South Florida Haitians decry HIV report

BY ERICA BERAS, eberas@miamiherald.com

Déjà vu-tinged waves of hurt and apprehension are sweeping through South Florida's Haitian community after a report suggested that the AIDS epidemic in the United States began with a Haitian who emigrated in 1969.

Creole talk radio has been crackling with callers.

''People are upset,'' said Lesly Jacques, director of Radio Haiti Amerique (980-FM). ``They are asking, why now, after all these years, after we've already gone through this, is it politically motivated?''

A group of 30 community leaders called a news conference Thursday to address those bruised feelings.

''The Haitian community is outraged and they have every right to be,'' said state Rep. Yolly Roberson, a former nurse. ``I'm raising my daughter and I want her to be proud to be Haitian. This is not the legacy I want to see perpetuated.''

Among those expressing concern were members of the Association of Haitian Physicians Abroad, who refused to comment on the study except to label it ''junk science.'' Others in the medical community have praised its methodology and labeled the study credible.

''We know you are filled with grief and frustration,'' said Dr. Smith Joseph, president of the Florida chapter of the physicians group, speaking directly to South Florida's Haitian community. ``Instead of letting your emotions guide you, look to us for guidance.''

About 30 people were present at the Jean Jacques Dessalines Community Center in Little Haiti, including members of the Haitian Lawyers Association and The Haitian Nurses Association and representatives from the University of Miami medical school, who urged all present to respect academic freedom.

The report published this week in the respected medical journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggests HIV went directly from Africa to Haiti, then spread to the United States beginning in 1969.

The findings were based, in part, on blood samples taken from about 20 Haitian patients at Jackson Memorial Hospital as far back as 1979.

The frozen samples were stored at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, and reanalyzed by the study's authors, including a University of Miami researcher.

When AIDS was first recognized as a disease in the early 1980s, Haitians were deemed part of the high-risk ''Four-H'' group -- along with homosexuals, hemophiliacs and heroin users who injected the drug. As a result, the Food and Drug Administration notoriously barred Haitians from donating blood.

By December 1990, the FDA had scrapped that ban.

''A couple of decades ago, we had to debunk these myths,'' Joseph said. ``It's as if we have stepped back in time.''

The study has created a firestorm of reaction on the Internet, where Haitians are demanding that the medical community and Haitian government respond.

Some are calling for a petition, and have published the e-mail address and phone number on the Internet of the study's lead author, Michael Worobey, a University of Arizona evolutionary biologist.

Miami Herald staff writer Jacqueline Charles contributed to this report.

Photo by ANDREW ULOZA/FOR THE MIAMI HERALD

State Rep. Yolly Roberson said 'the Haitian community is outraged' over a study that suggests a Haitian started the U.S. HIV epidemic.

Comments

[carlos]

What IS the big deal??? AIDS is a virus-it is not something the Haitians brought intentionally, but they DID bring it. They seem to feel like people will blame them for AIDS-are they that self conscious?? The truth is the truth.

You can no more blame the Haitians than Gaetan Dugas (Patient Zero) or the Africans who were first dignosed with it. Stop the madness and deal with the problem and stop the blame and guilt and move on.

Haitians need to be proactive about stopping AIDS in their population and stop worrying about what others think about how it got here!!

[HAITIAN PRIDE]

Carlos,
You must be a good friend of the Bounty Hunter Jerk!

[SoBeSparky]

Folks, this is genetic science. One study published by the very prestigous PNAS, which carefully reviews its editorial content.

As with evolution decades ago, some peoples' feelings are hurt with scientific theories. It is not a matter of right or wrong, good or bad. This is the study of the evolution of a disease. Genetic researchers, well versed in this emerging science, have reached a set of conclusions. Why cannot we move on?

I don't understand why they are upset over the report. No one is looking down on everday Haitians because of this, do something about AIDS in your community now instead of doing press conferences about "don't blame us", no one is blaming you!

[The Winner]

What we should take more of a look at; is the time frame of which this disease has dominated. Think about it; through out the course of history, Haitians have always been Haitians and Gays have always been Gays. However, Aids has not always been Aids. And once again this topic as like so many takes us right back to: ( Let him who is without sin cast the first STONE ) Failure to follow this lifes instructions at too prolonged a time will eventually manifest itself as destructive to our very exsistence. Though I may not care much for either, God loves you always because he's just foolish like that.

