Essay/Term paper: Aids: us made?

Essay, term paper, research paper:  Biology

AIDS: US Made?


In an article in the Summer-Autumn 1990 issue of "Top Secret", Prof. J.
Segal and Dr. L. Segal illustrate 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 a
sister publication to the American Covert Action Information Bulletin (CAIB).
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," is lengthy and has a lot
of professional jargon.

"The fatal weakening of the immune system which has given AIDS its name
(Acquired Immune-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 to such an extent that new anti-bodies cannot be produced and
the defenseless 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.

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. Disorders in various organ systems
also occur, the most severe in the brain, the symptoms of which range from motor
disorders to severe dementia and death. 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 900,000 cases of AIDS in 1991, over 2,000,000 people
will be afflicted with the virus by the year 2,000. 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. Even when a vaccination becomes available,
it will not help those already infected. These and the following figures have
been reached by several different 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.

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. (poisonous to cells)

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 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 behavior
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, a piece 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.

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....For this
reason we can come to only one conclusion: that this gene combination arose by
artificial means, through gene manipulation."

"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, 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.


In the fall of 1977, a P4 (highest security category of laboratory, in
which human pathogens are genetically manipulated) 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.

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
neighboring 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 considering New York City's proximity
to the prison many freed patients moved there. 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 or 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 result that could have been expected."