- Moe Factz with Adam Curry for October 27th 2021, Episode number 69
- I'm Adam Curry coming to you from the heart of Texas Hill Country and it's time once again to spin the wheel of Topics with from here to Northern Virginia, please say hello to my friend on the other end: Mr. Moe Factz
- Description
- Adam and Moe say: "This is not a covid show"
- Associate Executive Producers:
- Boost us with Value 4 Value on:
- ShowNotes
- How Stella Got Her Groove Back - Wikipedia
- 1998 American romantic comedy-drama film
- How Stella Got Her Groove Back is a 1998 American romantic comedy-drama film directed by Kevin Rodney Sullivan, adapted from Terry McMillan's best-selling 1996 novel of the same title. The film stars Angela Bassett, Taye Diggs (in his film debut), Whoopi Goldberg, and Regina King. The original music score was composed by Michel Colombier.[3]
- Plot [ edit ] This section
- needs expansion. You can help by
- ) Stella Payne is a very successful 40-year-old stockbroker raising her son, Quincy, and living in Marin County, California, who is persuaded by her best friend from college, Delilah Abraham, to take a well-deserved, first-class vacation to Montego Bay, Jamaica. As she soaks in the beauty of the island, she encounters a handsome young islander, Winston Shakespeare, who is twenty years her junior. His pursuit of her turns into a blossoming romance that forces Stella to take personal inventory of her life and try to find a balance between her desire for love and companionship, and her responsibilities as a mother and corporate executive.
- Cast [ edit ] Angela Bassett as Stella PayneTaye Diggs as Winston ShakespeareWhoopi Goldberg as Delilah AbrahamRegina King as VanessaSuzzanne Douglas as AngelaMichael J. Pagan as Quincy PayneSicily as ChantelRichard Lawson as JackBarry Shabaka Henley as BuddyLee Weaver as NateGlynn Turman as Dr. ShakespearePhyllis Yvonne Stickney as Mrs. ShakespeareDenise Hunt as Ms. ThangJames Pickens, Jr. as Walter PayneCarl Lumbly as Judge Spencer BoyleVictor Garber (uncredited) as IsaacReception [ edit ] The reception from critics was mixed.[4][5][6]
- On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 50%, based on 50 reviews.[7] On Metacritic, the film has a score of 56 out of 100, based on reviews from 23 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[8] Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a grade A''.[9]
- Box office [ edit ] In its opening weekend, Stella grossed $11,318,919, ranking #2 in the domestic box office behind Saving Private Ryan ' s fourth weekend.[10] The film would go on to gross $36,672,941 domestically and an additional $1,605,781 overseas for a worldwide total of $39,278,722, from an estimated $20 million budget.[2]
- Soundtrack [ edit ] A soundtrack containing mostly R&B and reggae was released on August 11, 1998, by MCA Records. It peaked at number eight on the Billboard 200 and number three on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart, and was certified gold on September 22, 1998.
- Accolades [ edit ] 1999 Acapulco Black Film FestivalBest Actress '' Angela Bassett (won)Best Actor '' Taye Diggs (nominated)Best Actress '' Whoopi Goldberg (won)Best Director '' Kevin Rodney Sullivan (nominated)Best Film (won)Best Screenplay '' Terry McMillan (nominated)Best Soundtrack (won)1999 NAACP Image AwardsOutstanding Lead Actress in a Motion Picture '' Angela Bassett (won)Outstanding Motion Picture (won)Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture '' Whoopi Goldberg (won)Outstanding Youth Actor/Actress '' Michael J. Pagan (won)See also [ edit ] Shirley ValentineReferences [ edit ] External links [ edit ] How Stella Got Her Groove Back at IMDbHow Stella Got Her Groove Back at AllMovieHow Stella Got Her Groove Back at Box Office MojoHow Stella Got Her Groove Back at Rotten TomatoesHow Stella Got Her Groove Back at Metacritic
- Operation INFEKTION - Wikipedia
- KGB disinformation campaign
- Operation INFEKTION was the popular name given to an active measure disinformation campaign run by the KGB in the 1980s to plant the idea that the United States had invented HIV/AIDS[2][3] as part of a biological weapons research project at Fort Detrick, Maryland. Historian Thomas Boghardt popularized the codename "INFEKTION" based on the claims of former East German Ministry for State Security (Stasi) officer G¼nter Bohnsack [de] , who claimed that the Stasi codename for the campaign was either "INFEKTION" or perhaps also "VORWRTS II" ("FORWARD II").[2] However, historians Christopher Nehring and Douglas Selvage found in the former Stasi and Bulgarian State Security archives materials that prove the actual Stasi codename for the AIDS disinformation campaign was Operation "DENVER".[4][5] The operation involved "an extraordinary amount of effort '-- funding radio programs, courting journalists, distributing would-be scientific studies", according to journalist Joshua Yaffa, and even became the subject of a report by Dan Rather on the CBS Evening News.[6]
- According to the United States Department of State, the Soviet Union used the campaign to undermine the United States' credibility, foster anti-Americanism, isolate America abroad, and create tensions between host countries and the U.S. over the presence of American military bases (which were often portrayed as the cause of AIDS outbreaks in local populations).[7] U.S. State Department analysts also claim that another reason the Soviet Union "promoted the AIDS disinformation may have been its attempt to distract international attention away from its own offensive biological warfare program, which [was monitored] for decades". The report posits that the operation may have been partly in retaliation for American accusations that the Soviets used chemical weapons in Southeast Asia, later dubbed the yellow rain incident.[2]
- Story genesis and progression [ edit ] The groundwork appeared in the pro-Soviet Indian newspaper Patriot which, according to a KGB defector named Ilya Dzerkvelov, was set up by the KGB in 1962 for the sheer purpose of publishing disinformation.[7] An anonymous letter was sent to the editor in July 1983 from a "well-known American scientist and anthropologist" who claimed that AIDS was manufactured at Fort Detrick by genetic engineers. The "scientist" claimed that "that deadly mysterious disease was believed to be the results of the Pentagon's experiments to develop new and dangerous biological weapons", and implicated Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) scientists sent to Africa and Latin America to find dangerous viruses alien to Asia and Europe. These results were purportedly analyzed in Atlanta and Fort Detrick and thus the "most likely course of events" leading to the development of AIDS. The letter claimed that the Pentagon was continuing such experiments in neighboring Pakistan and as a result, the AIDS virus was threatening to spread to India. The title of the article, "AIDS may invade India", suggested that the immediate goal of the KGB's disinformation was to exacerbate relations between the U.S., India, and Pakistan.[7][8]
- Two years later, the KGB apparently decided to make use of its earlier disinformation to launch an international campaign to discredit the U.S. They wrote in a telegram to their allied secret service in Bulgaria, the Bulgarian Committee for State Security (KDS) on September 7, 1985:
- We are conducting a series of [active] measures in connection with the appearance in recent years in the USA of a new and dangerous disease, "Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome '' AIDS"'..., and its subsequent, large-scale spread to other countries, including those in Western Europe. The goal of these measures is to create a favorable opinion for us abroad that this disease is the result of secret experiments with a new type of biological weapon by the secret services of the USA and the Pentagon that spun out of control.[4][9]
- The telegram, which referred indirectly back to the Patriot article ("facts ... in the press of the developing countries, in particular India"), provided guidance to Bulgarian State Security regarding how to couch their AIDS disinformation:
- Facts have already been cited in the press of the developing countries, in particular India, that testify to the involvement of the special services of the United States and the Pentagon in the appearance and rapid spread of the AIDS disease in the United States, as well as other countries. Judging by these reports, along with the interest shown by the U.S. military in the symptoms of AIDS and the rate and geography of its spread, the most likely assumption is that this most dangerous disease is the result of yet another Pentagon experiment with a new type of biological weapon. This is confirmed by the fact that the disease affected initially only certain groups of people: homosexuals, drug addicts, immigrants from Latin America.[9]
- A month later, the Soviet newspaper Literaturnaya Gazeta, also a known outlet for KGB disinformation,[10] published an article from Valentin Zapevalov entitled, "Panic in the West, or what is hiding behind the sensation surrounding AIDS". It cited the (dis)information contained in the Patriot article,[11] but also gave further details regarding the alleged development of the AIDS virus. Employees of the CDC had allegedly assisted the Pentagon by traveling to Zaire, Nigeria and Latin America to collect samples of the "most pathogenic viruses" that could not be found in Europe or Asia. These samples were then combined to develop the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that causes AIDS. The disinformation campaign insisted the Pentagon then carried out isolated experiments in Haiti and within the U.S. itself on marginalized groups in U.S. society: drug addicts, homosexuals, and the homeless.[12] Zapevalov's article was subsequently reprinted in Kuwait, Bahrain, Finland, Sweden, Peru, and other countries.[13] It followed very closely the guidelines that the KGB had already sent to its Bulgarian "comrades" a month before.[9]
- Stasi involvement in the disinformation campaign [ edit ] Determining the exact role of the Stasi in the AIDS disinformation campaign has been difficult, given that around 90% of the records of its foreign intelligence division, the Main Directorate for Reconnaissance (HVA) were destroyed[14] or disappeared[15] in 1989''90. Based on materials in the Bulgarian secret police archives, the card files of the HVA, and documents from or relating to the HVA scattered among the records of other divisions of the Stasi, it has been possible to reconstruct some aspects of the Stasi's involvement in the disinformation campaign. At the beginning of September 1986, the tenth division of the HVA (HVA/X), responsible for organizing and coordinating the HVA's campaigns of active measures, wrote the following in a draft plan for cooperation with Bulgarian State Security:
- Operation "DENVER". With the goal of exposing the dangers to mankind arising from the research, production, and use of biological weapons, and also in order to strengthen anti-American sentiments in the world and to spark domestic political controversies in the USA, the GDR [German Democratic Republic] side will deliver a scientific study and other materials that prove that AIDS originated in the USA, not in Africa, and that AIDS is a product of the USA's bioweapons research.[4][16]
- The KGB confirmed that the East German HVA was playing a central role on various occasions, including in a telegram to the Bulgarians in 1987:
- A complex of [active] measures regarding this issue has been carried out since 1985 in cooperation with the [East] German and to some extent the Czech colleagues. In the initial stage, the task was resolved of spreading in the mass media the version regarding the artificial origin of the AIDS virus and the Pentagon's involvement in by means of the military-biological laboratory at Fort Detrick.
