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    Aids (2319 words) Essay

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    AidsUS MonsterIn an extensive article in the Summer-Autumn 1990 issue of “TopSecret”, Prof J. Segal and Dr. L. Segal outline their theory that AIDS is aman-made disease, originating at Pentagon bacteriological warfare labs at FortDetrick, Maryland.

    “Top Secret” is the international edition of theGerman magazine Geheim and is considered by many to be a sister publication tothe American Covert Action Information Bulletin (CAIB). In fact, Top Secretcarries the Naming Names column, which CAIB is prevented from doing by theAmerican government, and which names CIA agents in different locations in theworld. The article, named “AIDS: US-Made Monster” and subtitled”AIDS – its Nature and its Origins,” is lengthy, has a lot ofprofessional terminology and is dotted with footnotes. AIDS FACTS “Thefatal weakening of the immune system which has given AIDS its name (AcquiredImmuno-Deficiency Syndrome),” write the Segals, “has been traced backto a destruction or a functional failure of the T4-lymphocytes, also called’helper cells`, which play a regulatory role in the production of antibodies inthe immune system. ” In the course of the illness, the number of functionalT4- cells is reduced greatly so that new anti-bodies cannot be produced and thedefenceless patient remains exposed to a range of infections that under othercircumstances would have been harmless. Most AIDS patients die fromopportunistic infections rather than from the AIDS virus itself.

    The initialinfection is characterized by diarrhea, erysipelas and intermittent fever. Anapparent recovery follows after 2-3 weeks, and in many cases the patient remainswithout symptoms and functions normally for years. Occasionally a swelling ofthe lymph glands, which does not affect the patient’s well-being, can beobserved. After several years, the pre-AIDS stage, known as ARC (Aids- RelatedComplex) sets in.

    This stage includes disorders in the digestive tract, kidneysand lungs. In most cases it develops into full-blown AIDS in about a year, atwhich point opportunistic illnesses occur. Parallel to this syndrome, disordersin various organ systems occur, the most severe in the brain, the symptoms ofwhich range from motoric disorders to severe dementia and death. This set ofsymptoms, say the Segals, is identical in every detail with the Visna sicknesswhich occurs in sheep, mainly in Iceland.

    (Visna means tiredness in Icelandic). However, the visna virus is not pathogenic for human beings. The Segals notethat despite the fact that AIDS is transmitted only through sexual intercourse,blood transfusions and non- sterile hypodermic needles, the infection has spreaddramatically. During the first few years after its discovery, the number of AIDSpatients doubled every six months, and is still doubling every 12 months nowthough numerous measures have been taken against it.

    Based on these figures, itis 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 isalso estimated that the number of people infected is at least ten times thenumber of those suffering from an acute case of AIDS. That in the year 1995there will be between 10-14 million cases of AIDS and an additional 100 millionpeople infected, 80 percent of them in the US, while a possible vaccination willnot be available before 1995 by the most optimistic estimates. Even when suchvaccination becomes available, it will not help those already infected. Theseand following figures have been reached at by several different mainstreamsources, such as the US Surgeon General and the Chief of the medical services ofthe US Army. “AIDS does not merely bring certain dangers with it; it isclearly a programmed catastrophe for the human race, whose magnitude iscomparable only with that of a nuclear war”, say the Segals.

    ” Theylater explain what they mean by “programmed,” showing that the viruswas produced by humans, namely Dr. Robert Gallo of the Bethesda Cancer ResearchCenter in Maryland. When proceeding to prove their claims, the Segals arecareful to note that: “We have given preference to the investigativeresults of highly renowned laboratories, whose objective contents cannot bedoubted. We must emphasize, in this connection, that we do not know of anyfindings that have been published in professional journals that contradict ourhypotheses. ” DISCOVERING AIDS The first KNOWN cases of AIDS occurred in NewYork in 1979.

    The first DESCRIBED cases were in California in 1979. The viruswas isolated in Paris in May 1983, taken from a French homosexual who hadreturned 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 publishedtheir discovery of the same virus, which is cytotoxic. ( i. e poisonous to cells) Shortly after publishing his discovery, Gallo stated to newspapers that thevirus had developed by a natural process from the Human Adult Leukemia virus,HTLV-1, which he had previously discovered.

