textfiles/sex/getaids.txt

                     CAN AIDS THREATEN YOU?

                               by

                         PHOEBE COURTNEY

  # What is it?

  # How Infectious is it?

  # Are Blood Transfusions Safe?

  # How Soon Will it Affect a Million Americans?


   AIDS (Acquired Immunodeficency Syndrome), the always fatal
disease that was first reported in 1981, has grown from a
handful of cases to an epidemic of catastrophic proportions. The
astronomical growth of AIDS infection in the U.S. portends a
destruction of human life exceeding casualties that would be
suffered in a major war. Yet relatively few Americans really
understand the disease, how it is transmitted, and the risks it
poses to public health.
   Fewer still understand what can be done to stop this modern
plague and why prudent public health measures have not been
taken.
   In his book The AIDS Cover-up?, Gene Antonio charges:

   "Unfortunately for society, there has ben a constant campaign
about the AIDS virus on the part of many public health officials
and the media. Key facts regarding the nature of AIDS, its
related conditions and its means of transmission have been
glossed over and obscured."

   At first, AIDS was thought to be largely confined to male
homosexuals and intravenous drug users. But cases of AIDS began
appearing among hemophiliacs and blood transfusion recipients.
Now it is widely reported that heterosexuals are at risk for
AIDS. Thus AIDS is not a disease of homosexuals alone;
it threatens millions of sexually active Americans regardless of
age, gender or race. AIDS is transmissible from man to woman and
from woman to man in wholly conventional sex.
   According to the AP on January 1, 1987, the federal Centers
for Disease Control estimate that 1 million to 1.5 million
Americans have been infected with the AIDS virus, and of that
total, 20 percent to 30 percent will develop AIDS by the end of
1991.
   Earlier, on December 12, 1986, the federal Centers for
Disease Control stated:

   "By 1991, heterosexual cases could make up nearly 10 percent
of AIDS cases. The AIDS case count in the United States stands
at 28,098, twice the number reported 13 months ago. Although
heterosexual cases are growing the fastest, nine out of 10
cases continue to occur in homosexual men and those who inject
drugs."

            "GAY" INFLUENCE ON PUBLIC HEALTH POLICIES

   Quarantines to prevent the spread if infectious diseases are
not uncommon. They have been applied with common sense for
years. But now because of the political power of the highly
organized homosexual lobby in population centers such as New
York and San Francisco, some politicians have been hesitant
about taking firm measures to protect against the spread of the
death-dealing disease of AIDS, about which medical science
still knows too little.

   In her syndicated column, Phyllis Schlafly puts it this way:

   "The media report daily on the subject of AIDS, but most
reports are couched in semantics designed to shield the
sensitivities of the homosexuals and to assert the 'civil
rights' of people with AIDS over the rights of those who don't
want to get AIDS.
   "The media may be partial to homosexuals and some politicians
may be intimidated by them, but the grass roots are demanding
action to protect the public health."

   In the August 1985 ISIS Newsletter (Institute for the
Scientific Investigation of Sexuality), Dr. Paul Cameron
declared:

   "I believe that the department of Health and Human Services,
the Public Health Service and the Centers for Disease Control
have been compromised by 'gay' activists and have bent their
minds backwards so as not to 'offend' homosexuals."

   Kirk Kidwell in the September 29, 1986, issue of the New
American magazine pointed out:

   "The major media, with its pro-homosexual bias, is not a
reliable source of information. Government officials have been
heavily lobbied by 'gay' activists. Even the medical
establishment has, by and large, been co-opted by the homosexual
movement.
   "In fact, opinion-makers in the media, government, and
medicine look to the homosexual community as their best source
of information about AIDS."

   No other disease in history with the potential of destroying
millions of lives has been handled the way government health
authorities are treating AIDS.
   A case in point is an authoritative article entitled "AIDS
Warning - The Surgeon General's Report May Be Hazardous To Your
Health" which appeared in the January 19, 1987, issue of The New
American magazine*. On October 22, 1986, U.S. Surgeon General C.
Everett Koop issued the Koop Report. It received quick praise
from the American Academy of Family Physicians, the American
Medical Association, and the Institute of Medicine of the
National Academy of Sciences.
   More importantly, the Koop Report won sustained applause from
the homosexual community. The national "gay" publication, The
Advocate, for November 25, 1986, declared that the Report was
"particularly gratifying." Jeff Levi, executive director of the
National Gay Task Force said: "I thought it was very good."
   In his Report Dr. Koop deftly avoids the immorality of
homosexuality. Instead, he consistently treats homesexuality as
a respectable "alternative" lifestyle and speaks of "homosexual
couples" and the need for children to be taught how to engage in
"safe" homosexual practices.