[TP]

A bunch of B.S. Aids started in America in a Lab. Don't fall for the lies.

[Buddy]

The premises on which the findings are based are not supported by facts. Lets look at the methodologies used to arrive at the conclusion. The assumptions are as follows and you have to accept every step before you can move to the next:
(1)The AIDS virus origninate from Africa
(2) The virus came to existence 1960s, first in the Republic of Congo
(3) There were no Congolese or Autralians or Europeans, Americans, or from any other countries living, visiting, vacationing, researching, spying, observing, looking for treasures in Congo at that time, only Haitians
(4)Those Haitians ten years after making contact with the virus, traveled to Haiti, spread the virus and some how the virus made its way to the US from there
(5) the virus moved from Jackson Memorial all the way to Los Angeles....etc...

The methodology is not that expansive, it just makes too many unsupported assumptions and leaves too many unanswered questions for obvious reasons. It goes more into historical chrono and traveling path rather than clinical research. If you can find a gene in the DNA make-up of people of haitian decent to support your findings, something similar to Sickle Cell, you would have a better case.
Whats the implication of gay people and Haitian? What is the dimentional relationship between the four H?

[short & sweet]

Why are the Haitians so up in arms over this report? The pandemic is over 25 years old in the United States. Gay men have gone through the same thing and came out stronger as a community. Quit crying and stop people from dying by education...Not complaining....

[proud to be a strong haitian female]

This whole thing is completely stupid. It's nonsense. I don't understand this country, u people try to point a finger at anyone in your pathway. You can't be the source of anything bad. First you say there's evidence tracing to africa, then asia, then haiti, then you say you don't know where the aids epidemic traces back to. but now you want to completely place it on us!! that is b.s. and you all know it!! open up your closed minds and eyes!! And for whoever posted that crap about there being no whites in Congo in the 1960's you should shoot yourself in the head!! Anyone can read that and just laugh at you stupidity!! There were gay men traveling to many countries over the years such as Morroco for homosexual sex, not just Haiti. for all you know y'all probably brought it over to us!! The only reason we are getting the blame is because so many of us were coming here!! stop this b.s.... and the FYI: the HIV/AIDS epidemic isnt only prevelent in our community its the gay and black community!! white people your in this mess too!!! don't try to act like your better!!

[REALITY CHECK]

IT IS USUALLY VISITORS TO AFRICA AND HAITI WHO USE THE AMERICAN DOLLAR OR EUROPEAN CURRENCY TO ENTICE POOR VICTIMS TO DO DEBASING SEXUAL ACTS! THATS HOW THE DISEASE GOT TO AFRICA FROM EITHER THE US OR EUROPE!STOP PUTTING THE BLAME ON THESE POOR PEOPLE LOOK AT THAILAND FOR EXAMPLE! THEN LOOK AT CUBA!THEN LOOK AT GUYANA!THEN LOOK AT CHINA!

[David]

The Gay Experiment That
Started AIDS In America

By Alan Cantwell, M.D
alancantwell@sbcglobal.net
11-27-5

There is no doubt that AIDS erupted in the U.S. shortly after government-sponsored hepatitis B vaccine experiments (1978-1981) using gay men as guinea pigs. The epidemic was caused by the "introduction" of a new retrovirus (the human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV for short); and the introduction of a new herpes-8 virus, the virus that causes Kaposi's sarcoma, widely known as the "gay cancer" of AIDS. The taboo theory that AIDS is a man-made disease is largely based on research showing an intimate connection between government vaccine experiments and the outbreak of "the gay plague"

The widely accepted theory is that HIV/AIDS originated in a monkey or chimpanzee virus that "jumped species" in Africa. However, it is clear that the first AIDS cases were recorded in gay men in Manhattan in 1979, a few years before the epidemic was first noticed in Africa in 1982. It is now claimed that the human herpes-8 virus (also called the KS virus), discovered in 1994, also originated when a primate herpes virus jumped species in Africa. How two African species-jumping viruses ended up exclusively in gay men in Manhattan beginning in the late 1970s has never been satisfactorily explained.

