John Lauritsen
Vienna, 17 July 2010
Photo by Joan Shenton
The “AIDS” Hoax and Gay Men
by John Lauritsen
Good afternoon. Today I'm going to talk about gay men, schwule Männer — men who have sex with other men. Gay men are victims of a hoax, in which a non-existent disease is claimed to be caused by a virus — a virus which either doesn't exist or is harmless. On the basis of this AIDS hoax, hundreds of thousands of gay men, in the United States alone, have been killed by pharmaceutical poisons — poisons that were put on the market through fraudulent research. Some day this will be known as the Gay Holocaust.
From the very beginning gay men were identified with “AIDS” — even before “AIDS” had a name. Gay men were linked to the “epidemic” through labeling. There were such terms as “gay cancer” or “Gay-Related Immune Deficiency” or “gay health crisis”. Gay men were targeted for testing and drugging, just as earlier they had been targeted for the marketing of “poppers” (nitrite inhalants) and other deadly “recreational” drugs.
In time “AIDS” would claim other victims: Haitians, hemophiliacs, intravenous drug users, and Africans — but “AIDS” never released its hold on gay men. At this very moment perfectly healthy gay men are being duped into taking bogus “HIV-antibody” tests. Those who test “positive” will be prescribed drug “cocktails”, which will make them sick and eventually kill them.
It all began in 1981, when five young men, all “active homosexuals”, were diagnosed as having Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia (PCP). PCP was then falsely believed to be a rare disease caused by a protozoan. Shortly after this a couple of dozen men, also “active homosexuals”, were diagnosed as having Kaposi's sarcoma (KS), which was then falsely believed to be a rare form of cancer. With homosexual behavior as the only common factor, public health officials falsely assumed that there must be a connection between these two radically different illnesses, and they did their best to find one or invent one. One term bandied about was “Gay Related Immune Deficiency”, or GRID, G R I D.
After gay leaders objected to GRID, it was changed to “Auto-Immune Deficiency Syndrome” (A I D S); it was hypothesized that the body might somehow be destroying its own immune system. When public health officials realized that the “auto-immune” hypothesis was no good, but the acronym had caught on, they changed it to “Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome”, A I D S, even though nobody was sure what was meant by “acquired”.
All of these early assumptions were wrong. The PCP organism is now considered a fungus, rather than a protozoan, and it is ubiquitous — present in the lungs of every human being in the world. Normally it co-exists peacefully with human hosts, causing illness only in the very sick. So how could PCP be rare? If someone in the past stopped breathing — an old man at the end of his life or a heroin addict starving in a cold room — the diagnosis would simply be “pneumonia”, without reference to a micro-organism that had yet to be identified.
Under the false assumption that Kaposi's sarcoma was a cancer, most of the gay men with KS received cancer chemotherapy, which quickly killed them. It is now known, and has been publicly admitted by top public health officials, that KS is not a cancer. KS is not caused by HIV, and is not related to any kind of “immune deficiency”. [Note 1] At present the only tenable hypothesis for the occurrence of KS in gay men is the use of “poppers” or nitrite inhalants, the premier gay recreational drug. Entirely aside from “AIDS”, poppers are extremely hazardous to the health. Yet the CDC in the early 1980s falsely assured gay men that poppers had no effect on the immune system; in effect, the CDC said it was all right to use poppers. I'll add that poppers are sold openly in Vienna. Last night I was in a gay bar, where a little sign said: "Poppers: 12 Euros".
Well before 1986, when the alleged “AIDS virus” acquired its official name — the Human Immuno-deficiency Virus, or H I V — three things were clear. One: “AIDS” was not a coherent disease entity, and the surveillance definition made no sense. “AIDS” itself does not exist except as a construct. Two: Whatever “AIDS” might be, it was not infectious, since it remained rigidly compartmentalized — confined month after month, year after year, to two main risk groups: gay men and intravenous drug users. Three: There were good reasons why the early “AIDS” patients were sick in the ways that they were.
