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Revolution
(nursing journal)
A.D. Von Publishers, Inc.
56 McArthur Avenue
Saten Island, NY 10312
1-800-331-6534


     "Nobody's confidentiality should supersede another person's
      right to stay alive."


  Are Nurses Destined To Be A Dying Breed?

     Exclusive interview with Dr. Lorraine Day
     by Joan Swirsky


  "Aids: What the Government Isn't Telling You", by Dr. Lorraine Day,
asserts that the federal Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the
American Medical Association have participated in a cover-up to prevent
the public from acquiring accurate information about the risk of the HIV
(AIDS) virus.  If the government fails to take more aggressive action,
she asserts, the virus will reach proportions capable of decimating our
population.  Dr. Day is the former Chief of Orthopedic Surgery of San
Francisco, and is currently a member of the AIDS Task Force of the
American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons.  She has appeared on numerous
radio and television shows, including "60 Minutes," "Larry King Live,"
"Oprah Winfrey," "CNN Crossfire," "Nightline" and "Sally Jessy Raphael."
Her own syndicated radio show will start in early 1993.  Here, Joan
Swirsky, Revolution's Editor-in-Chief, questions Dr. Day about her
provocative ideas.


JS: What specifically isn't the government telling us?

LD: The government would like the public to believe that the AIDS virus
is very fragile, that it does *not* live long outside the body.  This
is incorrect.  According to the major medical journal Lancet (September,
1985), the AIDS virus stays alive and infective outside the body, dried,
at room temperature, for seven days; outside the body, wet, at room
temperature, for 14 days.  This research came from the Pasteur Institute
in France where Dr. Luc Montagnier discovered how the AIDS virus works.
The virus is not fragile.  AIDS has been transmitted to individuals who
received previously frozen blood, who were artificially inseminated by
semen that had been frozen and who received bone that had been frozen at
-80 degrees centigrade.  I was a member of the committee at the CDC that
wrote the regulations for bone banks after it was determined that a 23-
year-old woman, a nurse, who had undergone a spinal fusion for
idiopathic scoliosis, received no blood during the operation, but did
receive bone that was traced to a drug user who had subsequently died of
AIDS.   The nurse got AIDS from the bone.

  I asked other members of the committee, who were all physicians,
why we were writing regulations for bone banks in the fall of 1989
when they should have been written in 1983, when the CDC knew that
AIDS was transmitted by blood.  Since all physicians know that blood
nourishes bone, there would have to be components of blood in the bone.
Their answer was, "Well, we didn't know anybody who'd gotten it that
way."  Unfortunately, several women had to get AIDS from artificial
insemination before the CDC said that semen had to be tested, even
though they knew that there would have to be components of blood and
blood cells in semen.

  The AIDS virus does not die on contact with the air, as the
government would like us to believe.  In the Journal of Medical
Virology(January, 1991), Stanford researchers Drs. Greg Johnson
and William Robinson reported that the AIDS virus stays alive and
infective in the air at least two feet from its source.  The research
was done because some of us were concerned about the possibility of
the virus staying alive and infective in the bloody mist produced in
the operating room when power saws and power drills on bloody bone
are used.  Drs. Johnson and Robinson dropped HIV- positive blood on
a rotating drill bit- the kind used in the operating room to drill
holes in bone.  Six inches away from the bit, they put a 20-inch
length of intravenous tubing, which is only one millimeter in diameter.
They collected air that came out the other end of that tube, which was
26 inches away from the rotating drill bit.  To the naked eye, that
air looked completely clear; when it was captured and bubbled through
a test tube of human cells that were then cultured, they found that
the air had infected the cells with AIDS.  Clearly, contrary to what
the government is telling us, the AIDS virus is not fragile; it is
 quite hardy and does not die on contact with the air.

  Also, the AIDS virus is not easily killed by all household
disinfectants.  The way the AIDS virus is testing against disinfectants
in the laboratory is not the way nurses, doctors and the public deal
with the virus.  We only come in contact with the AIDS virus when it
is in blood or body fluids.  In the laboratory, in its pure form,
many substances will kill the virus.  Virologists know that when any
virus, including the AIDS virus, is in fluid that contains protein-
as blood, saliva, semen and many other body fluids do- the protein
will surround the virus and make it more resistant to inactivation or
death by disinfectants or detergents.  That's what happens with the
HIV virus.  At the Montreal AIDS convention I attended in 1989,
researchers from St. Stephens Hospital in London showed that if the
virus is in body fluid, you can take 70 percent ethyl alcohol and
pour it on the virus for 20 minutes and it will not kill the virus.
This was quite astounding to me because, up until that time, I had
believed the government when they said the virus was fragile.

JS: Why do you believe the government is withholding information about
AIDS?