- As a result of our joint efforts, it was possible to widely disseminate this version.[4][17]
- The Segal Report [ edit ] As noted above, the Stasi's HVA/X had written that it would send its Bulgarian "comrades" a "scientific study" allegedly "proving" that "AIDS is a product of the USA's bioweapons research".[4][16] From the context of the discussions between officers of the HVA/X and their Bulgarian counterparts in mid-September 1986, it was clear which study was meant: "AIDS: Its Nature and Origin" by Soviet-East German biologist Jakob Segal and his wife, Dr. Lilli Segal. The study had been distributed at the summit meeting of the Non-Aligned Movement in August''September 1986 in a brochure entitled, "AIDS: USA home-made evil, NOT out of AFRICA".[4] The report was quoted heavily by Soviet propagandists, and the Segals were often said to be French researchers to hide their connections to communism. Although both Segals, given the double danger to them as Jews and members of the Communist Party of Germany, had fled into exile in France in 1933, both had attained Soviet citizenship in 1940 on the basis of Jakob's birth in (then Soviet-annexed) Lithuania, and in 1953, they had returned to Germany'--specifically, to communist East Berlin.[18]
- In his report, Segal postulated that the AIDS virus was synthesized by combining parts of two distantly related retroviruses: VISNA and HTLV-1.[7] An excerpt of the Segal Report reads as follows:
- It is very easy using genetic technologies to unite two parts of completely independent viruses'... but who would be interested in doing this? The military, of course'... In 1977 a special top security lab'... was set up'...at the Pentagon's central biological laboratory. One year after that'... the first cases of AIDS occurred in the US, in New York City. How it occurred precisely at this moment and how the virus managed to get out of the secret, hush-hush laboratory is quite easy to understand. Everyone knows that prisoners are used for military experiments in the U.S. They are promised their freedom if they come out of the experiment alive.[7]
- Elsewhere in the report, Segal said that his hypothesis was based purely on assumptions, extrapolations, and hearsay and not at all on direct scientific evidence.[7]
- The exact relationship of both Segals to the KGB, Stasi, or both at this time'--to the extent that it existed'--remains unclear. Both publicly denied any involvement of the KGB or Stasi in their work. The Deputy Director of HVA/X, Wolfgang Mutz, hinted that the HVA had played a role in the publication'--or actually, the photocopying'--and distribution of the Harare brochure in talks with Bulgarian State Security in September 1986.[4] He also suggested that the "operational division" of the HVA with which HVA/X had been cooperating in the disinformation campaign had somehow "attracted" Segal to his research.
- This "operational division" was in fact an office in the Sector for Science and Technology (Sektor Wissenschaft und Technik, SWT) of the HVA, responsible for intelligence-gathering on AIDS and genetic engineering (HVA/SWT/XIII/5). This office had registered a "security dossier" (Sicherungsvorgang, SVG) "Wind" on September 6, 1985, regarding the protection of East German scientists in the areas of AIDS research, genetic engineering and biotechnology from outside "attacks" in the form of espionage or manipulation by foreign agents. This office in HVA/SWT apparently registered both Segals in this dossier as "contact persons" under the codename "Diagnosis"; whenever other divisions of the Stasi inquired about the Segals, they were directed to this office. HVA/SWT'--or "the security", as Jakob Segal called them'--gave him at least one piece of advice regarding his study before its printing and distribution. Whether Segal listened to this advice remains unclear. Still, given their official designation as "contact persons", they need not have known, at least officially, that they were dealing with the Stasi, although Jakob Segal likely knew or could have guessed, given his past dealings with both the Stasi and the KGB. It is quite possible that HVA/SWT was already coordinating with the KGB regarding Segal's research'--even without his knowledge'--in the second half of 1985, at the time that "Wind" was registered. Nevertheless, none of the Stasi officers involved with "Wind" or Operation "DENVER" ever claimed that the HVA had played a role in drafting Segal's study. It was clearly his own work, in cooperation with his wife Lilli, although he knew and expected that it would be used for "propaganda".
- Whatever exact relationship the Segals may or may not have had to the Soviet or East German security services, the KGB praised Segal's work in its 1987 telegram to Bulgarian State Security. His articles and brochures, the KGB wrote, had attained "great renown". This was especially the case in African countries, where governments and researchers were rejecting as racist assertions by U.S. researchers that AIDS had originated naturally in Africa, where it had spread from monkeys to humans.[17] The KGB wrote the Bulgarians:
- We are currently resolving the task of bringing the [active] measures down to a more practical level, and in particular, to attain specific political results by exploiting the "laboratory version" for AM [active measures] on other issues. So, efforts are being made to intensify anti-base sentiments in countries where American forces are deployed by using slogans suggesting that U.S. soldiers are the most dangerous carriers of the virus. By demonstrating the defeat of the "African version" [of AIDS' origins], we can whip up anti-American sentiments throughout the states of the continent.[17]
- Dissemination methods [ edit ] The AIDS story exploded across the world, and was repeated by Soviet newspapers, magazines, wire services, radio broadcasts, and television. It appeared 40 times in Soviet media in 1987 alone. It received coverage in over 80 countries in more than 30 languages,[7] primarily in leftist and communist media publications, and was found in countries as widespread as Bolivia, Grenada, Pakistan, New Zealand, Nigeria, and Malta. A few versions made their way into non-communist press in Indonesia and the Philippines.[7]
- Dissemination was usually along a recognized pattern: propaganda and disinformation would first appear in a country outside of the USSR and only then be picked up by a Soviet news agency, which attributed it to others' investigative journalism. That the story came from a foreign source (not widely known to be Soviet controlled or influenced) added credibility to the allegations, especially in impoverished and less educated countries which generally could not afford access to Western news satellite feeds. To aid in media placement, Soviet propaganda was provided free of charge, and many stories came with cash benefits.[7] This was particularly the case in India and Ghana, where the Soviet Union maintained a large propaganda and disinformation apparatus for covert media placement.[7]
- Soviet narrative [ edit ] To explain how AIDS outbreaks in Africa occurred simultaneously, the Moscow World Service announced a discovery by Soviet correspondent Aleksandr Zhukov, who claimed that in the early 1970s, a Pentagon-controlled West German lab in Zaire "succeeded in modifying the non-lethal Green Monkey virus into the deadly AIDS virus". Radio Moscow also claimed that instead of testing a cholera vaccine, American scientists were actually infecting unwitting Zairians, thus spreading AIDS throughout the continent. These scientists were unaware of the long period before symptom onset, and resumed experimentation on convicts upon return to the U.S., where it then spread when the prisoners escaped.[7]
- Claims that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had sent "AIDS-oiled condoms" to other countries sprang up independently in the African press, well after the disinformation operation started.[2] In 1987, a book (Once Again About the CIA) was published by the Novosti Press Agency, with the quote:
- The CIA Directorate of Science and Technology is continuously modernizing its inventory of pathogenic preparations, bacteria and viruses and studying their effect on man in various parts of the world. To this end, the CIA uses American medical centers in foreign countries. A case in point was the Pakistani Medical Research Center in Lahore'... set up in 1962 allegedly for combating malaria.