Science prefers the simplest explanation that accounts for the data. The principle was formulated by the 14th-century philosopher, William of Occam, whose Razor states: “What can be done with fewer assumptions is done in vain with more.” Let's apply Occam's Razor to heroin addicts, who have been studied for well over a century. It is common knowledge that heroin addicts get pneumonia, or lung disease. We would expect this, since heroin depresses lung functioning and wrecks the health in general. Using Occam's Razor, we can say that heroin is causing heroin addicts to develop pneumonia, just as it did a hundred years ago. There is no need to look for a new infectious agent. So simple! — except to public health officials. In New York City heroin addicts with pneumonia are given “HIV-antibody” tests: if the addicts test positive, they have “AIDS” — but if they test negative, they are just the usual heroin addicts with lung disease. Either way, the clinical profiles are the same.
In the case of gay men, there were also obvious reasons why the early “AIDS” cases were sick: poppers and other “recreational” drugs, venereal diseases, antibiotics, and powerful psychological factors.
At this point I want to make a crucial distinction: between the early “AIDS” cases and the later ones. In the first few years those with “AIDS” diagnoses were close to death; they didn't live long. However, in the last couple of decades gay men with an “AIDS” or “HIV-positive” diagnosis may not even be sick — at least not sick until they get their diagnosis and start taking “anti-HIV” drugs. Their initial diagnoses may depend entirely on worthless “T-cell” or “HIV-antibody” tests.
It soon became clear that public health officials and “AIDS experts” were not only incompetent, but also dishonest. They made blunders, but they also lied. My first major “AIDS” article, published in February 1985, showed that the CDC issued statistics which deliberately covered up the connection between drugs and “AIDS”, and which falsely represented “AIDS” as an infectious, venereal disease. [Note 2] The question, then as now, is whether the “AIDS experts” really believe what they say. If they really do believe what they say, then they are extremely stupid.
The CDC's statistics indicate that in the United States alone well over a third of a million gay men have died from “AIDS”. These men were not killed by a virus, but by drugs — poisons which were put on the market through fraudulent research and promoted through false advertising. Most of these gay men would be alive today if they had avoided the drugs and taken appropriate health measures.
The Gay Holocaust rests upon two pillars: Superstition and Profit. It must be seen in context: the historical persecution of gay men. It is a fact of life that human males are attracted to each other, erotically and otherwise. Sex between males was practised enthusiastically in classical antiquity and in many societies around the world — but it has been ruthlessly suppressed in the West ever since the 4th century AD, when Christianity became the state religion of the Roman Empire, bringing with it the Judaic taboo on sex between males. In the Holiness Code of Leviticus is stated:
"If a man lie with mankind as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death: their blood shall be upon them." (Leviticus 20:13, King James translation)
In the intervening centuries gay men have been shamed and ostracized, imprisoned, tortured, pilloried, castrated, beaten or stoned to death, hanged, and burned at the stake, along with heretics and witches — all for violating a taboo, a taboo which is no more rational than the taboos on eating pork or wearing the wrong kind of clothing. [Note 3]
Such persecutions do not belong entirely to the Dark Ages. The death penalty for male-to-male sex remained on the books in England until 1861 and in Scotland until 1887. In the mid-20th century, gay men in California were castrated and given electric shock treatment. In the 1970s and 1980s gay men in the South African army were given electric shock therapy and chemical castration. In the United States as a whole, sex between males only became legal seven years ago. There are still countries in the world where men are put to death for loving each other.
Beginning in the 1970s religious fundamentalists in the United States waged psychological warfare against gay men, telling them that they were going to Hell and should die. One such group, the American Party for Manhood, agitated to bring back the death penalty for sex between males. And the death penalty did return — in the form of “AIDS”.
Using documents obtained from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), I demonstrated that AZT (also known as retrovir or zidovudine) was approved for marketing on the basis of fraudulent research. Blatant cheating took place in Boston, one of twelve test centers in the Phase II AZT trials, which were supposed to determine whether the drug were “safe and effective”. Patients who almost died from severe anemia caused by AZT — who required multiple transfusions to keep them alive — were reported by the Boston investigators as having “no adverse reactions”. The Boston investigators — the criminal Boston investigators — lied about the length of time subjects were in the trial, making it seem as though they were in it much longer than they were. In one case, the Boston investigators illegally entered into the study a man who was already taking AZT — they assigned him to the placebo group, even though he continued to take AZT — and when he died a few months later, they counted him as a death in the placebo group, although he had never stopped taking AZT. [Note 4]
Cheating was also found in the other eleven test centers — but none of these were investigated thoroughly, because the Phase II trials were abruptly terminated. The FDA's stated reason for prematurely terminating the Phase II trials was: that AZT was miraculously extending the lives of the patients, and it would be unethical not to put the drug on the market immediately. What a farce! The FDA knew very well that much, and possibly most, of the Phase II data were false, and yet they excluded nothing. With this kind of ethics, the deliberate use of false data, AZT was put on the market — a poison without a single benefit.
