HOW AIDS STARTED

http://www.rense.com/general68/gayex.htm
The Gay Experiment That Started AIDS In America  
By Alan Cantwell, M.D  
alancantwell@sbcglobal.net
 11-27-5

There is no doubt that AIDS erupted in the U.S. shortly after  government-sponsored hepatitis B vaccine experiments (1978-1981) using gay  men as guinea pigs. The epidemic was caused by the "introduction" of a new  retrovirus (the human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV for short); and the  introduction of a new herpes-8 virus, the virus that causes Kaposi's  sarcoma, widely known as the "gay cancer" of AIDS. The taboo theory that  AIDS is a man-made disease is largely based on research showing an intimate  connection between government vaccine experiments and the outbreak of "the  gay plague"  

The widely accepted theory is that HIV/AIDS originated in a monkey or  chimpanzee virus that "jumped species" in Africa. However, it is clear that  the first AIDS cases were recorded in gay men in Manhattan in 1979, a few  years before the epidemic was first noticed in Africa in 1982. It is now  claimed that the human herpes-8 virus (also called the KS virus), discovered  in 1994, also originated when a primate herpes virus jumped species in  Africa. How two African species-jumping viruses ended up exclusively in gay  men in Manhattan beginning in the late 1970s has never been satisfactorily  explained.  

Researchers who claim AIDS is a man-made disease believe it is much more  likely that these two primate viruses were introduced and spread during the  government's recruitment of thousands of male homosexuals beginning in 1974.  Large numbers of gay men in Manhattan donated blood for the experimental  hepatitis B vaccine trial, which took place at the New York Blood Center in  Manhattan in 1978. Extensive evidence supporting the man-made theory of AIDS  is easily found on the Internet by Googling: man-made origin of AIDS; and in  my two books, "AIDS and the Doctors of Death" and "Queer Blood: The Secret  AIDS Genocide Plot."  

Government interest in "gay health" before the AIDS epidemic  Beginning in the mid-1970s, government scientists became interested in the  health of gay men, particularly in the realm of sexually-transmitted  diseases, and specifically in the sexual transmission of the hepatitis B  virus. The early 1970s was a time when large numbers of gays come out of the  closet and identified themselves as homosexuals at government-sponsored  health clinics. Organizations such as the Gay Men's Health Project were  formed at this time. Promiscuous gays were avidly sought as volunteers to  test the efficacy of a newly-developed hepatitis B vaccine manufactured by  Merck and the National Institutes of Health (NIH).  

By 1977 over 13,000 Manhattan gays were screened to secure the final 1083  men who would serve as guinea pigs to test the hepatitis B vaccine. The  vaccine was manufactured from the combined plasma of 30 highly selected gay  men who carried the hepatitis B virus in their blood. Developed over a  period of 65 weeks during 1977-1978 and tested for six months in chimpanzees  (the primate in which HIV is thought to have originated), the first group of  gay men were inoculated at the New York Blood Center in November 1978.  That same year a final cohort of 6875 homosexual men at the San Francisco  City Clinic was assembled to study hepatitis B virus sexual transmission in  that city. By the end of the decade gays in clinics in Los Angeles, Denver,  Chicago, and St. Louis, also came under surveillance by the Centers for  Disease Control. An additional 1402 volunteers were finally selected to  participate in similar vaccine experiments in those cities beginning in  March 1980.  

Before 1978 there was no stored blood anywhere in the U.S. that tested  positive for HIV or the KS virus. There were no cases of AIDS and no cases  of "gay cancer" in young men.  

The first cases of AIDS appeared shortly after the experiment began in  Manhattan. In June 1981 the epidemic became official and was quickly labeled  the "gay ­related immune deficiency syndrome", later known as AIDS.  The gay community was the most hated minority in America. After the  experiments ended, the gay community was decimated by the "gay plague." In  the first years of AIDS, the epidemic was largely ignored by the government  (see Randy Shilt's best-seller, "And the Band Played On") and the disease  was blamed on gay anal sex, drugs, and promiscuity. Gays were immediately  labeled "high risk."  