    However, this claim was notpublished in professional publications, and soon after, Alizon and Montagnier,two researchers of the Pasteur Institute in Paris published charts of HTLV-1 andHIV, showing that the viruses had basically different structures. They alsodeclared categorically that they knew of no natural process by which one ofthese two forms could have evolved into the other. According to the professional”science” magazine, the fall 1984 annual meeting of the AmericanAssociation for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), was almost entirely devotedto the question of: to what extent new pathogenic agents could be produced viahuman manipulation of genes. According to the Segals, AIDS was practically thesole topic of discussion. THE AIDS VIRUS The Segals discuss the findings ofGonda et al, who compared the HIV, visna and other closely-related viruses andfound that the visna virus is the most similar to HIV.

    The two were, in fact,60% identical in 1986. According to findings of the Hahn group, the mutationrate of the HIV virus was about a million times higher than that of similarviruses, and that on the average a 10% alteration took place every two years. That would mean that in 1984, the difference between HIV and visna would havebeen only 30%, in 1982- 20%, 10% in 1980 and zero in 1978. “Thismeans,” say the Segals, “that at this time visna viruses changed intoHIV, receiving at the same time the ability to become parasites in humanT4-cells and the high genetic instability that is not known in otherretroviruses. This is also consistent with the fact that the first cases of AIDSappeared about one year later, in the spring of 1979.

    ” “In hiscomparison of the genomes of visna and HIV,” add the Segals, “Coffinhit upon a remarkable feature. The env (envelope) area of the HIV genome, whichencodes the envelope proteins which help the virus to attach itself to the hostcell, is about 300 nucleotides longer than the same area in visna. Thisbehaviour suggests that an additional piece has been inserted into the genomesof the visna virus, a piece that alters the envelope proteins and enables themto bind themselves to the T4-receptors. BUT THIS SECTION BEHAVES LIKE ABIOLOGICALLY ALIEN BODY, which does not match the rest of the systembiochemically. The above mentioned work by Gonda et al shows that the HIV virushas a section of about 300 nucleotides, which does not exist in the visna virus. That length corresponds with what Coffin described.

    That section is particularlyunstable, which indicates that it is an alien object. According to the Segals,it “originates in an HTLV-1 genome, (discovered by Gallo-ED) for thelikelihood of an accidental occurrence in HIV of a genome sequence 60% identicalwith a section of the HTLV-1 that is 300 nucleotides in length is zero. “Since the visna virus is incapable of attaching itself to human T4 receptors, itmust have been the transfer of the HTLV-1 genome section which gave visna thecapability to do so. In other words, the addition of HTLV-1 to visna made theHIV virus. In addition, the high mutation rate of the HIV genome has beenexplained by another scientific team, Chandra et al, by the fact that it is”a combination of two genome parts which are alien to each other BYARTIFICIAL MEANS rather than by a natural process of evolution, because thisprocess would have immediately eliminated, through natural selection, systemsthat are so replete with disorders. ” “These are the facts of thecase,” say the Segals.

    “HIV is essentially a visna virus which carriesan additional protein monomer of HTLV-1 that has an epitope capable of bondingwith T4 receptors. Neither Alizon and Montagnier nor any other biologist know ofany natural mechanism that would make it possible for the epitope to betransferred from HTLV-1 to the visna virus. For this reason we can come to onlyone conclusion: that this gene combination arose by artificial means, throughgene manipulation. ” THE CONSTRUCTION OF HIV “The construction of arecombinant virus by means of gene manipulation is extraordinarily expensive,and it requires a large number of highly qualified personnel, complicatedequipment and expensive high security laboratories.

    Moreover, the product wouldhave no commercial value. Who, then,” ask the Segals, “would haveprovided the resources for a type of research that was aimed solely at theproduction of a new disease that would be deadly to human beings?” TheEnglish sociologist Allistair Hay (as well as Paxman et al in “A HigherForm of Killing”-ED), published a document whose authenticity has beenconfirmed by the US Congress, showing that a representative of the Pentagonrequested in 1969 additional funding for biological warfare research. Theintention was to create, within the next ten years, a new virus that would notbe susceptible to the immune system, so that the afflicted patient would not beable to develop any defense against it. Ten years later, in the spring of 1979,the first cases of AIDS appeared in New York.