- The resulting public backlash eventually closed down the legitimate medical research centre. Soviet allegations declared the purpose of these research projects, to include that of AIDS, was to "enlarge the war arsenal".[7]
- Worldwide response to AIDS allegations [ edit ] Deception, Disinformation, and Strategic Communications,
- [23] cover illustrating propaganda from Operation INFEKTION
- Ironically, many Soviet scientists were soliciting help from American researchers to help address the Soviet Union's burgeoning AIDS problem, while stressing the virus' natural origins. The U.S. refused to help as long as the disinformation campaign continued.[7] The Segal Report and the plenitude of press articles were dismissed by both Western and Soviet virologists as nonsense.[7]
- Dr. Meinrad Koch, a West Berlin AIDS expert, stated in 1987 that the Segal Report was "utter nonsense" and called it an "evil pseudo-scientific political concoction". Other scientists also pointed out flaws and inaccuracies in the Segal Report, including Dr. Viktor Zhdanov of the D. I. Ivanovsky Institute of Virology [ru] in Moscow, who was the top Soviet AIDS expert at the time. The president of the USSR Academy of Medical Sciences clearly stated that he believed the virus to be of natural origin. Other scientists and doctors from Paris, East and West Berlin, India, and Belgium called the AIDS rumors lies, scientifically unfounded, and otherwise impossible to seriously consider.[7] Although Segal himself never said "this is fact" and was very careful to maintain this line throughout his report, "such technical qualifiers do not diminish the impact of the charges, however, because when they are replayed, such qualifiers are typically either omitted or overlooked by readers or listeners".[7]
- U.S. Embassy officials wrote dozens of letters to various newspaper editors and journalists, and held meetings and press conferences to clarify matters. Many of their efforts resulted in newspapers printing retractions and apologies.[7] Rebuttals appeared in reports to Congress and from the State Department saying that it was impossible at the time to build a virus as complex as AIDS; medical research had only gotten so far as to clone simple viruses. Antibodies were found decades earlier than the reported research started, and the main academic source used for the story (Segal Report) contained inaccuracies about even such basic things as American geography'--Segal said that outbreaks appeared in New York City because it was the closest big city to Fort Detrick. Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C. are all closer, while New York is 200 miles (320 km) away.[7]
- The Gorbachev administration also responded indignantly and launched a defensive denial campaign "aimed at limiting the damage done to its credibility by U.S. efforts to raise world consciousness concerning the scope of Soviet disinformation activities".[7] The Soviet Union interfered with general attempts by U.S. Embassy officials to address misconceptions and expose the Soviet disinformation campaign, to include placing pressure on news agencies that recanted their position. For example, Literaturnaya Gazeta on December 3, 1986, castigated a Brazilian newspaper which earlier in the year had run a retraction following its publication of the AIDS disinformation story. In 1987, Moscow's Novosti news agency disseminated a report datelined Brazzaville (Congo), calling on the West to put an end to the "anti-African campaign", and reiterating "the charges that the virus was created in U.S. military laboratories" while in 1986 Literaturnaya Gazeta warned specifically against contact with Americans.[7]
- In 1988, Sovetskaya Rossiya put out an article defending their right to report different views. The chief of Novosti stated that it drew upon foreign sources for much of the AIDS coverage, and that the press was free under glasnost.[7]
- The Mitrokhin Archive reveals that:
- Faced with American protests and the denunciation of the story by the international scientific community, however, Gorbachev and his advisers were clearly concerned that exposure of Soviet disinformation might damage the new Soviet image in the West. In August 1987 US officials were told in Moscow that the Aids story was officially disowned. Soviet press coverage of the story came to an almost complete halt.[24]
- The campaign faded from most Soviet media outlets, but it occasionally resurfaced abroad in Third World countries as late as 1988, usually via press placement agents.[7]
- Aftermath [ edit ] In 1992, 15% of Americans considered it definitely or probably true that "the AIDS virus was created deliberately in a government laboratory".[2] In 2005, a study by the RAND Corporation and Oregon State University revealed that nearly 50% of African Americans thought AIDS was man-made, over 25% believed AIDS was a product of a government laboratory, 12% believed it was created and spread by the CIA, and 15% believed that AIDS was a form of genocide against black people.[2] Other AIDS conspiracy theories have abounded, and have been discredited by the mainstream scientific community.
- In popular culture, the Kanye West song "Heard 'Em Say" tells listeners, "I know that the government administer AIDS". In South Africa, the former president, Thabo Mbeki cited the operation's theory of Fort Detrick in denying the science of HIV.[6][3]
- In 1992, Director of Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) Yevgeny Primakov admitted that the KGB was behind the newspaper articles claiming that AIDS was created by the U.S. government.[1] Segal's role was exposed by KGB defector Vasili Mitrokhin in the Mitrokhin Archive. Jack Koehler's 1999 book, Stasi: The Untold Story of the East German Secret Police, describes how the Stasi cooperated with the KGB to spread the story.[25][page needed ]
- Insofar as the distrust in medical authorities created by the operation led to a distrust in the treatment for AIDS recommended by medical science (journalist Joshua Yaffa notes that "numerous studies ... have shown that those who disbelieve the science on the origins of H.I.V. are less likely to engage in safe sex or to regularly take recommended medication if infected"),[6] the operation may have cost many lives. Yaffa argues that the delay in "widespread implementation of antiretroviral therapies in South Africa" may have cost "as many" as 330,000 lives.[6][3]
- See also [ edit ] Operation PANDORAOperation Cedar (KGB)References [ edit ] ^ a b Kello, Lucas (2017). The Virtual Weapon and International Order. Yale University Press. p. 215. ISBN 978-0-300-22629-4. ^ a b c d e f Boghardt, Thomas (December 2009). "Soviet Bloc Intelligence and Its AIDS Disinformation Campaign (Operation INFEKTION)" (PDF) . Studies in Intelligence. 53 (4). Archived from the original (PDF) on March 24, 2010. ^ a b c Kramer, Mark (May 26, 2020). "Lessons From Operation "Denver," the KGB's Massive AIDS Disinformation Campaign". The MIT Press Reader . Retrieved September 21, 2020 . ^ a b c d e f g Selvage, Douglas; Nehring, Christopher (July 22, 2019). "Operation "Denver": KGB and Stasi Disinformation regarding AIDS". Wilson Center . Retrieved July 23, 2019 . ^ Selvage, Douglas (Fall 2019). "Operation "Denver": The East German Ministry of State Security and the KGB's AIDS Disinformation Campaign, 1985''1986 (Part 1)". Journal of Cold War Studies. 21 (4): 71''123. doi:10.1162/jcws_a_00907 . ^ a b c d Yaffa, Joshua (September 7, 2020). "Is Russian Meddling as Dangerous as We Think?". The New Yorker . Retrieved September 21, 2020 . ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v Soviet Influence Activities: A Report on Active Measures and Propaganda, 1986''87 (PDF) (Report). United States Department of State. August 1987 . Retrieved September 1, 2021 '' via GlobalSecurity.org. ^ "AIDS may invade India". Patriot. July 17, 1983 . Retrieved July 23, 2019 '' via nyt.com. ^ a b c "KGB, Information Nr. 2955 [to Bulgarian State Security]". Wilson Center Digital Archive. September 7, 1985 . Retrieved July 23, 2019 . ^ Kalugin, Oleg (2009). Spymaster: My Thirty-Two Years in Intelligence and Espionage Against the West. Philadelphia: Basic Books. p. 178. ISBN 978-0-465-01445-3. ^ Qiu, Linda (December 12, 2017). "Fingerprints of Russian Disinformation: From AIDS to Fake News". The New York Times . Retrieved July 23, 2019 . ^ Zapevalov, Valentin (October 30, 1985). Ðаника на ÐаÐаде, иÐ>>и ÑÑо ÑкÑÑваеÑÑÑ Ð·Ð° ÑенÑаÑией вокÑÑÐ" AIDS [Panic in the West, or what is hiding behind the sensation surrounding AIDS]. Literaturnaya Gazeta (in Russian) (5058). p. 14 . Retrieved September 1, 2021 '' via nyt.com. ^ Chief, Foreign Subversion and Instability Center, Office of Global Issues, Directorate of Intelligence (March 28, 1986). "Soviet Disinformation: Allegations of US Misdeeds" (PDF) . Freedom of Information Act Electronic Reading Room. Central Intelligence Agency. Archived from the original (PDF) on January 23, 2017. CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) ^ Knabe, Hubertus (1999). West-Arbeit des MfS. Das Zusammenspiel von "Aufkl¤rung" und "Abwehr" (in German). Berlin: Ch. Links. p. 133. ISBN 978-3-86153-182-1. ^ Cenckiewicz, SÅawomir (2009). Åladami bezpieki i partii: Studia '' Źr"dÅa '' Publicystyka (in Polish). Åomianki: LTW. pp. 589''600. ISBN 978-83-7565-060-0. ^ a b "Division X of the Hauptverwaltung Aufkl¤rung (HVA/X) of the Ministry of State Security (MfS), 'Plan for Common and Coordinated Active Measures of the Intelligence Organs of the MOI of the PR Bulgaria and the MfS of the GDR for 1987 and 1988 ' ". Wilson Center Digital Archive. September 3, 1986 . Retrieved July 23, 2019 . ^ a b c "KGB, Information Nr. 2742 [to Bulgarian State Security]". Wilson Center Digital Archive. 1987 . Retrieved July 23, 2019 . ^ H¶xtermann, Ekkehard (2010). "Segal, Jakob". Neue Deutsche Biographie (in German). 24. pp. 159''160 . Retrieved July 23, 2019 . ^ Schoen, Fletcher; Lamb, Christopher J. (June 2012). Deception, Disinformation, and Strategic Communications: How One Interagency Group Made a Major Difference (PDF) . Strategic Perspectives. 11. Washington, D.C.: National Defense University Press . Retrieved September 1, 2021 . ^ Andrew, Christopher; Mitrokhin, Vasili (2006). "Chapter 18 '' The Special Relationship with India. Part 2: The Decline and Fall of Congress". The World Was Going Our Way: The KGB and the Battle for the Third World: Newly Revealed Secrets from the Mitrokhin Archive. New York: Basic Books. ISBN 978-0-465-00313-6. ^ Koehler, John O. (1999). Stasi: The Untold Story of the East German Secret Police. Westview Press. ISBN 978-0-8133-3409-7. Further reading [ edit ] Selvage, Douglas; Nehring, Christopher (2014). Die AIDS-Verschw¶rung. Das Ministerium f¼r Staatssicherheit und die AIDS-Desinformationskampagne des KGB (PDF) . BF informiert (in German). 33. Berlin: BStU. ISBN 978-3-942130-76-9. Taylor, Adam (November 26, 2016). "Before 'fake news,' there was Soviet 'disinformation ' ". The Washington Post. Grimes, David Robert (June 14, 2017). "Russian fake news is not new: Soviet Aids propaganda cost countless lives". The Guardian. Researching Soviet/Russian Intelligence in America: Bibliography. Federal Depository Library Program."BBC launches huge new international anti-disinformation initiative". BBC Media Centre. November 9, 2018. Lutteroth, Johanna (June 22, 2012). "Aids-Verschw¶rung: Das Propaganda-Virus des KGB". Der Spiegel (in German). Singer, P. W.; Brooking, Emerson T. (2018). LikeWar: The Weaponization of Social Media. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. ISBN 978-1-328-69575-8. Waddell, Kaveh (December 15, 2016). "Does Russia's Election Hacking Signal a New Era in Espionage?". The Atlantic. Mikkelson, David (June 25, 2013). "FACT CHECK: AIDS Created by the CIA?". Snopes. External links [ edit ] Media related to Operation INFEKTION at Wikimedia Commons
- Operation InfeKtion: How Russia Perfected the Art of War. The New York Times.
