AIDS Essay, Research Paper

AIDS PREFACE In 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

patient’s 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. They also declared categorically that they knew of no natural

process by which one of these two forms could have evolved into the other.

According to the professional "science" magazine, the fall 1984

annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS),

was almost entirely devoted to the question of: to what extent new pathogenic

agents could be produced via human manipulation of genes. According to the

Segals, AIDS was practically the sole topic of discussion. THE AIDS VIRUS The

Segals discuss the findings of Gonda et al, who compared the HIV, visna and

other closely-related viruses and found 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 mutation rate of the HIV virus was about a

million times higher than that of similar viruses, 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 have been only 30%, in 1982- 20%, 10% in

1980 and zero in 1978. "This means," say the Segals, "that at

this time visna viruses changed into HIV, receiving at the same time the

ability to become parasites in human T4-cells and the high genetic instability

that is not known in other retroviruses. This is also consistent with the fact

that the first cases of AIDS appeared about one year later, in the spring of

1979." "In his comparison of the genomes of visna and HIV," add

the Segals, "Coffin hit upon a remarkable feature. The env (envelope) area

of the HIV genome, which encodes the envelope proteins which help the virus to

attach itself to the host cell, is about 300 nucleotides longer than the same

area in visna. This behaviour suggests that an additional piece has been

inserted into the genomes of the visna virus, a piece that alters the envelope

proteins and enables them to bind themselves to the T4-receptors. BUT THIS

SECTION BEHAVES LIKE A BIOLOGICALLY ALIEN BODY, which does not match the rest

of the system biochemically. The above mentioned work by Gonda et al shows that

the HIV virus has a section of about 300 nucleotides, which does not exist in

the visna virus. That length corresponds with what Coffin described. That

section is particularly unstable, which indicates that it is an alien object.

According to the Segals, it "originates in an HTLV-1 genome, (discovered

by Gallo-ED) for the likelihood of an accidental occurrence in HIV of a genome

sequence 60% identical with 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, it must have been the transfer of the HTLV-1 genome section

which gave visna the capability to do so. In other words, the addition of

HTLV-1 to visna made the HIV virus. In addition, the high mutation rate of the

HIV genome has been explained 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 BY ARTIFICIAL MEANS rather than by a natural process of evolution, because

this process would have immediately eliminated, through natural selection,

systems that are so replete with disorders." "These are the facts of

the case," say the Segals. "HIV is essentially a visna virus which

carries an additional protein monomer of HTLV-1 that has an epitope capable of

bonding with T4 receptors. Neither Alizon and Montagnier nor any other

biologist know of any natural mechanism that would make it possible for the

epitope to be transferred from HTLV-1 to the visna virus. For this reason we can

come to only one conclusion: that this gene combination arose by artificial

means, through gene manipulation." THE CONSTRUCTION OF HIV "The

construction of a recombinant virus by means of gene manipulation is

extraordinarily expensive, and it requires a large number of highly qualified

personnel, complicated equipment and expensive high security laboratories.

Moreover, the product would have no commercial value. Who, then," ask the

Segals, "would have provided the resources for a type of research that was

aimed solely at the production of a new disease that would be deadly to human

beings?" The English sociologist Allistair Hay (as well as Paxman et al in

"A Higher Form of Killing"-ED), published a document whose

authenticity has been confirmed by the US Congress, showing that a

representative of the Pentagon requested in 1969 additional funding for

biological warfare research. The intention was to create, within the next ten

years, a new virus that would not be susceptible to the immune system, so that

the afflicted patient would not be able 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 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 Pentagon’s 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 even normal 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."