LD: This is the first contagious disease that has exploded in a
special interest group, specifically the homosexual community.
Before AIDS, homosexuals were well-organized and they looked at any
attempt to control this disease with regular public health principles
that are used for all other contagious diseases as an attempt to
restrict their lifestyle.  They did not want to be tested or have to
tell their sexual partners they were infected with a fatal disease.
They did not want to have to tell their doctor or nurse that they
were infected, even though they knew withholding this information
could be fatal.  They've put tremendous pressure on the government
and on politicians to maintain their confidentiality, with no
obligation on their part to save another person's life.

  Also, the government wants the public to remain calm and they don't
want the public to force elected officials to pass laws that might
make some significant changes in society.  The government says, "We
know more about this disease in a shorter period of time than we've
ever known about any other disease and there will be a vaccine right
around the corner."  That is not true.  They say if you're not a
high-risk homosexual practicing unsafe sex or a drug addict sharing
needles, you're not going to get this disease.  That is not true.
In fact, a number of healthcare workers have gotten AIDS from needle
sticks and other exposures.  Of the 220,000 people now dead or dying
of AIDS, the CDC admits there are between 8,000 and 10,000 people who
have no known risk factors- data that are published every month in
the CDC's journal.  The CDC said that they have reclassified most of
these people into known risk groups.  However, their classification
system is very curious.  If a surgical technician who is homosexual
gets a needle stick in the operating room and gets AIDS, he is placed
in the homosexual category, rather than the occupational risk category.

  When has the government told us the truth recently?  They didn't tell
us the truth about Watergate, about the savings and loan fiasco, about
the HUD scandal, about the nuclear leaks at the Hanford, Washington
plant years ago, where people who were dying of cancer around the plant
protested and were told there were no leaks.  The government now admits
that they lied, that they knew there were leaks.

JS: Are hospitals doing enough to protect their employees from this
virus- especially nurses- since "hands-on" work requires daily contact
with AIDS patients?  Specifically, (a) Are institutions sponsoring
enough educational seminars? (b) Are employees being educated and
tested about modes of transmission? (c) What about "universal
precautions"- are they adequate protection?  (d) Is it true that the
virus can go through surgical masks?

LD: Some institutions are sponsoring seminars, but most are giving
incorrect information because that information comes from the CDC and
the CDC plays down the risk to healthcare workers.  Also, hospital
administrators don't tell nurses and other employees of the risks
because they don't want to spend the money to buy the equipment and
clothing necessary to protect healthcare workers.  And they are afraid
of being sued.  If a nurse sues the hospital, she is considered only
an employee, and so if she gets AIDS from a needle stick, she will just
get workers' compensation (which, in California, is $896 a month and
$2,000 for burial).  When I wrote to the Chancellor of the University
of California about my risk and asked him what would happen to me if I
turned positive for AIDS, that's what he wrote me, because I was an
employee of the University.  So the hospital is really not too worried
about your getting AIDS and suing, because it really won't cost them
any money.  I was scheduled to speak at a hospital in Ohio and the day
before, the Assistant Administrator, a man named Dr. Butcher, cancelled
because the nurses were in contract negotiations and the hospital didn't
want them to hear me while negotiations were in progress.  They were
concerned that the nurses would ask for more equipment and clothing
to protect them from AIDS.  The nurses were outraged and they went to
the local radio station.  As a result, the talk show host gave me one
hour to broadcast my entire talk, followed by two hours of call-in
 questions.

  As far as employees being educated about modes of transmission,
yes- but, again, almost all of the information is inaccurate or
inadequate.

  Universal precautions are a bit of a joke, a cruel joke for healthcare
workers.  In the operating room, surgeons and surgical nurses have been
taking "universal precautions" since the microbe was first discovered.
We know, however, that latex gloves allow penetration of needles and
sharp instruments and that no latex gloves are really protective.  All
of them have holes in them that are microscopic but 50 times larger than
the size of the AIDS virus.  The AIDS virus is .1 microns.  The
microscopic holes in the latex gloves are 5 microns.  Hospitals can't
buy gloves that really are totally protective because none are made.
Two latex gloves are better than one because the microscopic holes
probably won't mesh.  Kevlar gloves, made from bullet-resistant material,
can give extra protection.  Universal precautions do not prevent needle
sticks.  They do prevent you, in most cases, from getting gross or obvious
blood on your skin and that's important because AIDS has been transmitted
through skin.  If you're told that skin is a barrier to the AIDS virus,
that's double-talk- what I call AIDS-speak- by the government.  The CDC
has reported three nurses who got AIDS from blood on their skin.  People
say, "That's impossible, how could the AIDS virus go through skin?"  Well,
no one has intact skin.  Everyone has pores, hair follicles, sweat glands,
oil glands.  We know many medications are delivered through the skin;
nicotine patches for smoking cessation, dramamine patches for seasickness,
estrogen patches, digoxin patches.  Reports in the medical literature show
that vinyl gloves that are used on the wards are almost worthless, that
they permit the AIDS virus to go through between 40 and 60 percent of the
time.  And if vinyl gloves are worn and you touch any alcohol, such as an
alcohol swab, the virus goes through as much as 90 percent of the time.