In my view, what made gay men "high risk" was the fact that they were the  exclusive volunteers for government medical experiments that undoubtedly put  them at "high risk." The evidence for this conclusion is outlined in this  report. Further evidence can be obtained from abstracts of scientific  reports available on the Internet at the PubMed website of the National  Library of Medicine.  

The gay hepatitis B experiments (1978-1981)  The experimental hepatitis B vaccine injected into gays was unlike any other  vaccine previously made. As stated, it was developed in chimpanzees and  manufactured in a year-long process of sterilization and purification of the  pooled blood of 30 gay men who were hepatitis B virus carriers.  The final group of 1083 selected for the first experiment at the Blood  Center were inoculated from November 1978 until October 1979. At one point,  there was great concern that the vaccine might be contaminated. According to  June Goodfield's Quest for the Killers, p 86, "This was no theoretical fear,  contamination having been suspected in one batch made by the National  Institutes of Health, though never in Merck's." Each gay man was given three  inoculations of the vaccine over a period of three months. The vaccine  proved successful with 96% of the men developing protective antibodies  against the hepatitis B virus.  

It has been assumed by some that these men might have been already  immunosuppressed due to promiscuity and venereal disease. Although the young  men in the study were indeed "promiscuous" (this was a requirement for  entrance into the study), they were in excellent health. Despite many  previous sexual partners, these volunteers had never been infected with the  hepatitis B virus, which was a requirement for participation in the  experiment. Furthermore, the 96% success rate would not have been  accomplished if the men were immunosuppressed, because such people often do  not respond to the vaccine.  

When Robert Gallo's blood test for HIV became available in the mid-1980s,  the New York Blood Center's stored gay blood specimens were reexamined. Most  astonishing is the fact that 20% of the gay men who volunteered for the  hepatitis B experiment in Manhattan were discovered to be HIV-positive in  1980 (one year before the AIDS epidemic became "official" in 1981). This  signifies that Manhattan gays in 1980 had the highest incidence of HIV  anywhere in the world, including Africa, the supposed birthplace of HIV and  AIDS. In addition, we now know that one out of five gay men (20%) tested  positive for the new KS herpes-8 virus in 1982 when stored blood samples  from an AIDS trial in New York City were re-examined by epidemiologists at  the NCI in 1999.  

Never mentioned by AIDS historians is the fact that the New York Blood  Center established a chimp virus laboratory for viral vaccine research in  West Africa in 1974. One of the purposes of VILAB II, in Robertsfield,  Liberia, was to develop the hepatitis B vaccine in chimps. The lab also  prides itself by releasing "rehabilitated" (but virus-infected) chimps back  into the wild, perhaps accounting for some of the ancestors of HIV and the  KS virus found in the jungle by some government researchers.  The Virus Cancer Program and the birth of AIDS  

In the decade before AIDS the Virus Cancer Program (1968-1980), sponsored by  the National Institutes of Health, attempted to prove that viruses caused  human cancer. Ultimately the Program was unsuccessful in providing proof,  yet it succeeded in building up the field of animal retrovirology, which led  to a more complete understanding of how cancer-causing and immunosuppressive  viruses in animals might cause disease in humans. The VCP was also the  birthplace of genetic engineering, molecular biology, and the human genome  project. As the VCP was winding down in the late 1970s, the gay experiments  began in New York City.  

The introduction of HIV and the KS herpes virus into gay men during this  period (along with some "novel" and now-patented mycoplasmas discovered at  the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology) miraculously revived the career of  Robert Gallo and made him the most famous virologist in the world. And, of  course, turned the "failure" of the VCP into a triumph by providing proof  that these primate-derived viruses could cause disease in humans.  The fear of the hepatitis B vaccine  

When AIDS began there were scattered reports in the medical journals  questioning whether the "gay plague" might have its origin in the hepatitis  B experiments. It was well-known in medical circles that the vaccine was  made from the pooled plasma of gay men - and there was fear that the AIDS  agent might be in the vaccine. As a result, when the hepatitis B commercial  vaccine became available in July 1982, many people refused to be injected  with it.  

