The California Collection/TheCaliforniaCollection.cdr/his096/aids1.lzh/AIDS1.TXT

Text File | 1991-06-29 | 28KB | 511 lines

GAY:The Plague Has Come at Last  by Gary North

   "Everybody knows that pestilences have a way of recurring in the
world; yet somehow we find it hard to believe in ones that crash down
on our heads from a blue sky. There have been as many plagues as wars
in history; yet always plagues and wars take people equally by
surprise." -Albert Camus, THE PLAGUE (1948)

   The time has come to fish or cut bait. Because of my concern for
reprisals, I have kept my mouth shut, or at least I have whispered, for
too long. I even turned down a national radio show interview last month
on the topic. But something happened to me a week ago that has changed
my attitude. I am not remaining quiet any longer.

   On the final weekend of February, I attended a conference. Because
of restrictions imposed by the organization, I am not allowed to
mention its name. This was a rule established in 1981, at the first
meeting. It's not a secret society; it's more of a publicity- shy
group. The major "New Right" leaders in the U.S. belong, and a lot of
them were in attendance this time.

   There is no question what became the focus of attention: a special
briefing on AIDS. I don't think most of the attendees really knew what
AIDS is all about when they walked in. They were stunned when they
walked out. So was I, and I had heard most of it before. But not all of
it.

   I can mention who one of the speakers was, since he has agreed: Gene
Antonio. Gene wrote THE AIDS COVERUP? (San Francisco: Ignatius Press,
1986), by far the best researched and most frightening book on the
topic. Subscribers to FIRESTORM CHATS have already heard some of the
information Antonio has. Another speaker was a U.S. Congressman.

   Because of what I learned at that session, and because of two other
public developments that happened that weekend, I am going to put my
reputation on the line and "come out of the closet" myself--the "hear
no evil, see no evil, speak no evil" closet that the homosexual
community has put us in. I am going to lose some subscribers over this.
I am also pulling the copyright. I want this issue reprinted.

   A generation ago, French existentialist philosopher Albert Camus
(caMOO) wrote a grim novel, THE PLAGUE. The plot centered around a town
in which a plague had broken out. Would public health officials and
politicians admit it in time for people to flee, but in doing so admit
defeat for the public health program, or would they simply sit quietly
and let the plague take its course? They did the latter for far too
long. Safety first. For the bureaucrats.

   That same decision now faces us again. Only we are not talking about
a town this time. We are talking about the whole world. There will be
few places for people to flee to.

   WILL THE PLAGUE BECOME OFFICIAL IN TIME?

   . . . . . small official notices had been put up about the town,
though in places where they would not attract much attention. It was
hard to find in these notices any indication that the authorities were
facing the situation squarely. The measures enjoined were far from
Draconian and one had the feeling that many concessions had been made
to a desire not to alarm the public.

   So wrote Camus in 1948. So writes North in 1987. But the plague I'm
writing about isn't fiction. It's real. It's here.

   On Sunday morning, March 1, a local radio station in the Miami area
broadcast a most remarkable program. The British Broadcasting
Corporation (BBC) broadcast a show dealing with AIDS. They opened their
phone lines to the whole world. Then they started giving the facts. The
facts, if they do not change, are going to restructure Western
Civilization as nothing has in over 400 years. But no one quite gets
around to saying this.

   But what they do admit is bad enough. Before the disease has run its
course, world public health officials estimate, ABOUT ONE HUNDRED
MILLION PEOPLE WILL DIE FROM AIDS, WORLDWIDE. That figure was confirmed
later that evening by Surgeon General Koop on the Larry King television
show.

   A hundred million people is as many people as those who died in all
the wars and concentration camps of the twentieth century (excluding
China -- no one knows how many died in China). I am using the estimate
of Gil Elliot, TWENTIETH CENTURY BOOK OF THE DEAD, Scribners, 1971, p.
1. But it will happen in a little over a decade.