Researchers who claim AIDS is a man-made disease believe it is much more likely that these two primate viruses were introduced and spread during the government's recruitment of thousands of male homosexuals beginning in 1974.

Large numbers of gay men in Manhattan donated blood for the experimental hepatitis B vaccine trial, which took place at the New York Blood Center in Manhattan in 1978. Extensive evidence supporting the man-made theory of AIDS is easily found on the Internet by Googling: man-made origin of AIDS; and in my two books, "AIDS and the Doctors of Death" and "Queer Blood: The Secret AIDS Genocide Plot."

Government interest in "gay health" before the AIDS epidemic

Beginning in the mid-1970s, government scientists became interested in the health of gay men, particularly in the realm of sexually-transmitted diseases, and specifically in the sexual transmission of the hepatitis B virus. The early 1970s was a time when large numbers of gays come out of the closet and identified themselves as homosexuals at government-sponsored health clinics. Organizations such as the Gay Men's Health Project were formed at this time. Promiscuous gays were avidly sought as volunteers to test the efficacy of a newly-developed hepatitis B vaccine manufactured by Merck and the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

By 1977 over 13,000 Manhattan gays were screened to secure the final 1083 men who would serve as guinea pigs to test the hepatitis B vaccine. The vaccine was manufactured from the combined plasma of 30 highly selected gay men who carried the hepatitis B virus in their blood. Developed over a period of 65 weeks during 1977-1978 and tested for six months in chimpanzees (the primate in which HIV is thought to have originated), the first group of gay men were inoculated at the New York Blood Center in November 1978.

That same year a final cohort of 6875 homosexual men at the San Francisco City Clinic was assembled to study hepatitis B virus sexual transmission in that city. By the end of the decade gays in clinics in Los Angeles, Denver, Chicago, and St. Louis, also came under surveillance by the Centers for Disease Control. An additional 1402 volunteers were finally selected to participate in similar vaccine experiments in those cities beginning in March 1980.

Before 1978 there was no stored blood anywhere in the U.S. that tested positive for HIV or the KS virus. There were no cases of AIDS and no cases of "gay cancer" in young men.

The first cases of AIDS appeared shortly after the experiment began in Manhattan. In June 1981 the epidemic became official and was quickly labeled the "gay ­related immune deficiency syndrome", later known as AIDS.

The gay community was the most hated minority in America. After the experiments ended, the gay community was decimated by the "gay plague." In the first years of AIDS, the epidemic was largely ignored by the government (see Randy Shilt's best-seller, "And the Band Played On") and the disease was blamed on gay anal sex, drugs, and promiscuity. Gays were immediately labeled "high risk."

In my view, what made gay men "high risk" was the fact that they were the exclusive volunteers for government medical experiments that undoubtedly put them at "high risk." The evidence for this conclusion is outlined in this report. Further evidence can be obtained from abstracts of scientific reports available on the Internet at the PubMed website of the National Library of Medicine.

The gay hepatitis B experiments (1978-1981)

The experimental hepatitis B vaccine injected into gays was unlike any other vaccine previously made. As stated, it was developed in chimpanzees and manufactured in a year-long process of sterilization and purification of the pooled blood of 30 gay men who were hepatitis B virus carriers.

The final group of 1083 selected for the first experiment at the Blood Center were inoculated from November 1978 until October 1979. At one point, there was great concern that the vaccine might be contaminated. According to June Goodfield's Quest for the Killers, p 86, "This was no theoretical fear, contamination having been suspected in one batch made by the National Institutes of Health, though never in Merck's." Each gay man was given three inoculations of the vaccine over a period of three months. The vaccine proved successful with 96% of the men developing protective antibodies against the hepatitis B virus.

It has been assumed by some that these men might have been already immunosuppressed due to promiscuity and venereal disease. Although the young men in the study were indeed "promiscuous" (this was a requirement for entrance into the study), they were in excellent health. Despite many previous sexual partners, these volunteers had never been infected with the hepatitis B virus, which was a requirement for participation in the experiment. Furthermore, the 96% success rate would not have been accomplished if the men were immunosuppressed, because such people often do not respond to the vaccine.