    “Thus began a phase offrantic experimentation,” say the Segals. One group was working on tryingto cause animal pathogens to adapt themselves to life in human beings. This wasdone under the cover of searching for a cure for cancer. The race was won byGallo, who described his findings in 1975. A year later, Gallo described genemanipulations he was conducting. In 1980 he published his discovery of HTLV.

    Inthe fall of 1977, a P4 (highest security category of laboratory, in which humanpathogens are subjected to genetic manipulations) laboratory was officiallyopened in building 550 of Fort Detrick, MD, the Pentagon’s main biologicalwarfare research center. “In an article in ‘Der Spiegel`, Prof. Mollingspoint out that this type of gene manipulation was still extremely difficult in1977. One would have had to have a genius as great as Robert Gallo for thispurpose, note the Segals. ” Lo and behold. In a supposed compliance with theinternational accord banning the research, production and storage of biologicalweapons, part of Fort Detrick was “demilitarized” and the virussection renamed the “Frederick Cancer Research Facility”.

    It was putunder the direction of the Cancer Research Institute in neighbouring Bethesda,whose director was no other than Robert Gallo. This happened in 1975, the yearGallo discovered HTLV. Explaining how the virus escaped, the Segals note that inthe US, biological agents are traditionally tested on prisoners who areincarcerated for long periods, and who are promised freedom if they survive thetest. However, the initial HIV infection symptoms are mild and followed by aseemingly healthy patient. “Those who conducted the research must haveconcluded that the new virus was.

    . . not so virulent that it could be consideredfor military use, and the test patients, who had seemingly recovered, were giventheir freedom. Most of the patients were professional criminals and New YorkCity, which is relatively close, offered them a suitable milieu. Moreover, thepatients were exclusively men, many of them having a history of homosexualityand drug abuse, as is often the case in American prisons. It is understandablewhy 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 explainthat whereas in cases of infection by means of sexual contact, incubationperiods are two years and more, while in cases of massive infection via bloodtransfusions, as must have been the case with prisoners, incubation periods areshorter than a year. “Thus, if the new virus was ready at the beginning of1978 and if the experiments began without too much delay, then the first casesof full-blown AIDS in 1979 were exactly the resultthat could have beenexpected. ” In the next three lengthy chapters, the Segals examine othertheories, “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 thearguments of scientists and popular writers who have been at the task ofdiscounting them as “conspiracy theorists” and show these writers’shortcomings. Interested readers will have to read the original article tofollow those debates.

    I will only quote two more paragraphs: “We oftenheard the argument that experiments with human volunteers are part of a barbaricpast, and that they would be impossible in the US today. . . We wish to presentone single document whose authenticity is beyond doubt. An investigativecommission of the US House of Representatives presented in October 1986 a finalreport concerning the Manhattan Project. According to this document, between1945 and 1975 at least 695 American citizens were exposed to dangerous doses ofradioactivity.

    Some of them were prisoners who had volunteered, but they alsoincluded residents of old-age homes, inmates of insane asylums, handicappedpeople in nursing homes, and even normal patients in public hospitals; most ofthem were subjected to these experiments without their permission. Thus the’barbaric past` is not really a thing of the past. ” “It is remarkablethat most of these experiments were carried out in university institutes andfederal hospitals, all of which are named in the report. Nonetheless, thesefacts remained secret until 1984, and even then a Congressional committee thatwas equipped with all the necessary authorization needed two years in order tobring these facts to life.

    We are often asked how the work on the AIDS viruscould have been kept secret. Now, experiments performed on a few dozen prisonersin a laboratory that is subject to military security can be far more easily keptsecret than could be the Manhattan Project.”

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    Aids (2319 words) Essay. (2019, Jan 02). Retrieved from https://artscolumbia.org/aids-2319-words-64279/

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