88 lines
3.9 KiB
Plaintext
88 lines
3.9 KiB
Plaintext
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The BIRCH BARK BBS / 414-242-5070
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Human Events * May 24, 1996
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For 10 Years, Federal Government Has Lied to the American People
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WHO, REALLY, IS AT RISK OF ACQUIRING AIDS?
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By Maggie Gallagher
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So far, AIDS has killed more than 300,000 Americans. Why, after
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so much time and money, are so many still dying?
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One reason, according to a damning Wall Street Journal report,
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is this: For 10 years, the government has been deliberately lying
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to us about who is at risk of AIDS.
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As early as 1987, Centers for Disease Control officials knew that
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AIDS was likely to remain a disease of gay men and inner-city drug
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users. Yet the same year, the nation's public health officials
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embarked on a deliberate public-relations campaign to mislead the
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American people into thinking that AIDS was spreading inexorably
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into the mainstream.
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SLEAZY CDC CAMPAIGN MISSTATES RISK OF AIDS
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Remember those TV ads featuring the Baptist minister's son, who
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said, "If I can get AIDS, anyone can"? Turns out he was gay.
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Remember the brochures featuring a blond, middle-aged woman with
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AIDS? She was an intravenous drug user.
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Surveys show that, after the PR campaign was in full swing, the
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percentage of Americans who thought it "likely" AIDS would become
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a full scale epidemic leaped from 51% to 69%. By 1991, most agreed
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that married people who had an occasional affair had a substantial
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risk of getting AIDS.
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In reality, the government's own research showed that the risk of
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getting AIDS from one act of heterosexual intercourse was less than
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the chance of getting hit by lightening. This was the conclusion
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that Michael Fumento reached years ago in his book The Myth of
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Heterosexual AIDS, for which he was unjustly and shamefully reviled.
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Even more remarkable, these government officials now publicly defend
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their deceit. "We wanted to reduce the stigma," acknowledges a CDC
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official. "As long as this was seen as a gay disease,...that pushed
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the disease way down the ladder of people's priorities," admitted
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another.
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DELIBERATELY FRIGHTENING AND DECEIVING TAXPAYERS
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What astonishing bureaucratic hubris! The first and most obvious
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victims of the government's lies are the 40,000 or so Americans
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who this year will become HIV-positive, overwhelmingly gay men or
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poor, inner-city drug users and their sexual partners. According
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to one model by epidemiologist James G. Kahn, each dollar spent on
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high-risk populations prevents 50 to 70 times as many new infections
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as the same money spread out among low-risk groups. Yet, of the
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almost $600 million the federal government spends on AIDS prevention,
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probably less than 10% is spent on high-risk groups.
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If Kahn's model is correct, redirecting the $540 million now wasted
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on spreading the myth of heterosexual AIDS to high-risk groups - mostly
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gays and inner-city drug users - could wipe out new infections entirely.
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The CDC knows the truth. Yet this year, its education program, "Respect
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Yourself, Protect Yourself" is once again aimed at the general population.
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Indeed, according to the Wall Street Journal, "A current focus of the
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campaign is to discourage premarital sex among heterosexuals."
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The ultimate casualty of the CDCs lies will be Americans' faith in public-
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health officials, heretofore generally exempt from our growing distrust
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in government.
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Yet public health officials, afraid they couldn't honestly generate
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support, deliberately frightened and deceived American taxpayers to get
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them to cough up the dough. In private life, this would be known as
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fraud - not only a serious sin, but a crime. In Washington, D.C., judging
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from the ease and even pride with which public health officials now confess
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their wrongdoing, it's business as usual.
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[end]
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Source: Human Events, p.17
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May 24, 1996
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