- TLC - Waterfalls Lyrics Meaning
- Song Released: 1995Waterfalls Lyrics');var c=function(){cf.showAsyncAd(opts)};if(typeof window.cf !== 'undefined')c();else{cf_async=!0;var r=document.createElement("script"),s=document.getElementsByTagName("script")[0];r.async=!0;r.src="https://srv.clickfuse.com/showads/showad.js";r.readyState?r.onreadystatechange=function(){if("loaded"==r.readyState||"complete"==r.readyState)r.onreadystatechange=null,c()}:r.onload=c;s.parentNode.insertBefore(r,s)};})();A lonely mother gazing out of her window
- Staring at a son that she just can't touch
- If at any time he's in a jam
- But he doesn't realize he hurts her so much
- But all the praying just ain't helping at all
- 1 TOP RATED #1 top rated interpretation:
- anonymous click a star to vote
- May 13th 2007 reportThe first portion of the song is about a mother that trie4s to teach her son that there are other choices in life. This young man's mother stands at his side every time he is in trouble no matter what. He cannot see that what he is doing is hurting her so much and he continues to make money by dealing in drugs. He is ended as 'Another body laying cold in the gutter'. Another John Doe until named shot down.The second part is about a man getting with a woman that has been with many men before him. They have unprotected sex and with out his knowledge he is infected. This unknown infection HIV / AIDS is what sends him to an early grave. No matter which three letters SEX or HIV he dies from having unprotected sex with an infected woman. Both people were chasing after something a lot bigger than they could handle and didn't even realize it. One simple mistake was getting ahead of themselves without thinking their actions out. Sticking to what you are used to, and working methodically toward a brighter future that you can grasp.
- 2 TOP RATED #2 top rated interpretation:
- anonymous click a star to vote
- Mar 8th 2006 reportIn the first verse the song talks about a mother who stands up for her son who is always in trouble. He makes money by drug dealing. A deal went bad and he was shot..."So he goes out and makes his money the best way he knows how, another body laying cold in the gutter."The second verse talks about a guy who gets AIDS from being intimate with a girl and possibly cheating on his girlfriend. He doesn't really appreciate hi partner..."Little precious has a natural obsession for temptation...she gives him loving that his body can't handle but all he can say is baby its good to me...three letters took him to his final resting place."In the rap she talks about how people shoot cocaine into their vein to get rid of the pain. It also talks about somebody who commits a murder and is caught, during his trial he claims insanity, but is still locked up..."Is for the folk who can't cope...for shootin' caine in your own vein...you shoot and aim for someone else's brain you claim the insane, and name this day in time for fallin' prey to crime,I say the system got you victim to your own mind."The chorus talks about taking it easy. Don't go after the things that are appealing to you and don't go down the wrong path. Stay on the path that is meant for you and right for. Stick to what you are used to..."
- 3 TOP RATED #3 top rated interpretation:
- It is talking about different people that try to live lives that aren't true to them. For example the first guy is a drug dealer. He tries to go out and earn his money but he is robbed and killed. The second guy was being intimate with a woman more experienced then hisself. He eventually got aids from her and they both died. So they are saying "don't go chasing waterfalls" (Dont go chasing the big flashy things that always interest you because sometimes they self destruct...dont go after things not meant for you.) instead, just stick to the "rivers and the lakes you're used to" (Go after the things that you are destined for.)
- anonymous click a star to vote
- Sep 14th 2020 reportWaterfall is a metaphor for a man ejaculating. Rivers and lakes is a metaphor for a women's labia and vagina. Seriously, no one else gets this or is every, even in these times, afraid to see it?
- This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway anonymous click a star to vote
- Feb 22nd 2020 reportI don't know if the writers realized but checkout Hydraulic jump. If you are in a canoe and don't stick to the rivers and likes you are used to but go for waterfalls/weirs.... That undertow can drag you under and hold your body there until way past your death. So it is with other dangerous things you can do in life for quick kicks.
- anonymous click a star to vote
- Jan 11th 2020 reportI see it many ways. I thought chase your dreams and end up dead. Temptation. Who knows but reading these I now think of it as something worse than I once did. I thought it would be a sexy woman hard to get. Maybe not worth the trouble. Maybe your true interest. Now confused.
- anonymous click a star to vote
- Jun 2nd 2019 reportWaterfalls are strongly dangerous, falling''into one'', is disastrous. They are forces of nature that look beautiful, but too dangerous to chase. Rivers and streams are slower moving and calm. They can be challenging, but not as deadly as waterfalls which is the force to be reckoned with. It is bout risky choices, think smart.
- anonymous click a star to vote
- Jun 13th 2017 reportIt sounds like she is talking about herself. She was lucky and got her dreams, other paid the price but at the end she was moving too fast.
- anonymous click a star to vote
- Aug 18th 2016 reportIn my opinion the Waterfall represents the adage that "If it looks too good to be true it probably is". It seems to me that while a waterfall LOOKS like the quick easy way to get where you want to go,if ya try to ride it, it will end badly. Yer much better off to skip what LOOKS good and do the work (walk down) instead. The Lakes and Rivers, at least to me, is a metaphor for home. Not the dwelling or the blood relatives, cuz not everyone's is safe, but the ppl that care about you and provide a safe place to go for comfort or to recharge when things aren't working out. It's NOT saying don't LEAVE your comfort zone to chase your dreams, but rather don't FORGET it's there while you are. Put together the broader message is "Use good judgement by considering the consequences. BEFORE you take what APPEARS to be the easy route to your ultimate goal, remember it may make it all more difficult after all. And, if ya need some comfort or a reminder that yer not a failure if you fail along the way, GO HOME, regroup, and try again.
- anonymous click a star to vote
- Apr 14th 2016 reportIt (probably) Means dont go be someone that your not! Be someone that YOU want to be. Be yourself. Be someone thats different from everyone!
- anonymous click a star to vote
- Apr 3rd 2016 reportDon't chase after the things that are perceived as glorious (water falls), although these things are seemingly exciting and hardcore they do not fulfill your true nature (rivers and lakes). Our purpose is to discover who we truly are, being our true selves is the only way we can live in peace and joy we however are tempted by that which is outside this state.
- anonymous click a star to vote
- Mar 14th 2016 reportDon't pursue the Quick/easy/flashy Stick to the little : "Boring/average" stuff you're used to. maybe the son is selling drugs or prostituting...maybe the guy hooks up too soon (unprotected) with the HIV infected guy or girl...and perhaps you want it your way or no way at all...but you must see that you're moving too fast! Take it easy! DON'T GO CHASING WATERFALLS!!!! they're fast moving/ever changing water falls! Something beautiful and mystical that is constantly changing...nothing to base your life on!
- anonymous click a star to vote
- Mar 14th 2016 reportDon't pursue the Quick/easy/flashy Stick to the little. "Boring/average" stuff you're used to. maybe the son is selling drugs or prostituting...maybe the guy hooks up too soon (unprotected) with the HIV infected guy or girl...and perhaps you want it your way or no way at all. .but you must see that you're moving too fast! Take it easy! DON'T. GO CHASING WATERFALLS!!!!
- anonymous click a star to vote
- Mar 11th 2016 reportMany a verse has been written bearing messages about Schistosomia parasitic worms this song is singing to the intruder these creatures are passed through fecal and urinary tracts and to complete the life cycle a cercarie must spend two sporocyte cycles in a snail host then the new life form born into the water must find a host be it animal or human this parasite will swim up the urine stream into a hostThe best way he knows how to make money for many young people prostitution is entirely possible and spreading HIV or selling cocaine a customer could overdose. Little Precious has a natural obsession for temptation there are (spirits,demons habits, perhaps these parasites jump from host to host) maybe inference to cocaine providing income as well as distraction.Let's remember HIV can be passed using a dirty needle. I do find it curious how many decided little precious a woman and not a male though.A glimpse in the mirror not recognizing his own face went out and committed robbery to secure money for medical care pleading insanity. A mental hospital is doubtly safer than a prison.
