amount of acetone allowed by law.

Today, these and other lubricants marketed to the gay community specifically state on the label: for external use only' or for topical cosmetic use only,' Selvy pointed out. Reading a list of chemicals used to produce these lubricants, he said, "Most people would not ordinarily put most of these chemicals on their skin, let alone ingest them. Rectal absorption is estimated at being eight-times more efficient than oral ingestion, as toxins induced rectally bypass the digestive tract."

Benzene, which affects T-cell subsets and triggers immune shut-down, is sufficient to induce AIDS, Selvy said.

Selvy told the Echo many of the lubricants on the market today still contain benzene and its derivatives. Being a petroleum product, benzene is used in many ways. He said to watch for lubricants with ingredients containing combinations of the letters "BENZ," "PHYN" and "METH."

Although small quantities of benzene exist in these products, Selvy cautioned that water-based lubricants are still better than fat-based ones.

Another cofactor that Selvy says accelerated the disease is the use of "poppers."

Using poppers (amyl nitrites) during anal penetration was a common occurrence in the gay community. Poppers, a flammable and volatile liquid used as a motor depressant inhaled to dilate arteries during angina pain, causes a buzzing intoxication. The second most popular popper is butyl nitrite. This and amyl nitrite cause a "rush" of the bloodstream at the exact moment of induction of benzene and its derivatives anally through the use of lubricants.

Interestingly, the primary manufacturer of pharmaceutical-grade poppers was Burroughs Wellcome, the makers of the AIDS drug AZT.

"They get you coming and going," Joslyn said. "They get you sick and they kill you with the treatment."

AZT (ziduvodine) is a non-selective nucleoside analogue, DNA-chain-terminating chemotherapy. "The drug is cytotoxic, in that it kills all cells indiscriminately, not just those cells infected with HIV," Selvy explained.

Whether people are directed to start AZT therapy is dependent upon their T-cell counts. The current primary measure for "early intervention" with AZT is when the T-cells fall to 500 or below.

The CDC states that the "normal" range for CD4+ helper cells in HIV-negative "healthy" persons is 600-1200. However, based on research and information published in scientific journals, PAI maintains the normal range of CD4+ helper cells for healthy HIV-negative adults is 237-1,817.

"In tests completed on US Olympic athletes in 1984, the average range of CD4+ helper cells was between 400 and 600," Selvy reports. "Certainly, the US athletes were not considered to be unhealthy; yet these are the markers used to instill fear and manipulate HIV-positive persons into taking a toxic chemotherapy when they are otherwise healthy," he said.

Where have all the T-cells gone? In the minds of Selvy, Joslyn and others, those that AZT and other cell-killing drugs haven't destroyed are being wiped out by the other risk factors such as recreational drug use, STDs and abuse of antibiotics, alcoholism, stress and other chemical toxins.

Apparently, the new class of protease inhibiting AIDS drugs, which have been on the market for less than a year, fair no better in the minds of those who closely watch AIDS research.

Recently, members of ACT UP San Francisco staged a protest "to shatter the relentless barrage' of scientifically unsubstantiated sensationalism by drug company-funded AIDS groups of protease inhibitors." They cited recent scientific articles and news reports in the Annals of Internal Medicine, The Wall Street Journal and New York Native that expose the life-threatening dangers and harmful long-term effects of the agents.

Specifically, ACT UP members pointed to an Oct. 10 news report in the University of California publication Synapse where Donald Abrams, Head of the FDA's Antiviral Committee and Director of the AIDS Program at San Francisco General Hospital, spoke out strongly against antiviral therapy with protease inhibitors. This marks Abrams' second public statement that directly contradicts his long-standing support of AIDS drugs that suppress HIV.

Part of the problem, according to Philpott, is that "anti-HIV drugs are not HIV-specific."

Protease inhibitors are described as drugs that "[foul] an enzyme called protease, which the HIV needs to multiply in the body."

"Protease enzymes are abundant and necessary for good health even in people who are HIV-negative," Philpott said. "Enzymes that digest dietary proteins, for example, are proteases. If the new drugs "fouled" only the particular protease needed by HIV, and if that particular protease was virus-specific, there would be no side effects associated with protease inhibitors."