   In this connection The New American article states:

      "It is an outrage that the Surgeon General's major
recommendation for containing the AIDS epidemic is to turn our
elementary school children over to the value-free sex
educationists for further indoctrination on how to engage in
'safe' homosexual relations."

   When Dr. Koop suggests that sex with the AIDS-infected is
"safe" if condoms are used, he may be guilty of misleading
people to engage in dangerous, perhaps lethal behavior. Whether
or not the U.S. Surgeon General's advice constitutes criminal
negligence is an intriguing legal question.

   The Koop Report urges the public to contact homosexual and
pro-homosexual organizations for additional information on AIDS,
including: the National Gay Task Force, National Coalition of
Gay Sexually Transmitted Disease Services, National Council of
Churches AIDS Task Force, and the Gay Men's Health Crisis.
   Thus the Koop Report places the government's stamp of
approval upon a lifestyle whose values and behavior are inimical
to the best interests of heterosexual society and sends an
erroneous message to both homosexuals and heterosexuals. It
tells the homosexual that his sexual behavior is acceptable with
some minor refinements, and it tells the heterosexual that there
is nothing inappropriate with "safe" homosexual behavior. Both
messages are wrong.
   The director of United Families of American, Robert L.
Bartleson, may have put his finger on the problem when he noted
that "more than half of Dr. Koop's experts are 'gay rights'
advocates." Dr. Koop has made the strategic error of placing
homosexual "civil rights" above the need for a sound policy to
contain AIDS and protect the public.
   Certainly Dr. Koop's' suggestions for coping with the AIDS
crisis indicate the something is seriously wrong at the U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services.


                          WHAT IS AIDS?

   In view of the foregoing, what are the true facts regarding
the approaching AIDS catastrophe?
   Gene Antonio's new book The AIDS Cover-up?* is a
comprehensive analysis of the AIDS threat. He spent the past
several years researching the subject. The 376 footnotes in his
book are mostly from medical journals.
   Following are a few of the facts contained in Gene Antonio's
book:
   As the name implies, the Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome
(AIDS) is best known for producing an inability of the body's
immune system to ward off infections.
   The agent which causes AIDS is a retrovirus designated HTLV-
III/LAV (human T-cell lymphotropic retrovirus/lyphadenopathy-
associated virus). The AIDS virus reproduces with rapidity.
   After infection occurs, the AIDS virus travels throughout
various parts of the body. The AIDS virus has been isolated from
plasma, serum, saliva, tears, semen, urine, cerebrospinal fluid
and brain tissue.
   When the AIDS virus invades white blood cells, their ability
to defend against infection is seriously impaired. The helper T-
cells lose their normal role and become AIDS virus factories. In
the process, the T-cells are gradually destroyed, and as they
disappear the main initiator of the immune response is lost.
This effectively devastates the immune system.
   After entering the body, the time it takes for the AIDS virus
to produce deadly effects varies among individuals.
   The first stage is an asymptomatic carrier stage. The
individual is infected with the virus but shows no detectable
signs or symptoms. The AIDS virus infiltrates the eyes, brain,
lungs, liver, spleen, kidneys and other organs of infected
person, including those who appear symptomless. However, persons
carrying the AIDS virus, including those who have not yet
developed visible symptoms, are able to infect others.
   The second stage of AIDS virus infection occurs when an
infected individual begins to manifest symptoms which can
include sudden unexplained weight loss, drenching night sweats,
persistent diarrhea, swelling of the lymph nodes in the armpits
and groin, chronic fatigue and/or psychogenic disturbances. This
has been called the AIDS-Related Complex (ARC) or the pre-AIDS
syndrome. Persons developing ARC are critically infected with
the AIDS virus.
   The third stage is full-blown AIDS. More than half of those
initially diagnosed with full-blown AIDS will be dead within
eighteen months; more than 70 percent will be dead within two
years. Virtually no one who has developed the syndrome was alive
five years later.
   The AIDS virus belongs to the family of lentiviruses. These
lentiviruses (the name is derived from the Latin lentus-"slow")
are called slow viruses because they frequently have a lengthy
incubation period before symptoms develop. The average time from
initial infection to development of symptoms can vary from
several weeks to five years and more. Because the adverse
effects of AIDS infection can take years to become manifest, it
enables the epidemic to spread very rapidly.
   At the end of 1986, over 25,000 Americans have developed
full-blown AIDS. Only persons with full-blown AIDS are reported
by the federal Centers for Disease Control. However, the number
of persons with pre-AIDS or AIDS-Related Complex (ARC), is
estimated by some researchers to be ten times the number of
full-blown AIDS cases or more than 250,000 cases. And, it should
be emphasized that persons in this intermediate stage of AIDS
infections are also capable of transmitting the AIDS virus to
others.