More than 96% of all “AIDS” deaths in the U.S. occurred after AZT was approved for marketing in 1987. [Note 5] Those deaths were not caused by a virus, but by AZT and the other “anti-HIV” drugs.
After AZT was approved, the FDA abandoned the double-blind, placebo-controlled trial as the gold standard for drug approval, claiming it was forced to do so by “AIDS activists” — the “AIDS activists” being phonies who really represented Big Pharma. There was no longer even a pretense of basing drug approval on evidence. All of the later “AIDS” drugs, from nucleoside analogues to protease inhibitors, rode in on the coattails of AZT.
How did gay men respond to the “health crisis”? At this point, the bitter truth, as I see it, is that there is no “gay community”. Gay publications have been brought into line (or gleichgeschaltet) with the AIDS Industry. The New York Native, which for over a decade provided a voice for AIDS critics, was destroyed through a boycott led by so-called “AIDS activists” — the “AIDS activists” being phonies controlled by Big Pharma. To my knowledge, the Gay & Lesbian Humanist is now the only gay publication that is open to AIDS critics; it published my most recent article, “In Defence of AIDS Critics”, which is online.
From the very beginning, many AIDS-dissidents have been gay men. But other gay men unthinkingly supported the Gay Holocaust. They trusted doctors. They responded masochistically, with such things as candlelight vigils and the AIDS Quilt, which reinforced a cult of victimhood. With good intentions, they encouraged their friends to take the “AIDS” drugs that would kill them. And there were still other gay men, like the late Martin Delaney, who were conscious and cold-blooded agents of Big Pharma.
As many of you know, it is not easy to be an AIDS-dissident. We have all taken hard knocks. Speaking for myself, I have not only received death threats and suffered financial losses, but I have been effectively ostracized from the gay liberation movement — to which I have devoted my life for over 40 years. The last time I spoke at a gay conference was a few months ago in Boston. I was a featured speaker, discussing the goals of gay liberation. When I simply mentioned that I didn't accept the HIV hypothesis, people started yelling: “Shut up!” The conference organizers, who should have supported my right to speak, denounced me instead.
To conclude my talk, I'll describe two young men I have known, Jeremy and Brian. They both did one of the hardest things that anyone can do: break a powerful addiction. Both were recovering alcoholics.
Jeremy was a friend of mine. Sobriety was a new life for him. He was in good health, he made plans to return to college, and he began to be recognized for his writing. He wrote plays, which were produced. Then in 1988 he took an “HIV-antibody” test. It came back “positive”. He was put on AZT, and his health collapsed. Then, under my influence, he stopped taking AZT. He regained his health, began riding his bike and exercising. He was again an athletic, attractive young man. Then one day he told me that his doctor had persuaded him to go on a quarter dose of AZT — just a quarter dose. I said that he already knew what I thought — that AZT is a poison with no possible benefits. I said to see what would happen, and that soon enough he would stop taking it. This was one of the worst mistakes of my life. A few months later I read Jeremy's obituary in the Village Voice. For Jeremy, even a quarter dose of AZT was fatal. This is on my conscience. I should have fought for him.
Now let me tell you about Brian. In creating a new life without alcohol or drugs Brian took his health seriously — practised yoga, ate well, and took nutritional supplements. Then he was persuaded to take the “HIV” test, which came back positive. He was shocked, but determined to “fight the virus”, as he put it, by good health practices rather than by taking the drugs. Brian read the book I gave him, The AIDS Cult, but wasn't fully convinced. He told me he still believed that he was infected with a virus. At this point he was still a robustly healthy young man. Unfortunately he continued seeing a doctor, who regularly tested for CD4 counts. At one point the doctor told Brian that he had almost no T-cells. Brian was terrified, and began taking the drugs. Now he has been on them for several months. So far the changes are subtle. His self-confidence is down. He has lost muscle tone, and his arms are thinner. The first battle has been lost — either I failed to persuade or Brian failed to comprehend — but I have not given up hope for him.