   At present, the number of those coming down with the third stage of
the disease, called full-blown AIDS, is doubling each year. The
mathematical precision is uncanny. The head of the public health
department predicted to Rev. Ed Rowe in 1985 the number of people who
would die from AIDS in 1986. His estimate was accurate TO THE MAN.

   VANITY FAIR is no doubt the most cleverly and accurately named
magazine in the U.S. (Vanity Fair was the city of hedonism in John
Bunyan's 17th century allegory, PARADISE LOST.) The March issue
contains an article, "One By One." It surveys AIDS's impact on New York
City's artistic community. In every field -- opera, dancing, music,
painting, drama -- they have died. The deaths are accelerating.

   But it goes far beyond the arts. It goes to the heart of the modern
welfare State: the health-care delivery system. The VANITY FAIR article
cites Dr. William Grace, chief of oncology (cancer) at St. Vincent's
Hospital in New York City. What he says is happening all over the
country, but quietly -- for the public has not yet begun to panic, and
no official wants to be blamed:

   "Every ten to twelve months the number of AIDS patients doubles.
Right now at St. Vincent's, 45 medical beds -- of our 315 beds
available -- are occupied by AIDS patients, and most of these are
middle-class patients, not the drug users or others without medical
coverage, who get sent to Bellevue. What happens next year, when we
have ninety patients? And 180 the year after that? In four years we
will have exhausted all the medical beds in New York."

   Read it again: "IN FOUR YEARS WE WILL HAVE EXHAUSTED ALL THE MEDICAL
BEDS IN NEW YORK." And what he admits for New York City is what faces
every hospital in the U.S. Dr. Grace is blunt: "I think AIDS is going
to devastate the American medical system."

   The National Academy of Sciences has released a study -- a
CONSERVATIVE study -- that estimates 270,000 cases of full-blown AIDS
in 1991. There will also be 179,000 deaths from AIDS. Now, let's look
at the number of beds in the U.S. Gene Antonio's carefully researched
book points out that there are 1,360,000 hospital beds available. Of
these, about three-quarters are occupied at any given time. This leaves
about 325,000 beds unoccupied. But as he points out, not all of these
beds are suitable for full-blown residents. The first 10,000 patients
who died from AIDS stayed an average of 167 days in the hospital before
they died.

   The actual outlay on each patient was $147,000. This means that it
cost about a billion and a half dollars to care for them before they
died. This does not count the loss of income associated with each
person's death. It does not count the taxes that will never be
collected from them to fund the public health, Medicare, Medicaid, and
Social Security systems.

   If prices remain the same, which they won't, as hospitals approach
100% occupancy -- and it cost about $150,000 per dying victim -- in
1991 it will cost in the neighborhood of $40 billion just to house them
before they die.

   In 1992, we will run out of available hospital beds. This means that
when you take a family member to stay in the hospital, you will either
be sent away, or be sent to a very expensive private hospital, or they
will start stacking AIDS victims up in minimal-care, crowded facilities.

   By then, many victims will be heterosexuals.

   But after 1991, it starts getting really serious. Unless a cure is
found, or for some reason the disease ceases to be lethal, the doubling
process gets us. Those infected today now number between three million
and four million. The incubation period, says Dr. Koop, is ten years.
They don't know how many people presently infected will actually get
full-blown AIDS, but it may be as high as half. It may be 100%, if we
wait long enough. But the disease is spreading fast. If it continues to
double, 64 million Americans will be infected by the end of 1990. If it
slows to half the present rate, and does so immediately, then "only" 15
million will be carriers in 1990.

   This is why the BBC reported that medical health officials expect
that 10 MILLION U.S. residents will die of AIDS by the year 2000. If we
can keep the cost per patient to $150,000, it will cost $1.5 TRILLION
just to care for them until they die. This does not count the permanent
loss of jobs, skills, productivity, and the widows who will be thrown
into the system with a few thousand dollars of life insurance --
assuming that in the year 2000, there will be any private life
insurance companies still in existence.

   The disease is not hitting elderly couples now on Medicare. It is
hitting the young. It is hitting those who are expected to finance the
U.S. welfare system. It is hitting those who expect to be supported by
the State in their "golden years."