                     HOW INFECTIOUS IS AIDS?

   According to Dr. William A. Haseltine, a leading AIDS
researcher at the Harvard Medical School in Boston.

   "Once infected, a person remains infected for the rest of his
life. Once infected a person is infectious. It is not safe to
assume otherwise."

   In graphic personal terms, this means that, once a person
becomes infected with the AIDS virus, he or she can never engage
in intimate sexual activity without endangering the life of
another person.
   In the 1985 guidelines for preventing health-care workers
from becoming infected by patients with AIDS, the federal
Centers for Disease Control warn repeatedly that such workers
should avoid contact, not only with the blood of AIDS patients,
but with "other body fluids" as well. The guidelines state:

   "Because of the theoretical risk of salivary
transmission...during mouth to mouth resuscitation, special
attention should be given to the use of disposable airway
equipment or resuscitation bags and the wearing of gloves when
in contact with blood or other body fluids."

   Dr. Richard Restak, a prominent Washington neurologist, who
has been studying AIDS as a brain-related disease, asserts that
AIDS victims "should not work as dental or medical technicians,
and should not be employed as food handlers."
   In the previously mentioned Koop Report, Surgeon General C.
Everett Koop claims: "Although the AIDS virus has been found in
tears and saliva, no instance of transmission from these body
fluids has been reported."
   On the contrary, Dr. Jerome Groopman of Harvard University
and Dr. Robert Gallo of the National Cancer Institute (and the
co-discoverer of the original AIDS virus) reported in a leading
British medical journal, The Lancet of December 22/29, 1984,
that saliva was the mode of transmission from a man with
transfusion-acquired AIDS to his wife. Their relationship was,
according to Groopman, "limited to kissing."
   The Koop Report also claims: "There is no danger of AIDS
virus infection from visiting a doctor, dentist..."
   The truth is that there is danger of contracting AIDS from
any health worker using invasive procedures. The Centers for
Disease Control on November 15, 1985 and April 11, 1986, issued
recommendations for preventing transmission of AIDS between
dentists and patients. These recommendations including, the
wearing of masks and gloves, have been adopted by the nation's
dentists.
   Dr, William Haseltine stated in the New York Times of March
18, 1986, "Anyone who tells you categorically that AIDS is not
contracted by saliva is not telling you the truth. AIDS may, in
fact, be transmissible by tears, saliva, body fluids and
mosquito bites."
   The public has been repeatedly told that the AIDS agent is an
extremely frail virus, incapable of living outside the body for
any extended period of time.

   The findings in 1985 of French researchers -- specialists
from the Pasteur Institute's elite Viral Oncology Unit went
unmentioned by major public health officials and were virtually
blacked out by the media. However, the Journal of the American
Medical Association of November 22/29, 1985, commented in the
Medical News section:

   "A recent report from the Pasteur Institute in Paris by the
investigators who originally isolated the lymphadenopathy virus
suggests that the AIDS virus might be pretty tough. The French
study finds that virus survives ten days at room temperature
even when dried out in a petri dish."

   The French researchers give specific safety precautions for
medical and dental personnel which clearly intimate that oral
transmission of AIDS through saliva is a danger to be reckoned
with.
   This brings up some alarming questions. What about when an
AIDS virus carrier coughs or sneezes infected secretions into,
for example, a punch bowl or salad bar? What about when a cook
or waiter contaminates food with infected saliva or other body
fluids -- i.e., coughs, or sheds infected tears while slicing
onions or sustains a cut and contaminates the food with blood?
   The Koop Report claims: "There are no known cases of AIDS
transmission by insects, such as mosquitoes."
   The New American of January 19, 1987, refutes this statement
by saying:

   "This is a misleading statement. Dr. Koop should be aware
that a leading French scientist found that many insects in
Central Africa are infected with the AIDS virus, including
mosquitoes, cockroaches, ticks, and tsetse flies."

   Harvard Medical School's Dr. Haseltine points out that "AIDS
may, in fact, be transmissible by...mosquito bites." In Florida,
Dr. Mark E. Whiteside, co-director of the Institute of Tropical
Medicine in Miami, believes that environmental factors,
including "blood-sucking insects" play a role in spreading AIDS.
Dr. Whiteside wrote in Genetic Engineering News, November-
December 1986: "Blood-sucking insects [mosquitoes and bedbugs]
are a logical means of transfer of blood-borne agents,
especially in the tropics."