- anonymous click a star to vote
- Jul 22nd 2015 reportI can go back and forth with alot of people on the way they view the chorus... Basically to me, it can say "Don't make a stupid choice... be smart!!" On the other hand... "Chasing a waterfall"... wouldn't that be like chasing your dreams?? You should just "stick the rivers and the lakes you are used to?" I was taught Go BIG or Go HOME! Like i said... Two different ways to look at it...
- anonymous click a star to vote
- Jun 1st 2015 reportThis song is trying to get a simple message through your heads, and trying to help you. They are saying: "Don't go chasing waterfalls" meaning, don't make stupid choices, and when they say:"Please stick to the rivers and lakes that you're used to" they mean do what makes your life better, do what you were meant to do, don't do something you will regret and be safe.
- anonymous click a star to vote
- Jul 5th 2012 reportProverbs 5:1-2, 15-20 1 My son, attend unto my wisdom, and bow thine ear to my understanding:2 That thou mayest regard discretion, and that thy lips may keep knowledge.15 Drink waters out of thine own cistern, and running waters out of thine own well.16 Let thy fountains be dispersed abroad, and rivers of waters in the streets.17 Let them be only thine own, and not strangers' with thee.18 Let thy fountain be blessed: and rejoice with the wife of thy youth.19 Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe; let her breasts satisfy thee at all times; and be thou ravished always with her love.20 And why wilt thou, my son, be ravished with a strange woman, and embrace the bosom of a stranger?The female "hip hop" group TLC gave a warning from Proverbs 5 perhaps without even realizing it..."Don't go chasing waterfalls.Please stick to the rivers and the lakes that you're used to.I know that you're gonna have it your way or nothing at all, but I think you're moving too fast."If the church could learn to be true and faithful --- husbands to wives --- members to the body --- Christians to Christ. WOW!!! What a difference our marriages and our families would be in the world. For the body of Christ to be healthy - don't get tricked by LSD - lust, sin, death. Our constant foes - the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life --- The world, the flesh, and the devil will have you chasing waterfalls - might look beautiful but the end could be a crash on the rocks and a watery grave - read Proverbs 5 and beware and be warned and be wise!!! You'll be blessed and be a blessing :-)
- anonymous click a star to vote
- May 3rd 2012 reportI think alot of times we as humans can't avoid certain situations like lust which is definitly a bad temptation that young girls are pressured with from guys that are players
- More TLC song meanings >>
- VIDEO - Strecker Memorandum - Dr. Robert Strecker (Dissapeared) - Part 1of6 - YouTube
- The Strecker Memorandum
- READ, THINK, LISTEN & PAY ATTENTION
- ****************************************************************************************************************************************
- The Strecker Memorandum is a 96 minute Video Tape and one of the most controversial video tapes you will ever see. Robert B. Strecker M.D. PhD, presents with document evidence the Truth about AIDS being a Man-Made Disease. In his video he lectures how the AIDS Virus was Predicted, Requested, Created and introduced into human population through Medical Injection Programs. Dr. Strecker practices Internal Medicine and Gastroenterology in Los Angeles as a trained pathologist, with a PhD in Pharmacology.
- Dr. Strecker and his brother, Attorney Theodore A. Strecker, were doing a Health Maintenance Proposal for Security Pacific Bank in California in 1983. Security Pacific Bank wanted to know what the long term financial effects would be, should it venture in the Health Maintenance Organization (HMO) business, insuring the treatment of AIDS patients. Because this information was not available in 1983, Dr. Strecker and his brother Ted Strecker began researching the medical literature to learn what they could about this new disease. The information they uncovered right from the beginning was so startling to them, so hard to believe, that it would dramatically alter both their lives and lead them on a five year quest culminating with the creation of "The Strecker Memorandum", one of the most controversial video tapes of our time, in addition to a remarkable set of documents called "The Bio-Attack Alert".
- Right there in the medical literature for anyone to read for themselves was, basically, proof that the AIDS virus and pandemic was actually predicted years ago by a world-famous virologist, among others. They found that top scientists writing in the Bulletin of the World Health Organization were actually requesting that AIDS-like viruses be created to study the affects on humans. In fact, the Strecker's unearthed thousands of documents all supporting the man-made origin of AIDS.
- Meanwhile, the government was telling everyone that a green monkey in Africa bit some native and started AIDS. As their research continued, it became obvious from the documentation that the virus itself was not only created as requested, but actually deployed, and now threatens the existence of mankind because it does what it was designed to do: cause cancer in humans via a contagious virus. Eventually, the Strecker's came to realize everything the government, the so-called AIDS experts and media were telling the public was not only misleading, but out and out lies. . . .
- The most dreaded fear that all oncologist (cancer doctors), virologists, and immunologists live with is that some day cancer, in one form or another, will become a contagious disease, transferable from one person to another. AIDS has now made that fear a reality. If you think you are safe because you are not gay or promiscuous, or because you are not sexually active, then you must watch The Strecker Memorandum very carefully. . . .
- THOUSANDS ARE ALREADY DEAD
- Over one hundred thousand Americans have already died because they didn't know the truth about AIDS. Approximately 23 million Americans are already infected. More than 1 in 60 babies born in New York City is infected; three in 100 college students in America [one in 33] is infected; one in 20 aliens applying for amnesty is infected, including men, women and children . . . .
- One of the first things the Strecker's did was to try and tell their medical and legal colleagues what they were finding in the literature. Some were interested; most were not. Certainly no one was prepared to risk their professional standing by making waves within the establishment. Ted Strecker compiled some of the most damaging documents into a report he called "The Bio-Attack Alert" and sent it to every Governor of every state, the President, the Vice-President (George Bush), the FBI, the CIA, the NSA, and selected members of Congress. He got a grand total of three replies from three governors, nothing from the government. Both he and Dr. Strecker were laughed at and ridiculed at every turn. As an example, Dr. Strecker told the government in 1985 that virtually every person testing positive for AIDS would die prematurely and painfully. The government said that was nonsense. Their figures showed that maybe ten percent at most would die from the disease. In 1986, the government said maybe 50 percent of those infected would die, in 1987, they said maybe 75 percent, in 1988 they finally agreed with Dr. Strecker that AIDS is virtually 100 percent fatal. We could go on with facts Dr. Strecker unearthed that the "experts" said were wrong and now accepted as the truth. Dr. Strecker, like a good scientist, submitted paper after paper with his findings published in Europe. Again, closed doors. What to do? Dr. Strecker did not feel he could take the time from his practice and his research to write a book. On the other hand, everyone has a TV and now most households have a VCR. The time involved to make a video is nothing compared to writing a book, and so the video The Strecker Memorandum was created. It is 96 minutes of the most startling, controversial, and information-packed video you will ever see. It disputes virtually everything the American public is being told by the government, so-called AIDS experts, and the media. In fact, after seeing it YOU will know more about AIDS than 99 percent of all doctors in America.
- MUSIC IS NOTHING IF THE AUDIENCE IS DEAF
- With the video made, it seemed a simple matter to advertise it and the world would now become aware of what it was facing, right? Wrong! The fact that you are even reading about The Strecker Memorandum now is a minor miracle by itself, inasmuch as TV stations have refused to advertise it. TV and radio time brokers that sell blocks of commercial time have refused to sell us time. TV station managers have refused to even air programs containing interviews with Dr. Strecker. A national radio network did an interview with a famous talk show host and Dr. Strecker-and then refused to run it. Virtually every big name network television magazine show and all the syndicated TV interviewers and talk show hosts have said NO to Dr. Strecker. Big city newspapers will not take any print ads telling about it, and so it goes. WHY? What is in The Strecker Memorandum that sends a cold chill down the spine of most media executives?
- WHY IS EVERYONE AFRAID OF THE STRECKER MEMORANDUM?
- The excuse we hear over and over is that it is too controversial. Too controversial? They say that this information, if widely disseminated, will cause the public to panic. If someone had poisoned our water supply and you and your family could die, wouldn't you want to know about it? Would you panic? Or would you more likely be outraged and try to find out who did it and punish them? We feel the only persons who might panic are those scientists who willingly or otherwise created AIDS and are now promoting misinformation by covering it up. . .
- THINK OF YOUR FAMILY AND FRIENDS -NOW THINK OF THEM DEAD
- It may take a while before the words "species threatening" sink in, because the term has rarely been used before to describe an existing human condition. But once you realize the implications of that term and realize that, unlike any other kind of disease ever known to man, past or present, AIDS can, if unchecked kill every human on earth, then your outlook and attitude regarding everything in life must change. Whether you like it or not and despite all your precautions, the time will come when you will test positive for AIDS, and it can happen much quicker than you realize.