   But this isn't front-page news. Iran is. Or the latest gossip from
the White House.

   The day it becomes front-page news, the West is going to have a
revolution. It will mark the end of the present statist, humanist,
fist-in-God's-face road.

   In THE PLAGUE, the public authorities admitted a crises at the end
of Part I of the book. When will Part I of OUR "book" occur?

   KOOP'S CONDOM ARGUMENT HAS A HOLE IN IT

   Dr. Koop is preaching condoms for teenagers. He wants a huge sex
education program in the public schools. Here is the ultimate irony:
the Christian conservative is now promoting the one program above all
others that conservatives have fought for three decades: Federal sex
education in the schools. The Koop report could have been written by
the Gay Liberation Task Force on AIDS. Its solution is educational and
technical, not moral and religious.

   The only long-term solution is MORAL AND RELIGIOUS. We are not saved
by knowledge. For three decades we have seen that sexual promiscuity
increases with every sex education program introduced into the public
schools. Conservatives have been yelling about this the whole time.
Now, I fear, they will remain silent, and a full-scale sex education
program with no holds barred will be given to our children.

   Not MY children. They are in a private school, and that's where they
are going to stay. There is going to be a panic soon. When stories
begin to get out about the AIDS plague in the local high schools and
junior high schools, THERE IS GOING TO BE A WILD EXODUS FROM THE PUBLIC
SCHOOLS. You KNOW I'm right. All talk about "white flight" will end;
regardless of race, color, or national origin, THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS ARE
GOING TO BE ABANDONED. It will begin to happen in waves, all over the
country. The bureaucrats should know it's coming. They will be
desperate. The humanist left's major institution of middle-class
indoctrination is going to perish. I think it will happen before the
mid-1990's.

   I suggest that if you have your children in a private school that
the headmaster demand a blood test from all students 12 or over, at the
beginning of each school year. Eventually, this will be expected. When
the exodus begins, private schools will have to defend their students
from outside contamination. We are talking about a plague, not the
measles.

   Dr. Koop wants us to teach eighth graders about the proper use of
condoms. Baloney! We need to get our children educated about moral
behavior, faithfulness, sexual restraint, and the horrendous risks to
life if they violate these standards. Koop has become a kind of
bureaucratic condom himself: preaching a prophylactic solution to a
world facing a religious crisis. He has betrayed his trust. As a
Christian, he has so far missed the key assignment of his career. No
other Surgeon General in U.S. history has ever had the limelight
focused on him, and he has become the agent of the conservatives'
mortal enemies. If you thought Siecus was a threat, consider Dr. Koop's
recommended program.

   Look, PEOPLE DON'T USE CONDOMS WHEN KISSING. The Centers for Disease
Control announced on January 11, 1985, that "There is a risk of
infecting others by ... exposure of others through oral-genital contact
or intimate kissing" (cited by Antonio, p. 108). Is Koop crazy? No,
Koop is simply a faithful representative of a morally corrupt and
scared medical and governmental bureaucracy. He fears taking the needed
message to the people. He fears public controversy more than he fears
God. WE NEED A PROPHET, NOT A PUBLIC RELATIONS AGENT FOR CONDOMS.

   But his gospel is having economic effects. Stocks in condom
manufacturing companies have doubled or tripled. But Koop is being
unfaithful to the God he worships and the community he serves. He has
retreated into medical techniques as the nation's haven of safety. It
will not work.

   First, people refuse to use them. By the time they are scared enough
to begin, it will be too late. AIDS is an incredible killer. A single
virus -- or lenti (slow) virus -- invades the victim's cell, passes the
genetic material to it, and then the victim's own body does the rest.
The cells multiply, replicating through the victim's body. The immunity
system is rendered ineffective. And in those rare cases where the
victims survive the loss of immunity, THE AIDS VIRUS ATTACKS THE BRAIN.
DEMENTIA IS THE RESULT.