The fear of the vaccine was readily admitted by the CDC. Nevertheless, in  detailed reports the CDC concluded that the vaccine was safe. Although it  was clear the hepatitis B vaccine eliminated all "known" viruses, this  obviously did not apply to "unknown" viruses at the time, such as HIV and  the KS virus.  

After HIV was discovered in 1984 some of the vaccine was retested and  declared free of HIV. Of course, it was impossible to say whether the  vaccine contained the KS virus, because this virus was undiscovered until  1994. I am unaware of any subsequent testing of the vaccine for this herpes  KS virus.  

Possible contamination problems with the hepatitis vaccine was the impetus  that led Luc Montagnier to hunt for a virus in the new gay disease in the  autumn of 1982. He began testing batches of human plasma for "reverse  transcriptase activity", a biochemical sign indicating the possible presence  of a retrovirus. (See page 46 of his book "Virus"). Montagnier's research  eventually led to the first discovery of the AIDS virus at the Pasteur  Institute in Paris.  

Although the CDC and the New York Blood Center claimed it was safe, many  health professionals refused the hepatitis B vaccine. In 1985, only 23 out  of 162 Rhode Island dentists agreed to take the vaccine because of concerns  about AIDS. As late as 1990, 13 out of 14 black nurses at a university  hospital refused to take the vaccine for the same reason.  

The fate of the gay men in the gay experiments  The purpose of the gay experiments was to test a vaccine that could immunize  people against hepatitis B virus. Infection with this virus could lead to  severe liver disease and sometimes to liver cancer. Ironically, an  unprecedented explosion of cancer took place in male homosexuals after the  experiment. Reports of the fate of these men attest to the fact that  participating in the government's experiments was clearly injurious to the  health of gay men.  

Significantly, there were no reported blood specimens anywhere in the U.S.  that were HIV-positive prior to the epidemic in 1979, except in the samples  stored at the NYBC.  

In a May 12, 1983, letter to the editor of The New England Journal of  Medicine, Cladd Stevens (who supervised the NYBC experiment) wrote : "No  cases haves occurred in the vaccine recipients from populations at low risk  of AIDS, and there is no excess incidence in the high-risk population." But  this proved to be incorrect in later reports co-authored by Stevens.  In a 1985 report Cladd Stevens et al. claimed that seven men (out of 1083)  were HIV-positive before they received either vaccine or placebo. If true,  this indicates that HIV (and possibly the KS virus) was already present in  the blood of Manhattan homosexuals and could have contaminated the pooled  blood of gays whose plasma was used to make the vaccine in 1977.  

As stated previously, a 1986 report in JAMA showed 20% of the men in the  experiment were already infected with HIV by the end of 1981; and by 1984,  more than 40% of the men were HIV-positive and doomed to death.  

Another follow-up study of 8,906 gay men who donated blood for the hepatitis  experiments in Manhattan was released in 1992. Statistical analysis of this  group showed that mortality rates for men aged 25-44 began to rise in the  1980s, with AIDS the leading cause of death among young men in New York  City. Remarkably, "The all-cause mortality in this cohort in 1988 was 24  times higher that the mortality rate in the cohort before the beginning of  the AIDS epidemic."  

Was the hepatitis B vaccine contaminated with HIV and the KS virus?  Largely forgotten in AIDS history is the hepatitis B vaccine trial that also  took place with 685 gay Dutch volunteers in Amsterdam between November 1980  and December 1981. Unlike the American vaccine makers, the Dutch researchers  heated their experimental hepatitis B vaccine for added safety.  