There are many gay men like Jeremy and Brian — who have broken their addiction to alcohol and drugs and are beginning to build new lives in sobriety. Then they take the “HIV-antibody” test and get diagnosed as “positive”. Here I need to make an important point: almost certainly Jeremy and Brian scored “positive” because of their past history of alcoholism and drug abuse. We know that several dozen conditions can cause positive readings on the Elisa and Western Blot tests, and that alcoholism and drug abuse are among those conditions.
However, many of the gay men who take the tests now, and are diagnosed “HIV-positive”, do not have a history of alcoholism or drug abuse. In any sample of the general population, a certain percentage will score “positive”, for reasons unknown. If a greater proportion of “HIV-positive” diagnoses are given to gay men, this is because for decades they have been targeted for testing. In contrast, the general population has never been targeted for testing, and very few straight people take the test. This week's edition of Bay Windows, Boston's weekly gay paper, has an ad by Project Truth: “It's Fast and It's Free — Rapid HIV Testing — HIV Results within 1 hour.” Isn't that wonderful? Results that can wreck a life in one hour.
Since the tests have never been validated, there is no such thing as either a “false positive” or a “true positive”. Even among those who are “HIV-positive”, no one has ever demonstrated true viremia, or viral infection, which would mean many whole, cell-free viruses in the blood.
Once these “HIV-positives” begin taking the drugs, it's all down-hill: first malaise, then physical deformities, and finally death. Many of them die before developing any of the 29 or so “AIDS-indicator” diseases or conditions. These are called “deaths before diagnosis". They are not counted as “AIDS” deaths — thus supporting the myth that “AIDS” deaths are dropping thanks to the new drugs. In reality, the new drugs are killing people who weren't even sick before taking them.
To close: there are no guilty victims of the AIDS Hoax. None of them deserved what was done to them. Gay men deserved it no more than mothers, or children, or Africans, or hemophiliacs. Whether conscious or not, the hatred of gay men, rooted in ancient superstition, is part of the story. I remember my friend, Casper Schmidt, referring to AZT as “sadistic medicine”. A fair statement. At some level of consciousness, doctors must have known what would happen from prescribing AZT: they must have known that this poison would kill their patients. I also remember William Haseltine, a leading AIDS-orthodoxer, who said that all gay men, including HIV-negatives, should be given AZT as a prophylactic measure — to prevent them from becoming infected. What Haseltine really meant was that all gay men should die.
And now the new generation of drugs, which have been so successfully promoted by Big Pharma's public relations firms. If doctors have eyes to see, they must surely observe that these drugs are making healthy patients sick. But even if we give doctors the benefit of the doubt, we should not forget that others in the AIDS Industry committed their misdeeds knowingly and cold-bloodedly.
The Gay Holocaust — and the greater AIDS Holocaust — have gone on long enough. There have been enough victims. It's time to put an end to the AIDS Hoax.
# # #
That is the end of my prepared talk. Since many of you are physicians, let me add that psychological factors are important in treating patients with an “AIDS” or an “HIV-positive” diagnosis. It may not be easy, but patients must be helped to have a desire to live. They must be freed from fear engendered by the various bogus “AIDS” tests. They must be told to Expect Health!
Speech to the international conference, AIDS: zwischen Wissen und Dogma (AIDS: Knowledge and Dogma), Vienna, Austria, 17 July 2010.
NOTES
1. John Lauritsen, “NIDA Meeting Calls For Research Into The Poppers-Kaposi's Sarcoma Connection”. New York Native, 13 June 1994. This article is online.
2. John Lauritsen, “CDC's Tables Obscure AIDS-Drugs Connection”. Philadelphia Gay News, 14 February 1985. Reprinted as Chapter I in The AIDS War (1993).
3. John Lauritsen, A Freethinker's Primer Of Male Love (1998).
4. John Lauritsen, “FDA Documents Show Fraud In AZT Trials”. New York Native, 30 March 1992. Reprinted as Chapter XXIX in The AIDS War. This article is online.
5. United States Deaths Of People With “AIDS” Diagnoses.