AIDS (2495 words) Essay Example For Students

AIDS (2495 words) Essay AIDSPREFACEIn an extensive article in the Summer-Autumn 1990 issue of Top Secret, Prof J. Segal and Dr. L. Segal outline their theory that AIDS is a man-made disease, originating at Pentagon bacteriological warfare labs at Fort Detrick, Maryland. Top Secret is the international edition of the German magazine Geheim and is considered by many to be a sister publication to the American Covert Action Information Bulletin (CAIB). In fact, Top Secret carries the Naming Names column, which CAIB is prevented from doing by the American government, and which names CIA agents in different locations in the world. The article, named AIDS: US-Made Monster and subtitled AIDS its Nature and its Origins, is lengthy, has a lot of professional terminology and is dotted with footnotes. AIDS FACTS The fatal weakening of the immune system which has given AIDS its name (Acquired Immuno-Deficiency Syndrome), write the Segals, has been traced back to a destruction or a functional failure of the T4-lymphocytes, also called helper cells`, which play a regulatory role in the production of antibodies in the immune system. In the course of the illness, the number of functional T4- cells is reduced greatly so that new anti-bodies cannot be produced and the defenceless patient remains exposed to a range of infections that under other circumstances would have been harmless. Most AIDS patients die from opportunistic infections rather than from the AIDS virus itself. The initial infection is characterized by diarrhea, erysipelas and intermittent fever. An apparent recovery follows after 2-3 weeks, and in many cases the patient remains without symptoms and functions normally for years. Occasionally a swelling of the lymph glands, which does not affect the patients well-being, can be observed. After several years, the pre-AIDS stage, known as ARC (Aids- Related Complex) sets in. This stage includes disorders in the digestive tract, kidneys and lungs. In most cases it develops into full-blown AIDS in about a year, at which point opportunistic illnesses occur. Parallel to this syndrome, disorders in various organ systems occur, the most severe in the brain, the symptoms of which range from motoric disorders to severe dementia and death. This set of symptoms, say the Segals, is identical in every detail with the Visna sickness which occurs in sheep, mainly in Iceland. (Visna means tiredness in Icelandic). However, the visna virus is not pathogenic for human beings. The Segals note that despite the fact that AIDS is transmitted only through sexual intercourse, blood transfusions and non- sterile hypodermic needles, the infection has spread dramatically. During the first few years after its discovery, the number of AIDS patients doubled every six months, and is still doubling every 12 months now though numerous measures have been taken against it. Based on these figures, it is estimated that in the US, which had 120,000 cases of AIDS at the end of 1988, 900,000 people will have AIDS or will have died of it by the end of 1991. It is also estimated that the number of people infected is at least ten times the number of those suffering from an acute case of AIDS. That in the year 1995 there will be between 10-14 million cases of AIDS and an additional 100 million people infected, 80 percent of them in the US, while a possible vaccination will not be available before 1995 by the most optimistic estimates. Even when such vaccination becomes available, it will not help those already infected. These and following figures have been reached at by several different mainstream sources, such as the US Surgeon General and the Chief of the medical services of the US Army. AIDS does not merely bring certain dangers with it; it is clearly a programmed catastrophe for the human race, whose magnitude is comparable only with that of a nuclear war, say the Segals. They later explain what they mean by programmed, showing that the virus was produced by humans, namely Dr. Robert Gallo of the Bethesda Cancer Research Center in Maryland. When proceeding to prove their claims, the Segals are careful to note that: We have given preference to the investigative results of highly renowned laboratories, whose objective contents cannot be doubted. We must emphasize, in this connection, that we do not know of any findings that have been published in professional journals that contradict our hypotheses. DISCOVERING AIDS The first KNOWN cases of AIDS occurred in New York in 1979. The first DESCRIBED cases were in California in 1979. The virus was isolated in Paris in May 1983, taken from a French homosexual who had returned home ill from a trip to the East Coast of the US. One year later, Robert Gallo and his co-workers at the Bethesda Cancer Research Center published their discovery of the same virus, which is cytotoxic. ( i.e poisonous to cells ) Shortly after publishing his discovery, Gallo stated to newspapers that the virus had developed by a natural process from the Human Adult Leukemia virus, HTLV-1, which he had previously