   Ed Rowe cites the only scientific study of condoms as a defense
device. Of those couples using condoms, where one was infected, the
other was infected in one out of six of the couples in the test. As
Rowe says, this is the equivalent of playing Russian roulette with one
bullet in the chamber. Of those who did not use condoms, five out of
six transmitted it. This is Russian Roulette with five bullets out of
six -- far worse odds, but is it worth your life to rely on condoms?
(FIRESTORM CHATS subscribers will receive my interview with Rowe in a
few weeks.)

   I agree entirely with Phyllis Schlafly's open letter to Dr. Koop. He
must publicly come out in favor of sexual abstinence until marriage.
Nothing else will work. Nothing else has a chance. Our children will
die unless they abandon sexual promiscuity. The sexual revolution,
unless reversed, will kill them. Koop is betraying his trust -- as a
physician, as a Christian, and as the top medical spokesman of the
Federal government. He was the only public official picked by President
Reagan as a gesture to placate the Christian vote, and now Dr. Koop has
turned to medical solutions that cannot do more than DELAY THE DEATH
SENTENCE for millions of teenagers. He is betraying his calling. No
public health official in U.S. history has ever had such a
responsibility. None has been the key figure at the beginning of a
plague. Yet he can only recommend condoms.

   THERE IS NO SAFE SEX ANY MORE. There is SOMEWHAT SAFER SEX inside
the marriage relationship, and nowhere else.

   Here we find Dr. Koop, a vocal Christian, recommending condoms. HE
IS SENTENCING YOUNG PEOPLE TO DEATH. They may believe him, and if they
do, they will die. There is only one answer, at best: monogamy. He
should be telling them that they are risking death if they try sex at
all before marriage, and only in marriage after blood tests. I say
tests, because a new AIDS virus, called LAV-2, has now appeared that
does not show up in the present AIDS blood test.

   The problem with AIDS is that the virus mutates rapidly. Any defense
against it is thwarted by the rapidly evolving virus.

   An EVOLVING virus: what a perfect means of bringing the age of
Darwinian self-confidence to an end! God has a sense of humor.

   GUERILLA TACTICS

   At the briefing, one of the speakers related an unforgettable story.
It's a true story. It was reported a few weeks ago in Ft. Worth, Texas.
A young married man was propositioned by a good looking woman. He
hadn't been a swinger, but he decided to take advantage of a special
situation. When he awoke the next morning, the girl was gone. On the
mirror, she had written a message in lipstick: "Welcome to the world of
AIDS."

   He went for testing. He tested positive. Almost certainly, he will
die from AIDS. Only somewhat less certainly, so will his wife.

   There are thousands of AIDS victims who know they are going to die
within 24 months. Some of them are resentful. ENVY IS DOMINANT. They
have decided to bring down the "straights", not because they can gain
anything by the pain of others, but simply because they want to destroy
them.

   In New York City, 10% of the AIDS victims are women. Surveys
indicate that 80% of women with bisexual husbands are unaware of this
fact (TIME, Feb. 16, p. 52). Wives who trust their husbands had better
have husbands worth trusting, and vice versa. Their lives depend on it.

   Then come blood bank donations. According to Congressman Dannemeyer,
there is a rule against allowing intravenous drug users from donating
blood to public blood banks. These people supply about 17% of all
AIDS-contaminated blood. There is no restriction against donations from
homosexuals, who supply 83% of the AIDS-contaminated blood. Gays are
asked voluntarily to refrain from giving blood if they SUSPECT that
they might be carriers. As he said, "If gray-eyed people were found to
carry AIDS, they would not be allow to donate blood. They have no
powerful lobby in Washington."

   An outraged homosexual need only give blood to exact envious revenge
against the straight community. Nothing is being done to protect the
straights. The straights have no lobby to protect them. Yet.

   If it takes a political revolution to get such a lobby, then this
nation will experience a political revolution within three or four
years. The backlash is coming, on a scale so massive that today's
liberals cannot comprehend it (and probably will not survive it -- not
if they remain liberals), and today's conservatives, hiding in their
closets, afraid to speak out to defend themselves or this civilization,
will not be in there much longer.