  The AIDS virus and the tuberculosis microbacterium can both go through
a surgical mask.  Surgical masks do not fit tightly on your face.  The
AIDS virus, again, is .1 microns and the microscopic holes in a surgical
mask are 5 microns in diameter.  All surgical mask manufacturers admit
that the virus can easily go through a regular surgical mask.

JS: As far as contagion, first we where told that the virus was primarily
restricted to the homosexual population and could be transmitted through
semen, blood and shared needles.  Then we were told that it was common
in the heterosexual population of some African countries and was becoming
more common among heterosexuals in the United States.  The American
public has been told "facts" about AIDS that were then contradicted by
new data- all of them alarming.  Exactly what are the modes of
transmission and who is at risk?

 LD: Everyone is at risk to some degree or another.  Homosexual sex
(anal sex) is one of the most efficient methods of transmission.
The most efficient method is through blood- blood transfusion.  The
government tells us that the blood supply is safe.  The blood supply
is not safe.  It is safer than it was before in 1985 when the AIDS
antibody test was developed, but there is no commercially available
test for the virus itself.  From the time you get infected with AIDS
until you develop the antibody is between six weeks and six months
in about 95 percent of the cases.  Some people will will go as long
as three years before developing antibody.  This is called the
negative window.  If you get tested after you have been infected-
but before you have developed antibody- your blood will test negative
but it will contain the HIV virus and it will transmit AIDS to
whomever receives that blood.  So if you're going to have a surgical
procedure, you should give our own blood ahead of time; that is the
safest blood you can receive.  AIDS is not only transmitted through
blood transfusion, blood products and homosexual or heterosexual sex
or oral sex, it can be transmitted by kissing.  This was reported in
the Journal of the American Medical Association.  A 70-year-old woman
got AIDS from a blood transfusion and she transmitted AIDS to her
husband either through household contact, which they say doesn't happen,
or through kissing.  They had not had sex in many years.  The government
also admits the AIDS virus is in saliva.  Dentists cover up from head to
toe because the government has told them that universal precautions most
be used for saliva in a dental office.  But they say that universal
precautions are not necessary any place else for the saliva of an AIDS
patient!  That means a nurse in the hospital does not have to wear
gloves when she is working with the sputum specimen.  Well, this is
ridiculous!  If saliva is dangerous in the dental office, it's dangerous
every place else.  The CDC has reported that AIDS has been transmitted
to three nurses through blood on intact skin.  One of the nurses only
had blood on her skin for a few minutes before it was thoroughly washed
off.  She still turned positive for the virus.

JS: In regard to the new, AIDS-like illness, according to The New York
Times(July 28, 1992), "For officials of the Centers for Disease Control
and other Federal health agencies, the international AIDS meeting [in
Amsterdam] was an embarrassment because they had overlooked two
fundamental principles of public health...swiftly investigating
mysterious cases of an illness to determine their cause and rapidly
communicating with the public and with scientists to allay alarm about
the perceived threat." Do you believe that the sluggishness with which
the CDC and other agencies have acted is a result of bureaucratic snarls,
professional ineptitude or political machinations designed to keep the
public from panicking and the FDA and pharmaceutical companies rich?

LD: The new AIDS-like illness is another part of the government
cover-up.  This "new disease" is a disease that looks like AIDS, walks
like AIDS and talks like AIDS, but the government has decided *not* to
call it AIDS.  The public hasn't been told about a controversy in the
medical literature over the last five years, since Dr. Peter Duesberg
from the University of California at Berkeley told the government that
he believes that HIV is not the sole cause of AIDS, although it may be
a marker for AIDS or a co-factor.  Dr. Duesberg is a virologist and
member of the National Academy of Sciences (one of the highest honors
that an American scientist can hold), and he recently was joined by a
number of other prestigious scientists who told the government they
should go back to the drawing board and find out what really causes
AIDS.  This is urgent, they said, because if, in fact, HIV is not the
full cause of AIDS, than any vaccine developed for HIV will not work
and millions of dollars will have been put down a black hole.  The
government has known for some time of people with full-blown AIDS who
have never tested HIV positive.  A year ago, at the 1991 international
AIDS Conference, a case like this was presented, but the government
swept it under the rug.  Until Newsweek published an article about the
AIDS-like illness, there were no plans to have a symposium about it at
the International AIDS Conference in Amsterdam.  After the article, a
last-minute symposium took place.  A number of researchers in the
audience announced that they had seen numerous cases of this "new
disease" and, by the end of the symposium, other researchers had
described between 20 and 40 cases of full-blown AIDS in patients who
had never tested HIV-positive.  They said that many of these patients
had none of the risk factors that the CDC claimed were the only ways a
person can get AIDS.  Rather than admit to the public that, indeed,
these were cases of full-blown AIDS and that HIV may not be the cause
or at least the sole cause of AIDS, the CDC chose to call this "new"
disease ICL, for idiopathic CD4 lymphocytopenia.  That is really the
generic name for AIDS!  Idiopathic means "we don't know what causes it."
CD4 is the specific receptor for the AIDS virus (the HIV virus).  And
lymphocytopenia means they have a low "T" cell count and that is generic
AIDS.  But the government says it's not AIDS!