A 1986 report of the trial clearly states the AIDS virus "was not  transmitted by the heat inactivated hepatitis B vaccine." Of the 685  participants, five were already infected with HIV when the trial began. The  researchers theorized that HIV entered the Dutch gay population at the end  of the 1970s.  

Another follow-up Dutch report of this trial in 1993 again suggests the  efficacy of heating the vaccine for safety. (The experimental vaccine was  not heated in the U.S. until after all the gay experiments were completed.)  At the end of 1982, one year after the Dutch experiment had ended, only As  stated previously, a 1986 report in JAMA showed 20% of the men in the  experiment were already infected with HIV by the end of 1981; and by 1984,  more than 40% of the men were HIV-positive and doomed to death.  

7.5% of the Amsterdam men were infected. In contrast, 26.8% of the men in  the New York experiment were HIV-positive; and a whopping 42.6% of the San  Francisco men were HIV-positive. These statistics showing many men infected  in the American trials in 1982 further prove that Cladd Stevens of the NYBC,  and the CDC, were incorrect in declaring there was no excess incidence of  AIDS in the "high-risk" gay male population.  

The fate of all the men who participated in the hepatitis B vaccine trials  in six U.S cities has never been revealed. However, it is likely from the  statistics presented in JAMA in 1986 that many, if not most, of the men  eventually died of AIDS. The actual number of AIDS deaths has never been  revealed, nor have the individual medical records been studied. Attempts to  secure this information have been rebuffed by the Blood Center, due to the  "confidential" nature of the experiment.  

"Gay Cancer" and the origin of AIDS  

After the introduction of HIV and the KS virus into the U.S. gay male  population in the late 1970s, the incidence of KS skyrocketed.  A 1989 report by Biggar found no cases of KS in young men in New York City  during the years 1973-1976. But by 1985 the incidence of KS in  "never-married men" in Manhattan had increased 1850 times. In San Francisco  the rate of KS increased over 2000 times!  

KS is now 20,000 times more common in AIDS patients than in the general  population. A 1985 autopsy study by Lee Moskowitz of 52 AIDS cases (23  Haitians, 19 gays, 5 intravenous drug abusers, 2 hemophiliacs, and 3 persons  at unknown risk) showed that 94% of AIDS patients from the various risk  groups had internal KS. The CDC claims KS now occurs in only 15% of gay men  (down from 30% at the beginning of the epidemic), but these statistics are  not based on current autopsy studies  

KS was never a sexually-transmitted disease before the introduction of HIV  into gays. For a century after the first reported KS cases were discovered  in Vienna in 1872, there was no evidence that KS could be transmitted from  person-to-person.  

By 1950, a more aggressive "endemic" form of KS was uncovered in African  blacks. Still, there was no evidence the disease was transmissible or  contagious. Suddenly with the introduction of HIV into the homosexual  community, scientists began to view KS as a contagious "gay cancer" out of  Africa.  

The new KS virus is closely related to a monkey tumor virus, known as herpes  virus saimiri, that was extensively studied by researchers in the VCP in the  decade before the epidemic. Initially found only in KS from AIDS patients,  the new KS virus has also been found in non-AIDS-related KS tumors and in  other forms of cancer, such as lymphoma and multiple myeloma.  HIV is a cancer-causing virus. Infection with HIV (with or without the KS  virus) has resulted in a noticeable increase in various forms of cancer. A  2005 study of over 4000 AIDS patients showed higher rates of melanoma, basal  and squamous cell skin carcinomas, anal carcinoma, prostate carcinoma, and  Hodgkin disease, when compared with age-adjusted rates for the general  United States population.  

The KS virus is now in the U.S. blood supply; and blood is not screened  routinely for this virus. A 2001 study indicated that 15% of normal Texas  blood donors showed evidence of KS virus infection in the blood. A 2002  study of healthy children (ages 4-13) in South Texas showed that 26% had  antibodies to the KS virus in their blood.  