              HOW DANGEROUS ARE BLOOD TRANSFUSIONS?

   An estimated 3 million Americans receive blood transfusions
each year.
   ABC TV's 20/20 program on December 4, 1986, informed the
public that the nations blood supply is tainted with AIDS. Since
1979 over 26 million blood transfusions have been administered
and it is now thought that a substantial number of those
transfusions were contaminated. An AIDS screening system was not
developed until March 1985, and it is unable to detect strains
of the rapidly mutilating AIDS virus.
   Gene Jeffers of the American Red Cross in Washington stated
on June 8, 1985, that how many people will develop AIDS from
blood they received before the mass screening started is not
known because the incubation period of the virus may be as long
as five years.
   The New England Journal Of Medicine has reported that the
AIDS virus may persist without causing symptoms in an infected
person for more than four years and still be transmissible
through blood transfusion.
   In his aforementioned book, Gene Antonio states that it is
estimated that virtually all hemophiliacs in the United States
and elsewhere who have received clotting-factor concentrates
derived from blood collected in the U.S. prior to 1985 have
become infected with the AIDS virus. Nine thousand hemophiliacs
plus an additional 20,000 other blood transfusion recipients are
now permanently infected with the AIDS virus. Many, if not most,
will die of full blown AIDS or subsequent brain disease.  There
is now a dramatic upswing in transfusion-related cases of full-
blown AIDS. This will increase as the virus incubates.

   Hemophiliacs and other victims of HTLV-III tainted blood have
been used by the media to support the contention that AIDS is
not particularly related to homosexuality. However, hard
evidence revels that the vast majority of hemophiliacs and other
blood recipients have fallen prey to liver disease and AIDS
infection as a direct consequence of blood donated by
homosexuals.
   The AIDS blood-screening test now in operation has a major
flaw: it still permits a significant number of persons who are
asymptomatically carrying the virus to slip through.

   In her syndicated column of September 3, 1986, Phyllis
Schlafly asks:

   "Why are we continually told that the AIDS-antibody test will
screen out all AIDS-infected blood when the fact is that there
can be a six-month lag between the time a person becomes
infected with AIDS and the time that person shows 'positive' on
the AIDS-antibody test?"

   And Gene Antonio puts it this way:

   "Since some persons infected with AIDS are able to pass the
test undetected, the blood supply still cannot be described as
safe."

   Apparently the American Medical Association is becoming
alarmed because on November 6, 1986, the AMA recommended that
people anticipating elective heart, chest or orthopedic surgery
have their own blood collected in a six week period before the
operation. The method, called autologous blood transfusion,
eliminates the risk of contracting AIDS or other communicable
diseases associated with receiving someone else's blood, said
Dr. Ira Freidlander, a member of the AMA's Council on Scientific
Affairs.

                     IS A VACCINE POSSIBLE?

   Why are we given extravagant news coverage of speculation
about a cure for AIDS, when in truth there is no prospect for a
cure in the foreseeable future because AIDS is a "lentivirus," a
deadly and little understood family of viruses that has been
completely resistant to treatment or vaccine?

   According to Gene Antonio, "The AIDS virus mutates very
rapidly. New variant strains of the virus make vaccine
development prospects bleak and could result in changes of modes
of transmission."
   The November 24, 1986, issue of Newsweek quotes Mark Feinberg
of Stanford University as saying that AIDS is basically unlike
any disease that is prevented by vaccination for it attacks the
very antibody-producing machinery that a vaccine is supposed to
stimulate.
   The body's natural defenses are incapable of combating the
AIDS virus. With other diseases, the immune system produces
antibodies which attack and kill invading organisms. Vaccines
are utilized to raise antibody levels in the blood stream high
enough to kill invading pathogens. In the case of infection with
the AIDS virus, the antibodies which develop have little or no
capacity to neutralize the effects of the virus. Researchers
dare not inject even a minute amount of AIDS virus into humans
as a means of raising antibodies to ward off the disease.
   On October 29, 1986, a National Academy of Sciences panel,
stating the AIDS epidemic could result in one of the worst
catastrophes of the 20th century, indicated a vaccine to prevent
the disease "is at least five years away," and despite some
recent encouraging test results, drugs that conquer the disease
"may also be years away."
   On January 19, 1987, even U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett
Koop, who has tried to gloss over the AIDS threat as documented
in this pamphlet, admitted:

   "Make no mistake about it, AIDS is spreading among more
people and it is uniformly fatal. No cure or vaccine is in sight
in the foreseeable future."

