FEATURED ESSAYS 1. Comparison Of Mary Shelly's Frank... 2. Comparison Of Mary Shelly's Frank... 3. Frankenstien All Behavior Is L 4. Death 5. AIDS Esssay 6. Aids In The USA 7. Frankenstein Protagonist And A 8. Types Of Monsters 9. Mary Shelly's Frankenstein 10. Personal Writing: My Friend's Dea... 11. The Issue Of HIV And AIDS 12. HIV/AIDS Seminar 13. Frankenstein 14. AIDS REPORT

AIDS: A U.S.- Made Monster?

 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."