Is AIDS a man-made disease?  

How did these two viruses of primate origin get into the gay male population  to cause AIDS and a contagious form of cancer? AIDS experts blame monkeys  and chimps in the African jungle. My research indicates it is much more  likely these viruses were introduced during government-sponsored hepatitis B  experiments using gays as unsuspecting guinea pigs. Extensive documentation  of past "secret medical experiments" by the government can be found on  Google. A recent BBC news report (30 Nov 2004) uncovering unauthorized and  dangerous HIV drug experiments on infants and children in New York City  orphanages can be found by Googling: BBC + guinea pig kids.  

Until proven otherwise, a "new" HIV retrovirus and a "new" KS virus could  easily have been developed in a laboratory as part of the Virus Cancer  Program. In the decade before AIDS it was common to transfer and adapt  primate retroviruses and herpes viruses into human cells in genetic  engineering experiments. Such viruses were deemed potential "candidate human  viruses," as clearly stated in the annual progress reports of the VCP. For  further details on the relationship of the VCP to the introduction of HIV,  Google: virus cancer program + AIDS.  

The connection between the hepatitis experiments and the AIDS epidemic was  quickly dismissed by government authorities two decades ago. However, it is  clear from a review of the scientific literature that the "gay plague" began  immediately after the government experiments; and the experiments  permanently damaged the health of the gay community, and led to continuing  spread of HIV into the "general population."  

Are we to believe that all this is merely a coincidence -and that AIDS in  America resulted simply from two viruses jumping species in the African  jungle? Or is the origin of HIV and AIDS -and the KS virus- related to  secret medical research and covert human testing, as suggested here.  [Dr. Alan Cantwell is a retired dermatologist; and the author of five books  on the man-made origin of AIDS and the infectious origin of cancer, all  published by Aries Rising Press, PO Box 29532, Los Angeles, CA 90029  (www.ariesrisingpress.com). Email: alancantwell@sbcglobal.net. Abstracts of  30 published papers can be found at the PubMed website. Many of his personal  writings can be found on www.google.com by typing in key words "alan  cantwell" + articles. His latest book is Four Women Against Cancer:  Bacteria, Cancer and the Origin of Life. His books are available on  www.amazon.com and through Book Clearing House @ 1-800-431-1579]  

References:  

Cantwell A. AIDS and the Doctor of Death: An inquiry into the origin of the  AIDS epidemic. Aries Rising Press, Los Angeles, 1988.  

Cantwell A: Queer Blood: The secret AIDS genocide plot. Aries Rising Press,  Los Angeles, 1993.  

Miller M.KS enters Y2K still riddled with many questions. J Natl Cancer  Inst. 1999 Oct 6;91(19):1612-4.  

Szmuness W. Large-scale efficacy trials of hepatitis B vaccines in the USA:  baseline data and protocols. J Med Virol. 1979;4(4):327-40.  

Szmuness W, Stevens CE, Harley EJ, Zang EA, Oleszko WR, William DC, Sadovsky  R, Morrison JM, Kellner. Hepatitis B vaccine: demonstration of efficacy in a  controlled clinical trial in a high-risk population in the United States. N  Engl J Med. 1980 Oct 9;303(15):833-41.  

Szmuness W, Stevens CE, Zang EA, Harley EJ, Kellner A.  A controlled clinical trial of the efficacy of the hepatitis B vaccine  (Heptavax B): a final report. Hepatology. 1981 Sep-Oct;1(5):377-85.  

Yacovone JA, Weisfeld J. Acceptance of hepatitis B vaccine by Rhode Island  dental practitioners. J Am Dent Assoc. 1985 Jul;111(1):65-7.  

Spence MR, Dash GP. Hepatitis B: perceptions, knowledge and vaccine  acceptance among registered nurses in high-risk occupations in a university  hospital. Infect Control Hosp Epidemiol. 1990 Mar;11(3):129-33.  