JS: You mentioned Dr. Duesberg.  What happened to him after he suggested
that the HIV virus couldn't possibly cause AIDS?

LD: Dr. Duesberg is a well-known retrovirologist.  His research, under the
auspices of a research grant, said that HIV was not the cause of AIDS, or
certainly not its sole cause.  An erudite article on his work- which was
20-to-30 pages long and had several hundred references- was published in
Cancer Research in about 1987.  He said that saying the HIV virus could
destroy a person's entire immune system would be like saying that you were
going to take over the entire country of Russia by killing three soldiers
a day.  In other words, impossible.  After this conclusion, the government
"rewarded" him by taking away most of his research funding and ridiculing
him publicly.  When the government does this to a doctor or scientist of
Dr. Duesberg's stature, it is my opinion that the public ought to start
listening, because that researcher is probably hitting on something the
government doesn't want you to know.

JS: You've described one instance in which a prominent voice did not
receive deserved recognition.  This sounds like the debate about who
actually discovered HIV to begin with.

LD: The AIDS virus, or at least the HIV virus, was discovered by Dr. Luc
Montagnier from France.  Dr. Robert Gallo in America claimed to have
discovered the virus until the American and French governments decided
to declare that they were co-discoverers.  This had major monetary
implications because a lot of royalties come from the production of
the AIDS antibody test, which would bring a great deal of money to the
researhers and to the two governments.  Scientific journals, among them
Science and Nature, have discussed this problem because of charges that
Dr. Gallo actually stole the virus from Dr. Montagnier.  Apparently,
the truth is that Dr. Gallo asked Dr. Montagnier for some of the virus
and Dr. Montagnier sent it to him.  Some people said that Dr. Gallo
accidentally mixed Dr. Montagnier's virus with the virus that he
(Dr. Gallo) was working with; others say that he purposely expropriated
it and claimed the discovery for himself.  At this date, it is widely
accepted that Dr. Montagnier was the sole discoverer and the French
government is urging our government to reassess its previous agreement.

JS: According to a recent article in Rolling Stone (March 19, 1992),
"medical science itself may have played an unintentional role in
introducing AIDS to the human population."  The magazine cited the
oldest stored blood sample of HIV dating back to 1959 and said that
a tainted polio vaccine given orally to 325,000 people in equatorial
Africa in the late 1950s may have started the epidemic.  One theory,
it said, was that the vaccine (made from cultivating weakened strains
of the polio virus in living primate tissue made from the fresh monkey
kidneys) was contaminated.  In any event, the vaccine was sprayed into
people's mouths.  So another theory is that this was the mode of
transmission.  What is your own theory about the way the AIDS virus
arose?

LD: There are those who say that the polio virus might have been
contaminated with the AIDS virus.  That's not entirely true.  The polio
virus was contaminated with the SV40 virus which is a simian virus, but
it's not the SIV virus (simian immunodeficiency virus).  There has been
some suggestion that the smallpox vaccine that went to Africa in the mid
or late 1970s might have been contaminated with HIV.  There are some who
say the government purposely made this vaccine and tried to wipe out
Africa and the homosexual population with it, but there is not much
evidence to support this theory.  Certainly the government has the
ability to make a virus like this and I have a document from the
Government Printing Office which is entitled "House Bill 15090."  It
contains the minutes of a committee meeting by the Subcommittee on
Defense Appropriations, which took place on July 1, 1969.  At that
meeting, Mr. Sikes, the Congressman from Florida, was interviewing a
witness named Dr. McArthur and he asked it it was possible to make a
microorganism that had never been made before and for which no one
would have any immunity, and Dr. McArthur answered, "Yes, that could be
done."  Mr. Sikes asked, "How long would it take and how much would it
cost?" And Dr. McArthur answered, "It would take five or six years and
it would cost 10 million dollars to produce an organism that would be
resistant to all the immunological processes on which we depend to
maintain our freedom from infectious disease."  At the bottom of this
document it said that they realize that it's "a controversial project
and there are many who believe they should no pursue it, lest it lead
to yet another method of massive killing of large populations."  It is
clear that the government was talking about making a microorganism that
has all of the characteristics of what we now know as the AIDS virus.
But there is no absolute proof that they actually did it.