- The number of AIDS-infected people is doubling approximately every 12 months, and in some areas even sooner. With 23 million Americans carrying the virus, you don't have to be a rocket scientist to see how long we have here in the U.S. Africa has, conservatively, 75 million infected; some estimates double that. Brazil as a country is in serious jeopardy because all through the 1970's they were buying their blood supply from Africa. On top of that, the World Health Organization conducted a large scale small pox vaccination program there in the 1970s (for the full implications of that see The Strecker Memorandum). Southern Japan has at least 30 percent infected with HTLV-I, the leukemia-causing virus (although you will never hear about that on TV). Haiti of course, is ravaged by AIDS; more than 20 percent of the people are infected and getting worse every day. And so it goes. Virtually every nation on earth with few exceptions (Iran is one) is reporting a growing problem. It's on every continent, every sub-continent, and every island chain, Atlantic and Pacific. So why won't the media or government tell you these things? Is it too controversial for you to handle? Are you going to panic?
- Yes and no. No, if you are waiting for the government to create a magic bullet. As you will see in The Strecker Memorandum, part of the problem is that all the various AIDS viruses are recombinant Retroviruses. Very simply, that means they have the ability to recombine with the genes of any cell they enter and the offspring or new viruses they form are different from the parent viruses. HTLV-III alone (that's the most common American AIDS virus) has the mathematical ability to change itself 4 to the 9,000th power. The common cold recombines much less frequently and we haven't found a cure for it after a hundred years. Besides, does it make much sense to entrust the cure for AIDS to the same people that may have created it?
- Yes, there is hope if Dr. Strecker and a growing number of realistic scientists are correct in looking at alternative, non-allopathic, non-drug modalities based on Raman spectroscopy. In fact, much research is going on now that offers great promise. Unfortunately, our government takes a dim view of any type of treatment for any type of disease-let alone AIDS-that does not conform to its rigid rules for acceptance, registration and legalization. Of course the FDA would definitely like to see an allopathic drug treatment or cure presented by an ethical drug company or university. Well, we don't think that's going to happen. Because of this attitude, much experimentation in America must go underground, underfunded, or out of the country entirely. Again this is explained further in The Strecker Memorandum.
- BE BOLD AND MIGHTY FORCES WILL COME TO YOUR AID-OR
- MIGHTY FORCES WILL COME AND KILL YOU
- An ominous personal aspect of this story has been the sudden and unexpected deaths of two of the key players. First, Dr. Strecker's brother, Ted Strecker, was found shot to death in his home in Springfield, Missouri, an apparent suicide, on August 11, 1988. Was Ted Strecker suicidal? Perhaps. In the past he suffered from depression and monumental frustration at the relative lack of interest in his findings. Dr. Strecker spoke with him the night before his death. Ted was cheerful, in good spirits, and looking forward to certain new developments that promised progress. The next day he was found dead, his 22-caliber rifle next to him. No message, no goodbyes to anyone. Officially a suicide. Next, Illinois State Representative Douglas Huff of Chicago was found alone in his home, dead from an apparent overdose of cocaine and heroin, on September 22, 1988. Representative Huff did everything in his power to make the Illinois State Legislature and the people of Chicago aware of Dr. Strecker's work. He was very vocal, gave many press interviews, was constantly on television and radio urging people to wake up to the cover-up concerning AIDS. Did Representative Huff use drugs? Perhaps. Was he an addict? No. Would he have known how dangerous a massive overdose of cocaine and heroin was? Yes, of course. Cause of death: officially a stroke. Dr. Strecker has serious doubts that his brother killed himself. Representative Huff's associates doubt he died accidentally, and yet they are gone. Who's next?
- IGNORANCE IS BLISS, OR IS IT SUICIDE?
- We all know it is easier for a king to have a lie believed than a beggar to spread the truth. Well, we are spreading the truth about AIDS. Unfortunately, it isn't pretty. But the fact is, you are not being told the truth by the government or the so-called AIDS experts. The media, for reasons of their own, will not present information contradicting the official propaganda. So you can choose to go along with the same people who gave us brain cancer (SV-40 virus) as a result of their contaminated polio vaccines in the early 1960's, a polio-like disease from their contaminated Swine Flu Vaccine in the 1970's; and AIDS from their smallpox and hepatitis B vaccines; or, you can at least make yourself aware of the clear and present dangers that we all face by watching The Strecker Memorandum. The cost of the tape is nominal, but we submit that remaining ignorant can cost infinitely more.
- THE STRECKER GROUP 1501 Colorado Blvd., Eagle Rock, CA 90041 (203)344-8039
- Note: The above information is part of the handouts included with The Strecker Memorandum Video Tape
- HOME ** 1st Amendment ** Welcome ** Contents ** Introduction **
- ** THEODORE A. STRECKER ** THE BIO-ATTACK Alert **
- ** Strecker Reference Lists ** Zears Miles **
- ** AIDS, Murder or Mystery? ** AIDS, Murder or Mystery Docs **
- ** People Along The Way ** Hot Documents ** Food For Thought **
- Books by Dr. Leonard Horowitz
- Books by Dr Leonard Horowitz The Book of 528: Prosperity Key of Love
- The Book of 528: Prosperity Key of LOVE presents the Creator's technology to end all wars and set biology free from petrochemical intoxication and threatened extinction.
- The ''528LOVERevolution'' is happening now, on time, to remedy the world's deadliest problems. That's why musicians, vocalists, and natural healers worldwide are already celebrating this ''ecstatic tuning'' to LOVE/528.
- This book provides the science, math, discussions, and instructions proving LOVE resonates at 528 frequency''the reason grass is green and animals eat it to be miraculously healed. The book also awakens your highest spiritual instincts and intelligence to LOVE and being LOVED. Walking in that light''''The ZONE''''heals you and others you touch as the good vibration expands. This frequency opens people's hearts globally.
- The truth about LOVE, in the Creator's heart, is thrilling and sustaining. That warm fuzzy feeling you have in your heart when you are in LOVE reflects this frequency of energy that matrix mathematics and facts in physics proves is 528Hz frequency of sound and 528nm of light.
- ''Astonishing revelations about Divine creation, with revolutionary new healing applications. . . .''
- This energy radiates at the heart of everything. It is the reason grass is green, the Yin/Yang symbol is shaped like a ''69,'' and there are exactly 5280 feet in a mile. The ''Life Force'' of 528nm/Hz is fundamental to everything including the sun, pyramids, circles, squares, rainbows, pi, Phi, the fibonacci series, buzzing bees, and snowflakes. That's why Dr. Leonard Horowitz named it the ''Universal LOVE/528 Constant.''
- 528Hz'--the original ''MIracle 6'' note of the Solfeggio musical scale'--broadcasts through a ''Master Matrix'' that the religious world calls the Kingdom of Heaven. 528 is now determined to be the ''key to the house of David,'' prophesied in the Bible (Isaiah 22:22 and Rev. 3:6-8), compelling the promised 1000 years of world peace.
- The revelations here are ''mind-blowing'' and ''life-changing.'' This evidence merges science and theology to explain spirituality as vibrating energy. These revelations secure your freedom from doctrines that are downright foolish, poisoning, and dis-easing.
- Shocking and uplifting findings expose what's missing and neglected in science, religion, medicine, and metaphysics that is optimally healing, freeing, and sustaining.
- Walk on Water provides startling proof of heaven on earth; the musical manifestation of the material world, and the mathematics of spirituality and Love connecting your heart to the center of the universe!
- If your search for purpose and meaning in life is ongoing; if you've been challenged by modern stresses and strains; if political events, economic burdens, and environmental concerns trouble you; or if your health and well-being needs boosting, Dr. Horowitz provides an unparalleled peek into your Creator's technology. He unearths compelling scientific evidence of your spiritual sustenance, and gives practical advice for your success as a powerful co-creator.
- If you are interested in alternative medicine, metaphysics, music, simple mathematics, chanting, or praying, Dr. Horowitz relays great news. Walk on Water ''opens doors that no man can close'' regarding your spirituality, unity with Divine family, and the importance of your family and community for personal development, spiritual evolution, and planetary salvation.
- THIS BOOK MONUMENTALLY PRESENTS THE SCIENTIFIC PROOF OF ''INTELLIGENT DESIGN'' UNDERLYING EVOLUTION & HEALING. IT EXPLAINS THE LUNACY OF PRACTICING CHEMICAL TOXICITY AND PHARMACEUTICAL SORCERY WHEN DIVINE INTELLIGENCE AND NATURAL HEALING IS CURRENTLY AVAILABLE TO EVERYONE.
- Read Dr. Horowitz's Evolve! Interview on WoWRead a WoW Book Review from Oneness Press
- Healing Codes for the Biological Apocalypse''Healing Codes'' returns the most precious spiritual knowledge, power and ''healing codes'' in the Bible to humanity. It offers new hope for the loving masses to survive the worldwide plagues, famine and weather changes that are now at hand. In perfect time for these cataclysmic events, Healing Codes presents an urgent, monumental and inspired work that will be hailed for generations to come. In this book, Dr. Horowitz and Dr.Puleo investigate 2000 years of religious and political mischief, and the latest technologies being used to enslave, coerce, and even kill billions of unsuspecting people. Must reading!