   I'm getting out of my closet with this issue. We are under siege.
The homosexuals didn't create this plague; God did. But they are the
primary distributors.

   Of course, it is really a waste of time to get angry with them. They
won't be around much longer. A decade from now, they will all be dead.
There will be no gay lobby because there will be no male gays. (The
irony of all this is that the one group that is probably safest is the
lesbian community.) But we must recognize what we face. The disease
will be here in a decade because judgment has come.

   All over the country, physicians are personally donating their own
blood before they submit themselves to an operation. This is being done
quietly. I spoke to a surgeon about this recently, and he confirmed it.
The Red Cross and other blood centers used to discourage this practice
-- too much paperwork. But for an extra fee, they do permit this
arrangement.

   If your are considering surgery, this is a must. If you belong to a
conservative church, try to get other members with your blood type, or
universal donors (type O) to donate for you. Blood donating for other
members will become a major aspect of church charitable giving from now
on. But understand, this is no sure-fire answer; it simply reduces
risks. The AIDS plague will be in the churches soon enough.

   The hospitals refuse to segregate AIDS patients from others. Former
nurse Candice Comstive testified to the Houston City Council on Sept.
25, 1985. She had been fired from her job at the Memorial City Medical
Center. She had been employed in the cancer wing. They assigned her
AIDS patients without telling her that's what they were suffering from.
Those without infections but carriers of the AIDS lentivirus were not
isolated. The patients were not confined to their rooms.

   "I had one AIDS patient in January, 1985, who was placed on "STRICT
ISOLATION". He was in the kitchen at 7:30 a.m. pouring himself coffee,
which was not unusual. I suggested he return to his room, and with that
he turned and vomited on me and the kitchen as well. I changed into
"scrubs" and returned to my assignment of patients for the day. An
unsuspecting "house-cleaning" employee with mop in hand cleaned up the
mess left on the cabinets and floor."

   They had no designated rooms for AIDS patients in the hospital. You
will love this: "Rooms at the end of the hall used for AIDS patients
are also used by pediatric patients."

   She was fired. She was also told that "they did not think I would be
able to find work in any hospital, though, because AIDS is being
treated in the same manner all over. Nurses elsewhere have verbally
validated that statement." (Antonio, pp. 150-52).

   Nurses are becoming the heroines of this story. Hospital
administrators and physicians are the gutless villains. And you and I
are the potential victims.

   INSECTS

   They keep telling us that the disease can be transmitted only by
sexual contact. How do they know? They say that mosquitos carry it, but
they do not transmit it. How do they know? Ed Rowe made this
observation. To test the validity of the theory regarding insect
transmission they need an infected person, an insect to bite him, and a
volunteer who does not have the disease who will allow the insect to
bite him. IF THE TEST PROVES POSITIVE, THE VOLUNTEER IS ALMOST
CERTAINLY GOING TO DIE. They have had no volunteers, so far.

   The prestigious British medical journal, LANCET, published this
report two years ago (Feb. 16, 1985):

   There is little evidence for homosexual activity among African AIDS
patients and seriopositive subjects. In Africa HTLV-III (the AIDS
lentivirus - G.N.) appears to be transmitted through heterosexual
contact or exposure to blood through insect bites or scarification. ...
(Cited by Antonio, THE AIDS COVER-UP?, p. 72.)

   If it turns out that mosquitos can transmit it, then you and I are
in the hands of God.

   An Associated Press report last August revealed the following:

   PARIS (AP) -- Insects contaminated with the AIDS virus have been
found in two African nations, but there is no evidence that they pose a
threat to humans, a leading French researcher said Tuesday, Aug. 26,
1986. Most of the 80 mosquitoes, cockroaches, ant-lions, tsetse flies
and other insects tested from Zaire and the Central African Republic
were infected with the deadly virus, said Dr. Jean-Claude Chermann of
the Pasteur Institute.