  In my book I explain how it could have arisen in nature.  The HIV virus
was around for many years before AIDS was first diagnosed.  Pathological
specimens that have been tested since the HIV antibody test was developed
have shown that cases as early as 1959 were found.  It is possible that
this virus, if indeed it is the cause of AIDS, was not a very virulent
virus.  At that time, this virus may have only infected patients with
severely compromised immune systems for radiation therapy or chemotherapy
for cancer.  Then, when the sexual revolution started in the late 1960s
and early 1970s, this virus got into the homosexual population.
Homosexuals are medically a very unhealthy group.  Eighty percent have
the hepatitis B antibody compared to only two percent of the general
population, and the majority of homosexuals have intestinal parasites
and a higher-than-average incidence of syphilis or gonorrhea and many
other diseases that result from promiscuity and anal sex.  It may have
gotten stronger when it infected the homosexual population, because the
weaker particles would die and the stronger particles (the stronger
viruses) would reproduce.  Then, when it got into the blood supply, it
infected health people.  Again, healthy people's immune systems might
have been able to handle and destroy the weaker viruses, but the stronger
ones survived and persisted and reproduced.  And that's the way a virus
can start out, being very weak and non-virulent and then becoming very
strong as it goes through progressively healthier populations.  Now, the
virus is mutating very rapidly, changing its form.  When any virus
changes its form, it increases the potential for possible transmission
in ways that it had not previously been transmitted.

JS: Your theory about AIDS being transmitted through intact mucous
membranes is now, several years after you publicized it, supported by
some prominent scientists.  William Haseltine, Ph.D., the chief of
retrovirus research at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, has
said that the mucous membranes lining the mouth and genito-anal tract
are highly vulnerable to HIV infection- that is not necessary for a
person to have a cut or tear or sore for the virus to gain entry.  Even
deep kissing, he suggested, could transmit the virus.  Doesn't your own
thinking- and Dr. Haseltine's- depart radically from the "conventional
wisdom" being conveyed by doctors to patients all over this country?
Why aren't health professionals leading the way in teaching about the
dangers of AIDS?

LD:  About a year ago, Dr. Haseltine published an article in the Journal
of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome that said the AIDS virus could be
transmitted through intact mucous membranes.  The original work was done
by Dr. Lhasa Braathen, Chief of Dermatology at the University in Berne,
Switzerland, who published this information in 1987 in Lancet and various
other journals.  When I first expressed this theory, it was after I had
spoken directly with Dr. Braathen when we shared a panel at the American
College of Surgeons in 1988 (or 1989).  At that time, I was ridiculed for
suggesting that the AIDS viruscould be transmitted this way.
Interestingly, when Dr. Haseltine wrote his article, he failed to credit
Dr. Braathen in his references.  The CDC also knows that the AIDS virus
can be transmitted by kissing and through mucous membranes and skin, but
they want to keep the public calm, so they tell them that it cannot be
transmitted that way.  However, if you get each member of the CDC
individually into a corner and you pin them to the wall, they will
probably all admit these possibilities.  All they do in public is talk
about the "remote possibility" of transmitting AIDS in these ways.  This
is very irresponsible on the part of the government.  They have decided
that your life and my life are not worth saving!  And health care
professionals are not leading the way for increased safety because they
aren't going to the literature and reading what's really going on.

JS: What are the odds of getting AIDS from an infected professional
like a doctor or dentist?

LD: It's interesting that the American Dental Association has gone
through all sorts of algebraic calculations to suggest that your risk
as a patient of getting AIDS from a dentist is something like one in
a million or one in five million.  However, they are including all the
dentists in the country in this calculation.  Well, patients don't worry
about getting AIDS from a dentist who doesn't have AIDS.  They should
calculate what the chance is of getting AIDS from a dentist who has AIDS.
The best information we have is from the case of Dr. Acer.  They've tested
something like 850 or 900 of his patients and five of them got AIDS from
him.  They are now investigating a sixth who had AIDS and has since died.
That patient's family is suing because they feel there is evidence that he
also got AIDS from Dr. Acer.  Let's assume we have five, possible six, out
of the 900 patients who where tested.  That's a chance of about one in
approximately 200 of getting AIDS from your dentist if your dentist has
AIDS.  That's not low risk; it's certainly not one in a million or one in
five million.

  Surgeons who have AIDS or are HIV-infected are also a menace to
patients.  Surgeons get cut during three to five percent of all surgical
procedures they perform.  The CDC has documented numerous cases of
hepatitis in patients that have been transmitted through surgeons who
were infected with hepatitis; a number of those patients have died from
the hepatitis.  The model for AIDS transmission is hepatitis transmission;
the CDC says they're transmitted in the same way.  Hepatitis is much more
easily transmitted than AIDS, but hepatits is only one percent fatal and
AIDS is 100 percent fatal.  Surgical personnel, dentists, oral surgeons-
all should be restricted from doing invasive procedures on patients if
they ar infected with the HIV virus.