- Love The Real Da Vinci Code
- LOVE the Real Da Vinci CODE is prompting a natural healing revolution worldwide. In this astonishing and monumental book, ''World Leading Intellectual,'' Dr. Leonard Horowitz, decrypts Leonardo Da Vinci's most famous drawing, The Vitruvian (Wo)Man that provides the most powerful knowledge for recreating yourself in perfect health vibrationally, musically and mathematically, with LOVE. This book provides practical knowledge and exercises to regain your physical harmony and health most rapidly. It maps your way to spiritual, metaphysical, and theological integrity, most definitely. Written to serve evolution for Divine-human communion, personal empowerment, and a life full of miraculous manifestations, the hardcover book, or e-book is available here.
- Emerging Viruses: AIDS & Ebola''Nature, Accident or Intentional?
- This is Dr. Leonard G. Horowitz's national best-seller (that the New York Times refused to review and the mainstream media has censored. This massive medical research text written for ''intelligent readers'' provides the first in-depth exploration into the origins of HIV and Ebola.
- Claims that ''emerging viruses,'' AIDS, Ebola, herpes viruses, HPV, hepatitis A, B, and C, Epstein Barr, and the new flu viruses ''naturally evolved'' and then jumped species to infect humanity seem grossly unfounded in light of the compelling evidence assembled in this monumental text.
- Alternatively, the evidence is irrefutable that these bizarre germs were laboratory creations, accidentally or intentionally transmitted via tainted hepatitis and smallpox vaccines in the U.S. and Africa '' as numerous authorities have alleged, but no one like Dr. Horowitz has been able to prove. This text presents several ''smoking guns.'' (For much compelling primary source reading, buy copies of the Special Virus Cancer Program progress reports.
- Emerging Viruses by Horowitz reviews numerous viral vaccine studies conducted in New York City and Central West Africa by a network of virologists working for major military/medical contractors under the auspices of the National Cancer Institute and the World Health Organization.
- Read Reviews of Emerging Viruses
- Highest Recommendation and Glowing Praise
- A Review in The CrusadorDNA: Pirates of the Sacred Spiral
- Description: Based on the latest science, this monumental book considers both uses and abuses of DNA '-- ''The Sacred Spiral.'' Stunning evidence compiled herein probes DNA is nature's bioaccoustic and electromagnetic (that is, ''spiritual'') energy receiver, signal transformer, and quantum sound and light transmitter. In other words, the bioenergetics of genetics precipitates life. These scientific revelations bring expanded spiritual meaning to life, physical embodiment, and even evolution. Yet, leading genetic industrialists prefer to keep these uplifting and freeing truths secret. The infamous untrustworthy ''Human Genome Pirates'' operate covertly, controlling genetic patents, spin-off technologies, and public information dissemination. With the world's most powerful banking and pharmaceutical cartel behind them, they now control civilization's destiny. The greatest risk of manipulation and threatened extinction is at hand. As humanity teeters on the brink of unprecedented DNA-mediated, spiritual ascendance or complete enslavement if not extinction, argues award winning author and public health expert, Dr. Leonard Horowitz, this riveting prose provides critical direction for humanity's physical spiritual salvation. This book offers revolutionary new views of emerging genetic research consistent with largely secreted science and sacred spiritual knowledge. Chapters incorporated this metaphysical science non-fiction thriller include discussions of electro-genetics, quantum physics, bioholography, human consciousness, and even spiritual dynamics, to accomplish an urgent mission: awaken humanity to the highest levels of risk awareness and accountability for our planet's destiny.
- Highest Recommendation and Glowing Praise from Reviewers.
- Click here to read reviews.Exposes the Scams and White Collar Criminals Behind America's ''War on Terrorism''Death in the Air: Globalism, Terrorism & Toxic Warfare
- In the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on America, and the pending ''Space Preservation Act of 2002'' (H.R. 3616), this prophetically titled masterpiece is MUST AND URGENT READING! By giving you the full background and complete picture of who funds global terrorist organizations AND space based-weapons, and for what demonic purposes, Dr. Horowitz's latest book may help save the planet and millions of lives. Released in June 2001, this award-winning author's predictions have now come true. Coming soon is biowarfare, increasing global plagues, nuclear threats, more massive droughts and earthquakes, and population control technologies operated from space and effective beyond your wildest nightmares. Will you be prepared with the intelligence you and your loved ones need to survive? For beginners, this book is a crash course and reality check. For seasoned preparedness and conspiracy buffs, here is your next level, urgent lessons, and stunning documentation! Again, this intelligence may be crucial to you and your family's physical and spiritual survival. Order it Now!
- Healing Celebrations: Miraculous Recoveries Through Ancient Scripture, Natural Medicine & Modern Science
- Healing Celebrations reveals the hidden truths regarding your health, well-being, and miraculous healing. Drawing on ancient scriptures, natural medicine, and modern science, these truths, applied in your life, can help you turn illnesses into blessings and life threatening diseases into supernatural recoveries. Dr. Horowitz presents his powerfully therapeutic protocol in this book adopted by thousands of health professionals worldwide. This book, and related seminars conducted by Dr. Horowitz, delivers an extraordinary message of hope at a challenging time in human history, especially for people in need of healing.
- Horowitz 'On Vaccines' (CD)
- This is the greatest life-saving product Dr. Horowitz ever produced.
- Horowitz 'On Vaccines' was our best-selling CD for years. This extraordinary 90-minute compilation of Dr. Horowitz's lecture presentations and interviews covers what health authorities are withholding about the inefficacy and danger of vaccinations. Included is information that will make the staunchest vaccine proponent balk. Instructions for demanding your civil and religious right to refuse vaccines for your children are included. This CD has literally saved thousands of lives!
- Horowitz 'Headaches & TMJ Pain Syndrome'Dr. Horowitz draws on his sixteen (16) years in clinical practice with a multi-disciplinary team of specialists treating head and neck pain patients referred from stymied caregivers from Harvard, Tufts and Boston's Northshore. This is an awesome self-care package that takes you through everything you need to know and do to rid yourself of the underlying causes of chronic head and neck pains. If medical and dental experts have let you down, start here to get lasting relief.
- The Rockefeller University >> Natural infection versus vaccination: Differences in COVID antibody responses emerge
- Colored transmission electron micrograph (TEM) of SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus particles. Credit: National Infection Service/SCI.
- This news story has been updated to reflect the publication of the study, previously available on BioRxiv, in a peer-reviewed journal.
- Hope for a future without fear of COVID-19 comes down to circulating antibodies and memory B cells. Unlike circulating antibodies, which peak soon after vaccination or infection only to fade a few months later, memory B cells can stick around to prevent severe disease for decades. And they evolve over time, learning to produce successively more potent ''memory antibodies'' that are better at neutralizing the virus and more capable of adapting to variants.
- Vaccination produces greater amounts of circulating antibodies than natural infection. But a new study suggests that not all memory B cells are created equal. While vaccination gives rise to memory B cells that evolve over a few weeks, natural infection births memory B cells that continue to evolve over several months, producing highly potent antibodies adept at eliminating even viral variants.
- The findings highlight an advantage bestowed by natural infection rather than vaccination, but the authors caution that the benefits of stronger memory B cells do not outweigh the risk of disability and death from COVID-19.
- ''While a natural infection may induce maturation of antibodies with broader activity than a vaccine does'--a natural infection can also kill you,'' says Michel C. Nussenzweig, the Zanvil A. Cohn and Ralph M. Steinman professor and head of Rockefeller's Laboratory of Molecular Immunology. ''A vaccine won't do that and, in fact, protects against the risk of serious illness or death from infection.''
- When any virus enters the body, immune cells immediately churn out hordes of circulating antibodies. Foot soldiers of the immune system, these antibodies burn bright but decay at variable rates depending on the vaccine or infection'--they may protect us for months or years but then dwindle in number, allowing possible reinfection.
- The immune system has a backup plan: an elite cadre of memory B cells that outlive circulating antibodies to produce so-called memory antibodies that provide long-term protection. Studies suggest that memory B cells for smallpox last at least 60 years after vaccination; those for Spanish flu, nearly a century. And while memory B cells don't necessarily block reinfection, they can prevent severe disease.
- Recent studies have suggested that within five months of receiving a vaccine or recovering from a natural infection, some of us no longer retain sufficient circulating antibodies to keep the novel coronavirus at bay, but our memory B cells stand vigilant. Until now, however, scientists did not know whether the vaccines could be expected to provide the sort of robust memory B cell response seen after natural infection.
- The convalescent advantage
- Nussenzweig and colleagues resolved to tease out any differences in memory B cell evolution by comparing blood samples from convalescent COVID-19 patients to those from mRNA-vaccinated individuals who had never suffered natural infection.
- Vaccination and natural infection elicited similar numbers of memory B cells. Memory B cells rapidly evolved between the first and second dose of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, producing increasingly potent memory antibodies. But after two months, progress stalled. The memory B cells were present in large numbers and expressed potent antibodies, but the antibodies were not getting any stronger. Also, although some of these antibodies were able to neutralize Delta and other variants, there was no overall improvement in breadth.
- With convalescent patients, on the other hand, memory B cells continued to evolve and improve up to one year after infection. More potent and more broadly neutralizing memory antibodies were coming out with every memory B cell update.
- There are several potential reasons that memory B cells produced by natural infection might be expected to outperform those produced by mRNA vaccines, the researchers say.