But clearly, AIDS existed long before the advent of AZT and other AIDS fighting drugs.

Dr. Peter Duesberg, professor of molecular and cell biology at University of California-Berkeley, member of the National Academy of Sciences, pioneer in retrovirus research and author of Inventing The AIDS Virus, shows that before AZT came along, nearly every American AIDS patient (and mothers of AIDS babies) could be linked to street drugs and other noncontagious factors. Duesberg attributes AIDS in babies to street drugs consumed by their mothers during pregnancy, and AZT administered by their physicians.

In The Risk-AIDS Hypothesis, a 1995 paper he published regarding drug use, John Lauritsen wrote, "Intravenous Drug Users (IVDUs) are the second largest risk group for AIDS, and their illnesses are the easiest to explain. They have acquired AIDS illnesses as a toxicological consequence of the heroin, cocaine or other drugs they have put in their bodies."

According to the current HIV=AIDS hypothesis, IVDUs get sick because they share needles and infect each other with HIV.

"There are three problems with this hypothesis," Lauritsen says. "1) No study has ever been done to determine if all, or most, IVDUs share needles. Most, in fact, do not share needles; 2) The hypothesis ignores the harmful consequences of putting chemicals into the body; And, 3) HIV is not pathogenic."

"The clinical profile of IVDUs with AIDS is emaciation (wasting) and one or more lung diseases. Heroin is bad for the health and bad for the immune system. On top of that, it suppresses the respiratory system. The consequences are tuberculosis or one or another form of pneumonia: emaciation and lung disease."

In today's fashion for labels, if someone dies of tuberculosis in the absence of HIV, they died of tuberculosis. If someone dies of tuberculosis and they are HIV-positive, they died of AIDS.

In his paper AIDS Acquired by Drug Consumption and Other Noncontagious Risk Factors, Duesberg cites many medical references and said, "From as early as 1909, evidence has accumulated that addiction to psychoactive drugs leads to immune suppression and clinical abnormalities similar to AIDS."

Among gay men, aside from AIDS, alcoholism and drug abuse are the second and third most common problems health problems respectively. Chemicals like poppers and certain psychoactive "designer drugs" were virtually unknown outside the "gay scene" when AIDS began to strike.

"Every cohort study of HIV-positive humans has been exclusively comprised of subjects characterized by extremely compromised underlying health," Philpott said. The list includes: gay men who consume non-injected recreational drugs and large amounts of alcohol, drug injectors, hemophiliacs, and patients with a variety of catastrophic medical conditions requiring blood transfusions.

"On top these unusually poor health factors," Philpott continued, "one half or more are prophylacticly treated with toxic anti-AIDS drugs such as AZT."

The debate rages. Or, does it?

Does HIV cause AIDS as the CDC and the medical establishment say?

AIDS dissidents believe there is a conspiracy to cover-up the facts behind the HIV=AIDS hypothesis. Further, they claim funding for research into other factors surrounding AIDS is non-existent.

Joslyn refers to the "HIV Deception" as "AIDS-gate."

In addition, Joslyn, Selvy and others claim AIDS organizations have been bought-out by big pharmaceutical companies. Corporations like GlaxoWellcome (the new name for Burroughs Wellcome) dump hundreds of thousands of dollars into AIDS organizations which promote the use of their drugs.

The media have been reluctant to print the facts surrounding dissenting AIDS research. The glossy national AIDS publications rely heavily on advertising from pharmaceutical companies.

Despite the issue's importance, journal editors and advisers seem to reason, that since "everyone" agrees "HIV is the cause of AIDS" anyone seriously proposing otherwise is "eccentric and illogical." Dissidents are "dangerous," it is argued. If people doubt HIV's role in AIDS, they might not heed warnings about the need to change sexual habits.

Moreso, the reputation of the entire research, medical and pharmeceutical industries as well as billions of dollars are at stake.

"We must have an open public forum where this is aired," said Joslyn. "The evidence is so clear that HIV does not cause AIDS."

Hundreds of thousands of lives are riding on this.

May the debate continue.

The truth was never hurt by honest debate. Only when we try to silence dissenting opinion does the truth suffer.

[ AIDS ][ Sumeria ]