JS: Please discuss why some hospitals stopped testing for hepatitis B and
how the omission caused the entire hemophiliac population of the U.S. to
become infected with the AIDS virus.

LD: Actually, it's not the hospitals that stopped testing for hepatitis B,
it's the blood banks that never did test for it.  This is the story.  The
AIDS antibody test for testing blood in the blood banks was instituted in
about May or June of 1985.  However, in January of 1983, at least two-and-
a-half years before the AIDS antibody test was even available for use,
the CDC and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) went to all the major
national blood banking meetings and told them how they could remove 80
percent of AIDS from the blood supply even before there was an AIDS
antibody test.   They said that virtually all of the cases of AIDS in the
population in January of 1983 were in homosexual men, and 80 percent of
homosexual men were positive for hepatitis B because of anal sex, and
numerous sexual partners.  They said, "You do have a test for hepatitis B,
so if you test the blood supply for hepatitis B and throw away all the
blood that's positive, you will remove 80 percent of AIDS from the blood
supply."  The FDA let the blood banks police themselves and we have
evidence that the blood bankers got together and decided that it would
cost too much money to throw away all this blood because they would have
to recruit new donors.  So they decided not to test the blood.  Then,
when people got AIDS from clotting factor and from blood transfusions
and tried to sue the blood banks, they said, "Oh, no, we were adhering to
commonly accepted Standards of Care.  Nobody was testing for hepatitis B
back in 1983 and 1984, so we can't be sued."

  I've been an expert witness on some of these cases and the courts will
not allow evidence of collusion on the part of the blood banks to be
brought to court, and so the unfortunate people who were being infected
with blood are not being compensated for the fatal illness they got from
blood or blood products.

JS: Is this what the CDC will someday say about aerosol transmission?

LD: I don't know what they'll say, but they are now funding the work I
started on aerosols at the University of California, San Francisco.  After
telling me and the public that this was not a problem, they are finally
interested enough to fund some of this work.  However, they're not being
very candid with the public about their interest in aerosol transmission
or about this funding.

JS: Do you believe that all health professionals who test positive for
HIV should be mandated to tell their patients before rendering services
to them?

LD: Health care professionals who are doing invasive procedures on
patients should not just tell their patients, they should not be allowed
to do invasive procedures unless, that is, each one knows the other's
status, understands the risks and agrees to the relationship.

JS: If a health professional has AIDS, do you believe that he or she
should be allowed to continue work with patients?

LD: Certainly not.  There are other problems with health professionals
who have AIDS or who are HIV-infected, even if they're not doing invasive
procedures.  People with AIDS have all sorts of opportunistic infections,
such as tuberculosis, cryptosporidiosis, shigellosis, herpes, etc. that
they can transmit to patients.  Patients in the hospital are ill.  They
may have decreased immune system function from other infections or other
diseases and the AIDS-infected health professional then becomes a threat
to these patients.  There is also evidence that people who are HIV-infected,
even before they have AIDS, have a much higher rate of staphylococcus
infection.  In a hospital, this can be a terrible menace, especially in
the operating room or for post-operative patients.  Health professionals
should not be any place where they can be a menace to patients.

JS: Among doctors and nurses, there is a debate about mandatory
disclosure.  Recently, the National Commission on AIDS recommended
against mandatory testing of doctors and other healthcare workers for
the AIDS virus and said that those who were infected would not be
required to inform their patients.  The reasoning seemed to be that
such disclosure would be greatly detrimental to the healthcare worker's
career.  What are your feelings on the subject?

DL: I don't think this is a controversial subject at all; it's very
straightforward.  A healthcare worker's career should not supersede a
patient's right to stay alive.  All the reasons for not being tested and
not disclosing are selfish reasons.  The reasons for being tested and
disclosing are unselfish reasons.  If a healthcare worker places his or
her career above a patient's life, this is morally wrong.  It should be
legally wrong.

JS: What kind of resources of money and time have been spent in
developing equipment, clothing, safety procedures and testing to
protect nurses and doctors and patients?

LD: Almost none by the government.   A couple of years ago the CDC turned
down a request for a grant by the Teamsters' Union for a seminar on
protection for healthcare workers in the workplace.  The CDC said that it
wasn't necessary because "except for prostitution, AIDS is not an
occupational disease."  This was the response by the government agency
that is supposed to be protecting healthcare workers!

JS: If you could design legislation, what would it include?  Do you
believe that healthcare workers should have the right to refuse care
to a patient with AIDS if the hospital does not provide a safe
 environment?

