BLACKHERBALS.COM
The Gay Experiment That
Started AIDS In America
- by Alan Cantwell, M.D
-
November 27, 2005
-
- 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.
-
- alancantwell@sbcglobal.net
- [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
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- Miller M.KS enters Y2K still riddled with many
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- Szmuness W. Large-scale efficacy trials of
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- Szmuness W, Stevens CE, Harley EJ, Zang EA,
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Hepatitis B vaccine: demonstration of efficacy in a controlled
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The Gay Experiment That Started AIDS In America