discovered. However, this claim was not published in professional publications, and soon after, Alizon and Montagnier, two researchers of the Pasteur Institute in Paris published charts of HTLV-1 and HIV, showing that the viruses had basically different structures. Woman's Day and Vogue Essay Ten years later, in the spring of 1979, the first cases of AIDS appeared in New York. Thus began a phase of frantic experimentation, say the Segals. One group was working on trying to cause animal pathogens to adapt themselves to life in human beings. This was done under the cover of searching for a cure for cancer. The race was won by Gallo, who described his findings in 1975. A year later, Gallo described gene manipulations he was conducting. In 1980 he published his discovery of HTLV. In the fall of 1977, a P4 (highest security category of laboratory, in which human pathogens are subjected to genetic manipulations) laboratory was officially opened in building 550 of Fort Detrick, MD, the Pentagons main biological warfare research center. In an article in Der Spiegel`, Prof. Mollings point out that this type of gene manipulation was still extremely difficult in 1977. One would have had to have a genius as great as Robert Gallo for this purpose, note the Segals. Lo and behold. In a supposed compliance with the international accord banning the research, production and storage of biological weapons, part of Fort Detrick was demilitarized and the virus section renamed the Frederick Cancer Research Facility. It was put under the direction of the Cancer Research Institute in neighbouring Bethesda, whose director was no other than Robert Gallo. This happened in 1975, the year Gallo discovered HTLV. Explaining how the virus escaped, the Segals note that in the US, biological agents are traditionally tested on prisoners who are incarcerated for long periods, and who are promised freedom if they survive the test. However, the initial HIV infection symptoms are mild and followed by a seemingly healthy patient. Those who conducted the research must have concluded that the new virus was not so virulent that it could be considered for military use, and the test patients, who had seemingly recovered, were given their freedom. Most of the patients were professional criminals and New York City, which is relatively close, offered them a suitable milieu. Moreover, the patients were exclusively men, many of them having a history of homosexuality and drug abuse, as is often the case in American prisons. It is understandable why AIDS broke out precisely in 1979, precisely among men and among drug users, and precisely in New York City, assert the Segals. They go on to explain that whereas in cases of infection by means of sexual contact, incubation periods are two years and more, while in cases of massive infection via blood transfusions, as must have been the case with prisoners, incubation periods are shorter than a year. Thus, if the new virus was ready at the beginning of 1978 and if the experiments began without too much delay, then the first cases of full-blown AIDS in 1979 were exactly the resultthat could have been expected. In the next three lengthy chapters, the Segals examine other theories, legends as they call them, of the origins of AIDS.Dissecting each claim, they show that they have no scientific standing, providing also the findings of other scientists. They also bring up the arguments of scientists and popular writers who have been at the task of discounting them as conspiracy theorists and show these writers shortcomings. Interested readers will have to read the original article to follow those debates. I will only quote two more paragraphs: We often heard the argument that experiments with human volunteers are part of a barbaric past, and that they would be impossible in the US today.. . We wish to present one single document whose authenticity is beyond doubt. An investigative commission of the US House of Representatives presented in October 1986 a final report concerning the Manhattan Project. According to this document, between 1945 and 1975 at least 695 American citizens were exposed to dangerous doses of radioactivity. Some of them were prisoners who had volunteered, but they also included residents of old-age homes, inmates of insane asylums, handicapped people in nursing homes, and evennormal patients in public hospitals; most of them were subjected to these experiments without their permission. Thus the barbaric past` is not really a thing of the past. It is remarkable that most of these experiments were carried out in university institutes and federal hospitals, all of which are named in the report. Nonetheless, these facts remained secret until 1984, and even then a Congressional committee that was equipped with all the necessary authorization needed two years in order to bring these facts to life. We are often asked how the work on the AIDS virus could have been kept secret. Now, experiments performed on a few dozen prisoners in a laboratory that is subject to military security can be far more easily kept secret than could be the Manhattan Project.