LD: If a nurse or other hospital employee is not being given the proper
equipment or clothing that they are required to be given by law-
particularly by the Occupational Safety and Health Association (OSHA)
standards- when caring for an AIDS patient, she should be allowed to
refuse to do so.  In fact, the hospital should be reported to OSHA if
it is not providing the minimum standard for protection for the
employee.  Healthcare workers should not do invasive procedures if
they're HIV positive or if they have AIDS.  It's the obligation of every
person (including healthcare workers) in the United States to know their
own status so they don't infect someone else.  A healthcare worker has
the right to know whether a person is infected with the AIDS virus and
should have the right not to take care of every AIDS patient, as long as
they can send the AIDS patient to a place where they can receive care.
There should be both medical and dental AIDS centers.  In fact, the first
AIDS dental centers have opened in Delaware and in the South Bronx in New
York.  It has been documented in literature that AIDS patients get better
care in such centers and they have a longer life expectancy.

JS: What are the CDC estimates about AIDS incidence in the healthcare
population?

LD: The CDC estimates there are about 50,000 healthcare workers who are
infected with AIDS or the HIV virus.  Many of the nurses who are infected
are mail homosexuals; this is probably a result of lifestyle.  A number
of nurses have been infected on the job from needle sticks and blood on
the skin- the things the government has said are improbable.  On one hand,
they say this disease is very hard to get; on the other hand, they say
cover up from head to toe.  If the government really was interested in
protecting healthcare workers, they would tell them this is a terribly
dangerous disease and it's not that difficult to catch.  But they're
afraid that healthcare workers would take that seriously and leave the
field.  So the government continues to like and talk out of both sides
of its mouth- and healthcare workers continue to get infected.  Another
ploy is when the government blames the healthcare worker for becoming
infected; they say you're clumsy if you get stuck with a needle.  Plenty
of accidents happen in hospitals.  Unfortunately, now when they happen,
it could mean death.

JS: Do you believe that condoms and other barrier modes of birth control
are effective protection against the AIDS virus?  Should nurses and
doctors be teaching barrier methods of birth control to unmarried
teenagers or would you recommend abstinence?

LD: The women of America know clearly that condoms do not prevent them
from getting pregnant.  The pregnancy rate with the use of condoms is 14
percent and women can only get pregnant three or four days a month.  You
can transmit AIDS every day of the month, so you have to take that 14
percent and double, triple, or quadruple it for the transmission of AIDS.
And that is not safe sex!  If you add it up this way, the incidence is
above 50 percent.  The government knows clearly that condoms are not safe.
An article in the Los Angeles Times in 1989 told of the government giving
the University of California at Los Angeles a million dollars to do a
study on the prevention of transmission of AIDS from one gay man to
another by the use of condoms.  One courageous National Institutes of
Health researcher finally stood up and said, "We're withdrawing the
million dollars in funds from UCLA because their pilot studies have shown
that condoms are so unsafe that we would give AIDS to too many gay men
during the study who don't already have it."  A recent study published in
the July/August issue of a medical journal, Sexually Transmitted Diseases,
was conducted by the Food and Drug Administration.  It is entitled "The
Effectiveness of Latex Condoms as a Barrier to HIV Size Particles under
Simulated Use Conditions."  The researchers took a number of different
brands of condoms, put them over an artificial penis and measured how
often the AIDS virus would come through.  They found that the AIDS virus
came through 33 percent of the condoms.  The study said, "under simulated
use conditions,"  However, later in the study, the authors stated, "This
test did not incorporate motion."  That means that if you have sex and
you use a condom and you don't move, the AIDS virus will only come through
33 percent of the condoms.  Rather than concluding that condoms are
worthless for protecting against AIDS, the study concluded that "condoms
substantially reduce but do not eliminate the risk of HIV transmission."
This is deliberately misleading information for the teenagers of America.
This is really genocide.

JS: According to a recent report from the CDC, two laboratory workers
became infected with the monkey form of the AIDS virus- simian
immunodeficiency virus (SIV).  The director of the California Primate
Center said he was surprised because he didn't think it was possible
for humans to become infected with SIV.  What are the implications of
this event?

LD: We were told in the beginning that one way the AIDS epidemic may
have started was when a monkey in Africa, the green monkey, bit a human.
That may have been how human infection started.  But whenever we ask if
we should worry about animals with AIDS, we're told "no."  However, there
are a number of animals that have AIDS viruses, such as sheep, in which
it's called maedi visna.  Recently we've been told that four percent of
American cows are infected with cow AIDS virus and the government says
there is no risk; beef and milk are sold to the public.  Cats have an AIDS
virus called feline leukemia virus.  But again, we're told there is no
concern for humans because they cannot cross species barriers.  Yet,
contradicting themselves, they said that AIDS may have been transmitted
to humans through the green monkey bite.  Why should we believe that the
virus could cross this species barrier, but not any other one?  Now, there
are two laboratory workers who have been infected with the simian
immunodeficiency virus- more evidence that the virus can cross species
barriers.  Clearly, what the government has been telling us about all
these other animal viruses is not true.

JS: Do you believe there should be a mandatory course given during
hospital orientation to new healthcare employees?  If so, what should
this course include?

LD: Yes and it should include the truth.  Unfortunately, most information
that employees receive from their infectious disease experts is
information those experts have learned from the CDC.  Most of this
information minimizes the risks to healthcare workers and, in essence,
places their lives at risk.

