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."