When Robert Gallo's blood test for HIV became available in the mid-1980s, the New York Blood Center's stored gay blood specimens were reexamined. Most astonishing is the fact that 20% of the gay men who volunteered for the hepatitis B experiment in Manhattan were discovered to be HIV-positive in 1980 (one year before the AIDS epidemic became "official" in 1981). This signifies that Manhattan gays in 1980 had the highest incidence of HIV anywhere in the world, including Africa, the supposed birthplace of HIV and AIDS. In addition, we now know that one out of five gay men (20%) tested positive for the new KS herpes-8 virus in 1982 when stored blood samples from an AIDS trial in New York City were re-examined by epidemiologists at the NCI in 1999.

Never mentioned by AIDS historians is the fact that the New York Blood Center established a chimp virus laboratory for viral vaccine research in West Africa in 1974. One of the purposes of VILAB II, in Robertsfield, Liberia, was to develop the hepatitis B vaccine in chimps. The lab also prides itself by releasing "rehabilitated" (but virus-infected) chimps back into the wild, perhaps accounting for some of the ancestors of HIV and the KS virus found in the jungle by some government researchers.

The Virus Cancer Program and the birth of AIDS

In the decade before AIDS the Virus Cancer Program (1968-1980), sponsored by the National Institutes of Health, attempted to prove that viruses caused human cancer. Ultimately the Program was unsuccessful in providing proof, yet it succeeded in building up the field of animal retrovirology, which led to a more complete understanding of how cancer-causing and immunosuppressive viruses in animals might cause disease in humans. The VCP was also the birthplace of genetic engineering, molecular biology, and the human genome project. As the VCP was winding down in the late 1970s, the gay experiments began in New York City.

The introduction of HIV and the KS herpes virus into gay men during this period (along with some "novel" and now-patented mycoplasmas discovered at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology) miraculously revived the career of Robert Gallo and made him the most famous virologist in the world. And, of course, turned the "failure" of the VCP into a triumph by providing proof that these primate-derived viruses could cause disease in humans.

The fear of the hepatitis B vaccine

When AIDS began there were scattered reports in the medical journals questioning whether the "gay plague" might have its origin in the hepatitis B experiments. It was well-known in medical circles that the vaccine was made from the pooled plasma of gay men - and there was fear that the AIDS agent might be in the vaccine. As a result, when the hepatitis B commercial vaccine became available in July 1982, many people refused to be injected with it.

The fear of the vaccine was readily admitted by the CDC. Nevertheless, in detailed reports the CDC concluded that the vaccine was safe. Although it was clear the hepatitis B vaccine eliminated all "known" viruses, this obviously did not apply to "unknown" viruses at the time, such as HIV and the KS virus.

After HIV was discovered in 1984 some of the vaccine was retested and declared free of HIV. Of course, it was impossible to say whether the vaccine contained the KS virus, because this virus was undiscovered until 1994. I am unaware of any subsequent testing of the vaccine for this herpes KS virus.

Possible contamination problems with the hepatitis vaccine was the impetus that led Luc Montagnier to hunt for a virus in the new gay disease in the autumn of 1982. He began testing batches of human plasma for "reverse transcriptase activity", a biochemical sign indicating the possible presence of a retrovirus. (See page 46 of his book "Virus"). Montagnier's research eventually led to the first discovery of the AIDS virus at the Pasteur Institute in Paris.

Although the CDC and the New York Blood Center claimed it was safe, many health professionals refused the hepatitis B vaccine. In 1985, only 23 out of 162 Rhode Island dentists agreed to take the vaccine because of concerns about AIDS. As late as 1990, 13 out of 14 black nurses at a university hospital refused to take the vaccine for the same reason.

The fate of the gay men in the gay experiments

The purpose of the gay experiments was to test a vaccine that could immunize people against hepatitis B virus. Infection with this virus could lead to severe liver disease and sometimes to liver cancer. Ironically, an unprecedented explosion of cancer took place in male homosexuals after the experiment. Reports of the fate of these men attest to the fact that participating in the government's experiments was clearly injurious to the health of gay men.

