Jakob Segal's contention that human blood can falsely test positive for AIDS may, in further investigation of this subject, have a bearing on those participants in the Hepatitis B study who tested positive for AIDS. It would have to be determined when the participants' blood was drawn and when it was tested, according to Strecker.
A virologist reviewing Strecker and Cantwell's contentions poses the question: "Do these hepatitis trial participants have a statistically significant higher rate of AIDS infection in death than their non-trial homologues (counterparts)?"
"This is the ultimate question," according to Strecker. "How come it hasn't been looked at?
But he continues, "We think it has. Morbidity and Mortally Weekly Review has stated that six of the first 10 AIDS cases in San Francisco came from the Hepatitis B study."
Strecker and Cantwell are quick to recognize that most people cannot easily accept the idea that the government would play "cat and mouse" with their lives. Both doctors point to the experiments conducted on unwitting victims by the Public Health Service in Tuskegee, Alabama during the 40 years from 1932 to 1972.
"In the experiment," Cantwell wrote in his book, AIDS and the Doctors of Death, "about 400 black syphilitic sharecroppers were examined yearly by the Public Health Service doctors in Tuskegee. The purpose of the study was to record the destructive effects of untreated syphilis, and to follow closely the medical progress of the group until each man died.
"The black men were never told they had syphilis, nor were they told their disease could endanger their families . . . Even when a penicillin treatment cure for syphilis became available in the 1940s, the men in the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment were not allowed to receive the antibiotic.
"Unbelievably, the diabolic Tuskegee experiment was sanctioned by the American scientific community for five decades.
Cantwell writes. "Even the black doctors at Andrew Hospital kept quiet about what was going on right under their noses. Nobody: wanted to cause trouble.
"When the government finally ended the experiment after 40 years, it was discovered that fifty surviving wives and twenty surviving children were infected with syphilis."
The Tuskegee experiment is covered in detail in the book Bad Blood by author James Jones (ISBN # s 0-02-916670-5 and 0-029i6690-X ppbk).
The mentality behind the Tuskegee experiment may be especially important in light of the fact the experiment was supervised by the Centers for Disease Control, "the same government agency that now oversees the AIDS epidemic," Cantwell stated.
THE WALL OF SILENCE
"In every genocide program, who talks? "No one," Cantwell told this writer.
No German doctors spoke out against Hitler's "final solution," Cantwell said, and no doctors protested the Tuskegee experiments.
"I just refuse as a professional person to be a part of this madness," Cantwell stated. "I just think it's terrible that doctors are silent on this issue.
Cantwell's book is self-published, and he said it's next to impossible to get any publication to review it or any doctor to research his findings.
Strecker said he produced his 97-minute videotape in an effort to get his message out to as many people as possible, as rapidly as possible. However, according to jack Carpenter, marketing agent for Strecker and Cantwell, they are generally refused advertising space to market the products. Earlier in 1990 Strecker produced a 30 second radio spot which mentioned alternative AIDS therapies, but said nothing of the possible biowarfare connection.
"It's been refused by everyone," Strecker said. "No one will run it. It just shows you that there's clear-cut suppression of our information. They don't want our viewpoint being out there at all."
The "they" Strecker referred to may be the "official" government sources of AIDS information: the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Doctors or scientists are not willing to challenge the inconsistencies in this country's AIDS policy, Strecker said, because they know the CDC or NIH will withdraw their research grants if they don't tow the "party line.
As a result, "it's been an uphill battle getting Strecker's story out to the public," said Carpenter.
"We just can't do it. We've approached everyone. I give a lot of credit to Tony Brown." Carpenter said, citing four installments of "Tony Brown's Journal" that ran on PBS a few years ago.
Carpenter said he has discussed the matter privately with journalists who are interested in the story, but their editors invariably prevent the story from seeing print.
"The biggest job in the editorial game is omission," according to Prouty. "Reporters will write the truth; their editors won't print it."
In an interview ironically conducted inside the National Press Club in downtown Washington DC, Prouty told this writer, "It's the machine that won't take the truth - and the machine hires the editors. If you could sit in this building for two months and listen to the distinctions (between what COULD BE printed and what IS printed), you'd be astounded."
Prouty would not have to convince Carpenter.
"It's just been a real impossibility to get this into any kind of a mainstream publication," Carpenter said. "It's been a nightmare basically. But that just makes me push harder. We keep hoping that we're all proven wrong, but until then we aren't going to give up on this thing."
"We don't ask people to believe anything," Strecker said, "just take some time and look."
The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) was originally designed to enable ordinary citizens to look into the actions of government agencies. But in practice, according to Prouty, government agencies have a tendency to stall FOIA requests.
"You just cannot tell what a bureaucracy will do." Prouty said. "If I'm working for the organization, they put it (the requested information) on my desk in minutes. But if I m on an FOIA request, it might take forever."
The U.S. Army may have proven Prouty's point.
An April 2, 1990 FOIA request to Army headquarters in the Pentagon regarding biowarfare experimentation at Fort Detrick was followed 25 days later with a letter stating that the request had been forwarded to the U.S. Army Medical Research and Development Command at Fort Detrick. In response to a letter seeking the status of the original FOIA request, a letter dated May 31 from Fort Detrick said, "the former letter was incorrectly referred to this Headquarters for action" and added that the request had gone back to the Pentagon.
Cont ...