ALT-AIDS

When alternative newspapers feature articles that reiterate and adhere to mainstream media’s point of view (search for AIDS at www.portlandphoenix.com to read Tony Giampetruzzi’s pieces), it forecloses meaningful dialogue on an issue.

The Phoenix’s HIV-AIDS series was based entirely on the HIV-AIDS paradigm as promoted and funded by federal government agencies, e.g., NIH and the CDC; pharmaceutical companies and their academic research factories; and public health bureaucrats.

Although second opinions are the foundation of sound medical practice, it is considered treasonous to provide options as to the cause or treatment for AIDS.

Lest we forget, the AIDS phenomena began during the Reagan era, the most reactionary, fundamentalist, and puritanical sexual inquisition in recent history. While the culture wars have marginalized politically incorrect organizations, AIDS patients have been buried beneath an avalanche of deadly bureaucratic political science and epidemiology masquerading as medicine.

Yet, HIV=AIDS opponents have been disparaged and discredited for questioning the notion that Earth’s first, and only known, human retrovirus, was related to an African green monkey. And, that HIV caused a rare pneumonia in individuals who engaged in certain socially unacceptable sexual pursuits and it was treatable only with toxic experimental chemotherapy treatments.

While dissenters have been ridiculed, the dishonest behavior of government scientists has been the foundation for the AIDS mousetrap. Epidemiology replaced common sense as social and political science transformed AIDS education into indoctrination; turned counseling into harassment; bent testing into exploitation; and changed clinical trials into a form of morally sanctioned euthanasia.

No other NIH research lab in modern history had been subject to as many misunderstandings and charged with as many violations and foul-ups as Robert Gallo’s. The one-time chief of NCI’s Tumor Cell Biology lab, Gallo eventually admitted that his HIV lab samples used to determine antibody test results were actually appropriated from a French laboratory. Although never found guilty of criminal fraud, Robert Gallo left NIH having been widely believed to have committed misappropriation, sabotage, scientific fraud, contaminated lab cultures, faked lab journals, unplugged freezers, and manufactured mysterious, misleading documentation slides of his work.

Dr. Zaki Salahuddin, one of Gallo’s longtime scientists, was convicted of a felony in connection with his activities at Dr. Gallo’s laboratory. Prem Sarin, Gallo’s deputy chief and co-author of numerous articles establishing the authenticity of HIV, was charged in 1990 with fraud, perjury, scientific misconduct and later convicted of embezzlement. Mikulus Popovic, Gallo’s leading virologist, was found guilty of falsification, misrepresentation, and scientific misconduct. Charges against Popovic were later reversed because of a new federal definition of scientific fraud that was based on intent.

While the rogue’s gallery of researchers were rewarded with patents, junkets, and hero status, AIDS patients became subject to draconian measures, e.g., forced testing, forced treatments, insurance purging, contact tracing, coercion, isolation, and for some, criminalization.

Having been recast from victims to villains, many gay men have had to choose lifestyles ranging from acting like celibate monks to being experimental monkeys. Branded as America’s most notorious sexual outlaws, how did gays ever expect to defend themselves against insult and assault in a country where abortion caregivers were assassinated, their clinics blockaded and burned, and their patients killed? All in the name of being pro-life.

Yet another undermining aspect of HIV-AIDS has been the role of the military establishment. During the past two decades, the same military organizations entrusted with conducting the nation’s primary HIV-AIDS research have been those that entrapped, criminalized, and court-martialed gays.

All HIV-AIDS drugs are screened and selected for pharmaceutical and academic research by the US Army Military Research Institute for Infectious Disease (USAMRIID) and the Frederick Cancer Research Center, Ft. Detrick, MD. It is naive for gay men, or any other minority, to believe that these researchers are interested in “curing” them so that they may return to having what has become regarded as “unsafe sex.”

The Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR) developed the model that defined the stages of AIDS progression directly leading to the prescription of highly toxic drugs to HIV positive patients. WRAIR also provided the statistical data that determined the initial HIV-positive test results.

The Jackson Institute for the Advancement of Military Medicine served as the primary funding agency for AIDS research during the 1980s. The US Army Retrovirology Program was the major employer of Cambridge Biotech, the company that developed all the HIV screening tests before being forced to share in royalties with the French government.

AIDS activists promoted accelerated clinical trials with staged demonstrations often financed by the pharmaceutical companies that profited the most from a policy change. Also, black church leaders have accepted substantial financial stipends from NIH and other public health organizations to preach “AIDS education” from their pulpits.

While retrovirology is perhaps one of the century’s most intellectually bankrupt sciences, twenty years of research has proven that HIV causes anything that a federally funded grant requires.

Clemmer Mayhew III

Portland

DAEWOOS STINK

I am writing in response to the article “Daewoo Blues” on the front page of the Portland Phoenix, Oct. 11-17 issue. I have been an owner of a Daewoo Lanos for over a year. I have not only had the “blues,” but panic attacks that have pushed me close to straight-jacket material on several occasions. After having been towed five times, with three replacement parts over the course of a year, I am convinced I have a lemon. But because Daewoo has declared bankruptcy, there is no way I will be reimbursed.

The Bournival Dealership in Portsmouth has refused to offer rental cars, or give me a ride to work or home on the several occasions I’ve taken it to get fixed. The car continues to break down after three parts were replaced and no one can find the problem.

I feel it’s my civic duty to let others know of this highly dangerous situation as I’ve been stranded several times. Not only that, but the customer service I’ve received through Bournival is a disgrace. They are now selling Daewoos below cost, but you’ll be throwing thousands away if you’re betting on a reliable car. With Daewoo bankrupt, you’ll have no recourse when you find your car continually breaking down when driven long distance.

Believe me, you’ll get more than Daewoo blues, you’ll be filing bankruptcy yourself needing to buy an additional car you can rely on.

Ginny Zavacky

South Berwick