Significantly, there were no reported blood specimens anywhere in the U.S. that were HIV-positive prior to the epidemic in 1979, except in the samples stored at the NYBC.

In a May 12, 1983, letter to the editor of The New England Journal of Medicine, Cladd Stevens (who supervised the NYBC experiment) wrote : "No cases haves occurred in the vaccine recipients from populations at low risk of AIDS, and there is no excess incidence in the high-risk population." But this proved to be incorrect in later reports co-authored by Stevens.

In a 1985 report Cladd Stevens et al. claimed that seven men (out of 1083) were HIV-positive before they received either vaccine or placebo. If true, this indicates that HIV (and possibly the KS virus) was already present in the blood of Manhattan homosexuals and could have contaminated the pooled blood of gays whose plasma was used to make the vaccine in 1977.

As stated previously, a 1986 report in JAMA showed 20% of the men in the experiment were already infected with HIV by the end of 1981; and by 1984, more than 40% of the men were HIV-positive and doomed to death.

Another follow-up study of 8,906 gay men who donated blood for the hepatitis experiments in Manhattan was released in 1992. Statistical analysis of this group showed that mortality rates for men aged 25-44 began to rise in the 1980s, with AIDS the leading cause of death among young men in New York City. Remarkably, "The all-cause mortality in this cohort in 1988 was 24 times higher that the mortality rate in the cohort before the beginning of the AIDS epidemic."

Was the hepatitis B vaccine contaminated with HIV and the KS virus?

Largely forgotten in AIDS history is the hepatitis B vaccine trial that also took place with 685 gay Dutch volunteers in Amsterdam between November 1980 and December 1981. Unlike the American vaccine makers, the Dutch researchers heated their experimental hepatitis B vaccine for added safety.

A 1986 report of the trial clearly states the AIDS virus "was not transmitted by the heat inactivated hepatitis B vaccine." Of the 685 participants, five were already infected with HIV when the trial began. The researchers theorized that HIV entered the Dutch gay population at the end of the 1970s.

Another follow-up Dutch report of this trial in 1993 again suggests the efficacy of heating the vaccine for safety. (The experimental vaccine was not heated in the U.S. until after all the gay experiments were completed.) At the end of 1982, one year after the Dutch experiment had ended, only As stated previously, a 1986 report in JAMA showed 20% of the men in the experiment were already infected with HIV by the end of 1981; and by 1984, more than 40% of the men were HIV-positive and doomed to death.

7.5% of the Amsterdam men were infected. In contrast, 26.8% of the men in the New York experiment were HIV-positive; and a whopping 42.6% of the San Francisco men were HIV-positive. These statistics showing many men infected in the American trials in 1982 further prove that Cladd Stevens of the NYBC, and the CDC, were incorrect in declaring there was no excess incidence of AIDS in the "high-risk" gay male population.

The fate of all the men who participated in the hepatitis B vaccine trials in six U.S cities has never been revealed. However, it is likely from the statistics presented in JAMA in 1986 that many, if not most, of the men eventually died of AIDS. The actual number of AIDS deaths has never been revealed, nor have the individual medical records been studied. Attempts to secure this information have been rebuffed by the Blood Center, due to the "confidential" nature of the experiment.

"Gay Cancer" and the origin of AIDS

After the introduction of HIV and the KS virus into the U.S. gay male population in the late 1970s, the incidence of KS skyrocketed.

A 1989 report by Biggar found no cases of KS in young men in New York City during the years 1973-1976. But by 1985 the incidence of KS in "never-married men" in Manhattan had increased 1850 times. In San Francisco the rate of KS increased over 2000 times!

KS is now 20,000 times more common in AIDS patients than in the general population. A 1985 autopsy study by Lee Moskowitz of 52 AIDS cases (23 Haitians, 19 gays, 5 intravenous drug abusers, 2 hemophiliacs, and 3 persons at unknown risk) showed that 94% of AIDS patients from the various risk groups had internal KS. The CDC claims KS now occurs in only 15% of gay men (down from 30% at the beginning of the epidemic), but these statistics are not based on current autopsy studies

KS was never a sexually-transmitted disease before the introduction of HIV into gays. For a century after the first reported KS cases were discovered in Vienna in 1872, there was no evidence that KS could be transmitted from person-to-person.