                 CIVIL RIGHTS OR PUBLIC HEALTH?

   In the past, once the source of an epidemic was identified,
the information led public-health authorities to map out a
counter-strategy. But these are not normal times. Homosexual
activists are well-organized and well financed. possessing links
to both major political parties. They have strong media
influence (Gay Media Task Force) and strong medical ties.

   "The spirit of the age," says syndicated columnist Jeffery
Hart, "regards disapproval of homosexuality as simply bigotry,
and the Liberal mentality is zealous in its efforts to protect
homosexuals from any disagreeable consequences of their
practices whether social, economic, or medical consequences."

   The Richmond (Va.) News leader had this comment:

   "Meanwhile helpless citizens are falling victim to AIDS-
carriers who contracted the disease through anti-social
lifestyles. Yet any mention of restraining the carriers
activities or of isolating them, draws fevered objections from
the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and homosexual groups
such as the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Foundation."

   In spite of the AIDS epidemic, militant homosexuals are
pushing ahead with demands for "gay rights" legislation.
   They want protected status in employment and housing; the
right to teach in public schools and to advocate homosexuality
through sex-education classes.
   "Gay rights" legislation is now pending in cities and States
throughout the country as well as in Congress.
   In 1985, House resolution #230, which came to be known as the
"Gay Bill of Rights" was introduced in Congress, but was tabled
because of the growing AIDS epidemic. Now it is being introduced
in this 100th Congress where it has some chance of passing
because of Liberal gains in the House and Senate in the 1986
congressional elections. Among other things this bill would make
it a CRIMINAL OFFENSE" for churches, schools, businesses and
local, State and federal agencies to refuse to hire homosexuals
for ANY reason.

   In an article in the September 6, 1986, issue of Human Events
entitled "AIDS: A Record of Shocking Negligence -- Official
'Reassurances' Mistaken," M. Stanton Evans concludes by stating:

   "Gay rights groups and those who seek their support have been
treating AIDS as a political 'civil rights' issue, rather than a
public-health issue. If any other disease were involved, the
standards would be much more rigorous. The identical standards
should be applied to AIDS.
   "Spreading a contagion with a 100 percent mortality rate is
not a civil right."

   And the Richmond (Va.) News Leader agrees:

   "AIDS no longer is a civil-rights issue affecting primarily
homosexuals. It is now a public-health issue focused on an
incurable disease. Regarding AIDS, concerns for the public
health become paramount."

                        WHAT MUST BE DONE

   Our public-health authorities must be made to realize that
their first responsibility is to protect the public's health,
not the perceived "civil rights" of homosexuals or drug users.

   # As a first practical step to stemming the most blatant
     sources of AIDS contagion, the high risk homosexual
     bathhouses and "clubs" must be closed permanently by
     federal edict.

   # There must be federal bans on all high-risk group members
     from donating blood, contributing semen to sperm banks, and
     donating organs. The present AIDS blood-screening test
     still permits a certain percentage of those infected with
     AIDS to slip through the safety net and endanger people's
     lives. All prospective donors must be required to sign a
     statement under oath that they are not members of a high-
     risk group. Mandatory federal penalties should be imposed
     on violators.

   # There should be federal registration of all persons
     diagnosed with full blown AIDS, pre-AIDS (ARC) and those
     testing positive with the AIDS blood-screening test.

   # Federal penalties should be imposed on physicians failing
     to report persons diagnosed with full-blown AIDS,
     intermediate AIDS or the a symptomatically infected.

   # Public and private employers should be permitted to utilize
     AIDS risk-factor questionnaires and AIDS- blood-screening
     tests in hiring.

   # The U.S. Surgeon General should insist that anyone with
     AIDS should not work as a health-care provider or as a food
     handler.

   Dr. Richard Restak has noted:

   "Quarantines have been very effective in beating outbreaks of
scarlet fever, small pox and typhoid in this century."

   And Dr. James Curran of Harvard has stated:

   "This is a plague and menace, and I see nothing wrong with
quarantine on a constitutional level."

   In conclusion, Dr. James I. Slaff of the national Institutes
of Health warns:

   "The AIDS virus shows every sign of being just as deadly as
the plague during the Middle Ages. We are on a crash course with
reality. This is not a practice run. There is no second chance.
AIDS may be to the twentieth century what the Black Plague was
to the fourteenth century.
   "The alarm must be sounded, loudly and persuasively. If it is
not, the conclusion is inescapable: millions may die."

****************************************************************
This is a transcript of "Tax Fax # 217, from the Independent
American, P.O. Box 636, Littleton Colorado, 80160.