   Having announced this, Chermann then took the Camus road to a calm
public: "There is no way of transmission to humans by mosquitoes or
other insects." Scientists are usually very guarded with their
language. They use qualifying phrases, such as "at the present time, we
believe..." and "There is no clear-cut positive research indicating..."
This enables them to cover their professional backsides if
counter-evidence is discovered. It also allows them to ask for more
research money. But in this case, Chermann was certain - CERTAIN THAT
IF HE ALLOWED THE PUBLIC TO DRAW OBVIOUS CONCLUSIONS FROM WHAT HE HAS
DISCOVERED, HE MIGHT CAUSE A WORLDWIDE PANIC. So he said that the
obvious is not possible.

   Antonio, in a paper released after his book, refers to studies of
African children. Over 15% of small children in the high AIDS regions
of central Africa have been infected, and researchers believe bedbugs
are the transmitters. As I told Antonio when he told me this: "Sleep
tight. Don't let the bedbugs bite!" ("Taint funny, McGee," as Molly
used to say.)

   Dr. Mark Whiteside and Dr. Carolyn MacLeod, researchers at the
Institute of Tropical Medicine in Miami, Florida, discovered evidence
that AIDS was being transmitted by mosquitos in the town of Belle
Glade, Florida (Antonio, p. 106). They presented their findings as
early as April of 1985, but little coverage was given to them.

   One public health official later broke a gag order from his
superiors and went to the press about the Belle Glade crisis. Gus
Sermos was (at the time) a public health official from the Atlanta
Centers for Disease Control Assigned to Florida. He was abruptly moved
from his post when he challenged CDC's position that environmental
factors had nothing to do with AIDS there. The community has a high
percentage of NIR: Not Identifiable Risk. He testified before the state
legislature in early January, 1986.

   In 1986, an official with the county health organization of Houston
said that he believes that mosquitos transmit AIDS. In 1987, he was
fired. Camus was on target.

   Dr. James Slaff of the National Institutes of Health reports that
the AIDS virus can stay alive outside the body for several days, unlike
most other retroviruses. It can survive for up to a week in a dried-out
tube or petri dish (LANCET, Sept. 28, 1985). Later studies indicate
that the beasties survive for 10 days (Journal of the American Medical
Association Medical News, 22/29 Nov. 1985, p. 2866; cited in Antonio,
P. 111.) Six months later, the Pasteur Institute said it survived for
over 15 days at room temperature (p. 112).

   But what does the Federal government say? In 1986, Dr. Robert
Redfield, who is with the Department of Virus Diseases of the Walter
Reed Army Institute of Research, wrote a report for Abbott Laboratories
in which he assured us, "The virus is fragile outside the human host
and appears to be easily killed by detergents, hand soaps, alcohols,
hydrogen peroxide, phenolics, and sodium hypochloride. High and low pH
and an exposure to high temperatures will inactivate or kill it."

   But it can survive at room temperature if someone coughs, and remain
dormant for over two weeks. A real "fragile" disease.

   What is fragile is the government's sense of calm, and its public
image of being fully in control.

   LIFETIME CONTAGION

   Other epidemics could be controlled by quarantine. They came fast,
and they went fast. The exception was tuberculosis. Now, horrifyingly,
this dread disease is returning as a side-effect of AIDS.

   How can you quarantine a hundred million people? You can't execute
them, yet this is the only means of removing the first cousin of the
AIDS lentivirus which attacks sheep.

   You simply wait. And pray. And take steps to reduce the likelihood
of your family's contracting the disease. But the problem is, pandemics
reach a stage called CRITICAL MASS. At some point, the disease leaps
the normal transmission barriers and spreads far beyond. This may not
happen with AIDS. Yet it may.

   In Texas, there have been 2,000 people with full-blown AIDS. So far,
1,300 have died (62%). By 1991, state health officials estimate there
will be 16,000. It will be 60,000 by 1996. The plague is here. The
world will eventually panic. When it does, who will be ready with
answers? Which group will pick up the pieces?