O'Brien TR, Kedes D, Ganem D, Macrae DR, Rosenberg PS, Molden J, Goedert JJ.  Evidence for concurrent epidemics of human herpesvirus 8 and human  immunodeficiency virus type 1 in US homosexual men: rates, risk factors, and  relationship to Kaposi's sarcoma. J Infect Dis. 1999 Oct;180(4):1010-7.  

Dollard SC, Nelson KE, Ness PM, Stambolis V, Kuehnert MJ, Pellett PE, Cannon  MJ. Possible transmission of human herpesvirus-8 by blood transfusion in a  historical United States cohort. Transfusion. 2005 Apr;45(4):463-5.  

Sacks HS, Rose DN, Chalmers TC. Should the risk of acquired immunodeficiency  syndrome deter hepatitis B vaccination? A decision analysis. JAMA. 1984 Dec  28;252(24):3375-7.  

Stevens CE, Taylor PE, Zang EA, Morrison JM, Harley EJ, Rodriguez de Cordoba  S, Bacino C, Ting RC, Bodner AJ, Sarngadharan MG, et al. Human T-cell  lymphotropic virus type III infection in a cohort of homosexual men in New  York City. JAMA. 1986 Apr 25;255(16):2167-72.  

Stevens CE, Taylor PE, Rubinstein P, Ting RC, Bodner AJ, Sarngadharan MG,  Gallo RC. Safety of the hepatitis B vaccine. N Engl J Med. 1985 Feb  7;312(6):375-6.  

van Griensven GJ, Hessol NA, Koblin BA, Byers RH, O'Malley PM, Albercht-van  Lent N, Buchbinder SP, Taylor PE, Stevens CE, Coutinho RA. Epidemiology of  human immunodeficiency virus type 1 infection amonghomosexual men  participating in hepatitis B vaccine trials in Amsterdam, New York City, and  San Francisco, 1978-1990. Am J Epidemiol. 1993 Apr 15;137(8):909-15.  

Biggar RJ, Burnett W, Mikl J, Nasca P. Cancer among New York men at risk of  acquired immunodeficiency syndrome. Int J Cancer. 1989 Jun 15;43(6):979-85.  

Moskowitz LB, Hensley GT, Gould EW, Weiss SD. Frequency and anatomic  distribution of lymphadenopathic Kaposi's sarcoma in the acquired  immunodeficiency syndrome: an autopsy series. Hum Pathol. 1985  May;16(5):447-56.  

Barahona H, Melendez LV, Hunt RD, Daniel MD. The owl monkey (Aotus  trivirgatus) as an animal model for viral diseases and oncologic studies.  Lab Anim Sci. 1976 Dec;26(6 Pt 2):1104-12.  

Koblin BA, Hessol NA, Zauber AG, Taylor PE, Buchbinder SP, Katz MH, Stevens  CE. Increased incidence of cancer among homosexual men, New York City and  San Francisco, 1978-1990. Am J Epidemiol. 1996 Nov 15;144(10):916-23.  

Burgi A, Brodine S, Wegner S, Milazzo M, Wallace MR, Spooner K, Blazes DL,  Agan BK, Armstrong A, Fraser S, Crum NF. Incidence and risk factors for the  occurrence of non-AIDS-defining cancers among human immunodeficiency  virus-infected individuals. Cancer. 2005 Oct 1;104(7):1505-11.  

Baillargeon J, Deng JH, Hettler E, Harrison C, Grady JJ, Korte LG, Alexander  J, Montalvo E, Jenson HB, Gao SJ. Seroprevalence of Kaposi's  sarcoma-associated herpesvirus infection among blood donors from Texas. Ann  Epidemiol. 2001 Oct;11(7):512-8.  

Baillargeon J, Leach CT, Deng JH, Gao SJ, Jenson HB. High prevalence of  human herpesvirus 8 (HHV-8) infection in south Texas children. J Med Virol.  2002 Aug;67(4):542-8.  

>