By 1950, a more aggressive "endemic" form of KS was uncovered in African blacks. Still, there was no evidence the disease was transmissible or contagious. Suddenly with the introduction of HIV into the homosexual community, scientists began to view KS as a contagious "gay cancer" out of Africa.

The new KS virus is closely related to a monkey tumor virus, known as herpes virus saimiri, that was extensively studied by researchers in the VCP in the decade before the epidemic. Initially found only in KS from AIDS patients, the new KS virus has also been found in non-AIDS-related KS tumors and in other forms of cancer, such as lymphoma and multiple myeloma.

HIV is a cancer-causing virus. Infection with HIV (with or without the KS virus) has resulted in a noticeable increase in various forms of cancer. A 2005 study of over 4000 AIDS patients showed higher rates of melanoma, basal and squamous cell skin carcinomas, anal carcinoma, prostate carcinoma, and Hodgkin disease, when compared with age-adjusted rates for the general United States population.

The KS virus is now in the U.S. blood supply; and blood is not screened routinely for this virus. A 2001 study indicated that 15% of normal Texas blood donors showed evidence of KS virus infection in the blood. A 2002 study of healthy children (ages 4-13) in South Texas showed that 26% had antibodies to the KS virus in their blood.

Is AIDS a man-made disease?

How did these two viruses of primate origin get into the gay male population to cause AIDS and a contagious form of cancer? AIDS experts blame monkeys and chimps in the African jungle. My research indicates it is much more likely these viruses were introduced during government-sponsored hepatitis B experiments using gays as unsuspecting guinea pigs. Extensive documentation of past "secret medical experiments" by the government can be found on Google. A recent BBC news report (30 Nov 2004) uncovering unauthorized and dangerous HIV drug experiments on infants and children in New York City orphanages can be found by Googling: BBC + guinea pig kids.

Until proven otherwise, a "new" HIV retrovirus and a "new" KS virus could easily have been developed in a laboratory as part of the Virus Cancer Program. In the decade before AIDS it was common to transfer and adapt primate retroviruses and herpes viruses into human cells in genetic engineering experiments. Such viruses were deemed potential "candidate human viruses," as clearly stated in the annual progress reports of the VCP. For further details on the relationship of the VCP to the introduction of HIV, Google: virus cancer program + AIDS.

The connection between the hepatitis experiments and the AIDS epidemic was quickly dismissed by government authorities two decades ago. However, it is clear from a review of the scientific literature that the "gay plague" began immediately after the government experiments; and the experiments permanently damaged the health of the gay community, and led to continuing spread of HIV into the "general population."

Are we to believe that all this is merely a coincidence -and that AIDS in America resulted simply from two viruses jumping species in the African jungle? Or is the origin of HIV and AIDS -and the KS virus- related to secret medical research and covert human testing, as suggested here.

[Dr. Alan Cantwell is a retired dermatologist; and the author of five books on the man-made origin of AIDS and the infectious origin of cancer, all published by Aries Rising Press, PO Box 29532, Los Angeles, CA 90029 (www.ariesrisingpress.com). Email: alancantwell@sbcglobal.net. Abstracts of 30 published papers can be found at the PubMed website. Many of his personal writings can be found on www.google.com by typing in key words "alan cantwell" + articles. His latest book is Four Women Against Cancer: Bacteria, Cancer and the Origin of Life. His books are available on www.amazon.com and through Book Clearing House @ 1-800-431-1579]

[cegiltrot]

Thank you, Dr. Cantwell for this brilliant scientific discourse. I will e-mail it widely. Thank God for you, an honest, courageous academic.

[cegiltrot]

Thank you, David for posting Dr. Cantwell's article and the other resource information. You are a fine person.

The researchers virtually ruled out the possibility that HIV had come directly to the United States from Africa, setting a 99.8 percent.
http://hivhaiti.com/

[Mark Levine]

What an ungrateful lot you Haitians are. Come over here and abuse the system and you still complain about the irrelevance of how aids got here. If Haitians were not to bring it! then someone else would have!!!! so quit your complaining and get f#$##ng health insurance. Stop milking the system and start paying your dues!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!