JS: When nurses and doctors get stuck with the suture needle, should they
take AZT?

LD: AZT(zidovudine) is the brand name, but most people refer to it as
AZT.  Early on, we were led to believe that if you took AZT within an
hour of the time you got stuck, your chances of sero-converting (i.e.,
turning HIV positive) would be decreased.  There is no evidence that
taking AZT within an hour- or any time after you get stuck with a needle
that's contaminated with AIDS blood- has any effect on whether or not
you'll turn positive.  In fact, AZT is a chemotherapeutic agent, just
like cancer chemotherapeutic drugs, and is very toxic.  If I were stuck
now, I would not take AZT.  There's no evidence it does any good and
there is evidence that it harms the immune system.  There is also no
evidence that it extends the life of an AIDS patient.  Some studies
suggest it may increase the time you are asymptomatic before you get
sick, but even that is unclear.

JS: Is it reasonable to expect a cure for AIDS in the near future?

LD: Everyone wants a "cure" (or vaccine) for this disease.  We've had
cures for syphilis, gonorrhea, and tuberculosis for many years and those
diseases are still being reported at exponentially increasing rates-
cures do not necessarily stop contagious disease epidemics.  Currently,
there is an epidemic of tuberculosis (TB) in this country that the CDC
admits is out of control.  Many HIV-infected patients are also infected
with TB, one variety being multi-drug resistant tuberculosis, which means
it is resistant to all forms of treatment and can be up to 90 percent
fatal.  That is going to be very deadly for healthcare workers who are
already getting TB from AIDS patients.

  Imagine if I told you that it was your job to get this TB epidemic
under control, but you had these restrictions: (1) you could not know
who had TB; (2) you could not test anybody to find out if they had TB;
(3) if you accidentally found out someone did have TB, you couldn't tell
anybody.  You couldn't tell the Public Health authorities and you couldn't
tell anyone who had been exposed to TB by this individual and you couldn't
keep that individual from giving TB to others.  Not only that- you
couldn't investigate all the possible methods of transmission of TB.
If these were your restrictions, you would tell me that I'm crazy, that
you could never get a contagious disease under control if you couldn't
know who had the disease.

  However, this is exactly the plan and the policy of the government in
the "control" of AIDS.  The government says they don't need to know who
has AIDS to get the epidemic under control; you can't test anybody for
AIDS unless they sign a special consent allowing you to test them; there
is no obligation for people to tell their sexual partners or anybody else
that they're infected; they have complete confidentiality; and, in most
cases, HIV infection is not a reportable disease.

  Moreover, the government doesn't start counting AIDS patients until
someone is dying of the disease, which is the last year-and-a-half of
their infection.  They may have been infected for 10 years before they
got sick and transmitted the disease to dozens or hundreds of people
while they were infected.  And they may not even have known they are
infected if they didn't get tested!

JS: Is there any good news in this bleak picture?

LD: The good news is that the government has all the ability to get this
disease of AIDS under control right now and they could do it for one-fifth
of the money they are now spending.  All that is necessary is for the
government to employ the same strategy it has for other contagious
diseases:

     1. Widespread testing

     2. Reporting of HIV infection and AIDS to the Public Health
        authorities

     3. Contact tracing and partner notification to inform people
        who have been exposed to AIDS that they have been exposed
        and they should stop their exposure and get tested

  If people are acting responsibly and are not putting other people at
risk, then they need no restrictions.  But if people are willfully and
knowingly giving this fatal disease to other people, it is no different
than going out on the street with a gun and shooting people- they should
be isolated from society.  Nobody's confidentiality should supersede
another person's right to stay alive.  This is the way measles, mumps,
chicken pox, polio and all other diseases have been handled in the past
and this is the way AIDS should be handled.

  The government must treat AIDS as a medical, not political issue.  We
must pass legislation to protect healthcare workers and the public.  We
must have regulations that are already in place for all other contagious
diseases.  The public must become informed.



     ("AIDS: What the Government Isn't Telling You" is fully
      referenced with the most prestigious medical journals,
      including the New England Journal of Medicine, Lancet,
      The American Journal Of Public Health, The Journal of
      the American Medical Association and many government
      documents.  There are available videos where all
      documents cited in this article appear on a screen for
      easy reading.  There are also special editions of
      newsletters called National Health Alert which are full
      of referenced information on the safety of different
      kinds of gloves, gowns, masks and various other
      information that's important for healthcare workers'
      safety.  All of these are available through a toll-free
      number: 1-800-537-2437.

      For people who would like to unite to get the AIDS
      epidemic under control, Dr. Day has formed a national,
      grass-roots organization, Americans for Common Sense.
      For information, write to Dr. Day or Americans for
      Common Sense, P.O. Box 952, Rancho Mirage, CA 92270. )