- It is possible that the body responds differently to viruses that enter through the respiratory tract than those that are injected into our upper arms. Or perhaps an intact virus goads the immune system in a way that the lone spike protein represented by the vaccines simply cannot. Then again, maybe it's that the virus persists in the naturally infected for weeks, giving the body more time to mount a robust response. The vaccine, on the other hand, is flushed out of the body mere days after triggering the desired immune response.
- Regardless of the cause, the implications are clear. We can expect memory B cells to undergo limited volleys of evolution in response to mRNA vaccines, a finding that may have significant implications for the design and rollout of booster shots. A booster with the currently available mRNA vaccine would be expected to engage memory cells to produce circulating antibodies that are strongly protective against the original virus and somewhat less so against the variants, Nussenzweig says.
- ''When to administer the booster depends on the object of boosting,'' he says. ''If the goal is to prevent infection, then boosting will need to be done after 6 to 18 months depending on the immune status of the individual. If the goal is to prevent serious disease boosting may not be necessary for years.''
- How Much Does Truvada for PrEP Cost?
- Truvada is a type of drug that helps reduce the risk of HIV infection, which is called pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP). It blocks an enzyme that the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) needs to copy itself inside your body.
- When you take Truvada every day, it can lessen the chance that you'll get HIV from sex by about 99%, and from injecting drugs by about 74%. The one downside to Truvada is that it's very expensive for people who don't have health insurance.
- How much does a Truvada prescription cost?A month's supply of Truvada is nearly $2,000 without insurance. Most private health insurance companies, Medicare, and Medicaid will cover the cost. But private insurers may charge high copayments -- the amount you have to pay out of pocket for the drug.
- In 2019, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force -- a panel of disease prevention experts -- recommended that doctors prescribe PrEP for anyone at high risk for HIV. That includes men who have sex with men, straight people who might catch HIV through sex, and people who inject drugs.
- Because of this decision, most health insurance plans will be required to cover Truvada and the other PrEP drug, Descovy. If you're in an at-risk group, you shouldn't have to pay anything out of pocket. In the meantime, assistance programs could help you cover the cost of PrEP if you qualify for them.
- What assistance programs can help?Here are some of the programs that will cover some or all the cost of Truvada:
- Advancing Access Medication Assistance Program
- Who sponsors it: Gilead, the maker of Truvada
- What it covers: Out-of-pocket costs for Truvada, up to $7,200 per year. It doesn't cover the costs of doctor visits or lab tests.
- Who is eligible: People who don't have health insurance, or whose health insurance won't cover Truvada. There are no income restrictions.
- Who sponsors it: The U.S. Department of Health & Human Services and Gilead, which donates 2.4 million bottles of Truvada and Descovy to the program each year
- What it covers: The cost of Truvada
- Who is eligible: People who don't have prescription drug coverage, have tested negative for HIV, and have a prescription for Truvada
- Who sponsors it: The Patient Advocate Foundation, a nonprofit organization that helps people with chronic or life-threatening diseases
- What it covers: Out-of-pocket costs for Truvada, up to $7,500 per year. It doesn't cover the costs of doctor visits or lab tests.
- Who is eligible: People who don't have health insurance, or whose insurance plan doesn't cover Truvada. Your income must be below 400% of the current federal poverty level.
- Who sponsors it: Good Days, a nonprofit organization that offers resources for people who don't have access to health care
- What it covers: Out-of-pocket costs for Truvada, up to $7,500 per year
- Who is eligible: People with Medicare or military insurance coverage whose income level is at or below 500% of the current federal poverty level
- A few states have their own drug assistance programs that cover out-of-pocket expenses for PrEP. Some will also cover the costs of doctor visits and lab tests. Requirements to qualify for these programs differ by state.
- States with PrEP assistance programs are:
- CaliforniaColoradoDistrict of ColumbiaIllinoisMassachusettsNew York stateOhioWashington stateTo learn about these programs, contact your state's department of public health.
- Is there a generic version?Generic drugs work the same way as the brand-name versions. The difference is that generics usually cost less.
- Right now, no generic drug is available for PrEP, but one should be soon. How much it will cost, and whether it will be cheaper than the brand-name version, is still unknown.
- AIDS and the AZT Scandal: 1989 Feature
- At the end of 1989, two years after we had started the highly controversial AIDS column in SPIN, we published an article by Celia Farber called ''Sins of Omission'' about the truly bad and corrupt science surrounding promoting AZT as a treatment for the syndrome of diseases.
- Celia was the editor and frequent writer of the column and unearthed hard evidence of the cold-bloodedness of the AIDS establishment pushing a drug that was worse than the disease, and killed faster than the natural progression of AIDS left untreated. AZT had been an abandoned cancer drug, discarded because of it's fatal toxicity, resurrected in the cynical belief that AIDS patients were going to die anyway, so trying it out was sort of like playing with the house's money. Because the drug didn't require the usual massively expensive research and trial processes, having gone through that years earlier, it was insanely profitable for its maker, Burroughs Wellcome. It was a tragically perfect storm of windfall profits, something to pacify AIDS activists and the media, and a convenient boom to the patent holders for HIV testing.
- Celia '-- who should get the Congressional Medal of Honor for her brave and relentless reporting, here and throughout the ten years we ran the column '-- exposed the worthlessness of the drug, the shady studies and deals to suppress the negative findings, and its awful and final consequences. This piece very literally changed the media's view of AIDS and sharpened their discerning and skeptical eye. And soon after, AZT was once again shelved, hopefully this time forever.
- Many times over the years since, people have come up to me and said that reading this article saved their lives, that they either stopped taking the drug and their health improved vastly, or they never took it because of what we reported. Nothing ever made me prouder.
- '-- Bob Guccione Jr., founder of SPIN, October 3, 2015
- [This story was originally published in the November 1989 issue of SPIN. In honor of SPIN's 30th anniversary, we've republished this piece as part of our ongoing ''30 Years, 30 Stories'' series.]
- On a cold January day in 1987, inside one of the brightly-lit meeting rooms of the monstrous FDA building, a panel of 11 top AIDS doctors pondered a very difficult decision. They had been asked by the FDA to consider giving lightning-quick approval to a highly toxic drug about which there was very little information. Clinically called Zidovudine, but nicknamed AZT after its components, the drug was said to have shown a dramatic effect on the survival of AIDS patients. The study that had brought the panel together had set the medical community abuzz. It was the first flicker of hope '-- people were dying much faster on the placebo than on the drug.
- But there were tremendous concerns about the new drug. It had actually been developed a quarter of a century earlier as a cancer chemotherapy, but was shelved and forgotten because it was so toxic, very expensive to produce, and totally ineffective against cancer. Powerful, but unspecific, the drug was not selective in its cell destruction.
- Drug companies around the world were sifting through hundreds of compounds in the race to find a cure, or at least a treatment, for AIDS. Burroughs Wellcome, a subsidiary of Wellcome, a British drug company, emerged as the winner. By chance, they sent the failed cancer drug, then known as Compound S, to the National Cancer Institute along with many others to see if it could slay the AIDS dragon, HIV. In the test tube at least, it did. At the meeting, there was a lot of uncertainty and discomfort with AZT. The doctors who had been consulted knew that the study was flawed and that the long-range effects were completely unknown. But the public was almost literally baying at the door. Understandably, there was immense pressure on the FDA to approve AZT, considering the climate of fear and anger all around.*
- Everybody was worried about this one. To approve it, said Ellen Cooper, an FDA director, would represent a ''significant and potentially dangerous departure from our normal toxicology requirements.'' Just before approving the drug, one doctor on the panel, Calvin Kunin, summed up their dilemma. ''On the one hand,'' he said, ''to deny a drug which decreases mortality in a population such as this would be inappropriate. On the other hand, to use this drug widely, for areas where efficacy has not been demonstrated, with a potentially toxic agent, might be disastrous.''
- ''We do not know what will happen a year from now,'' said panel chairman Dr. Itzhak Brook. ''The data is just too premature, and the statistics are not really well done. The drug could actually be detrimental.'' A little later, he said he was also ''struck by the fact that AZT does not stop deaths. Even those who were switched to AZT still kept dying.''
- ''I agree with you,'' answered another panel member, ''there are so many unknowns. Once a drug is approved, there is no telling how it could be abused. There's no going back.'' Burroughs Wellcome reassured the panel that they would provide detailed two-year follow-up data, and that they would not let the drug get out of its intended parameters: as a stopgap measure for very sick patients.
- Dr. Brook was not won over by the promise. ''If we approve it today, there will not be much data. There will be a promise of data,'' he predicted, ''but then the production of data will be hampered.'' Brook's vote was the only one cast against approval.
- ''There was not enough data, not enough follow-up,'' Brook recalls. ''Many of the questions we asked the company were answered by, 'We have not analyzed the data yet,' or, 'We do not know.' I felt that there was some promising data, but was very worried about the price being paid for it. The side effects were so very severe. It was chemotherapy. Patients were going to need blood transfusions, that's very serious.''
- ''The committee was tending to agree with me,'' says Brook, ''that we should wait a little bit, be more cautious. But once the FDA realized we were intending to reject it, they applied political pressure. At about 4 p.m., the head of the FDA's Center for Drugs and Biologics asked permission to speak, which is extremely unusual. Usually they leave us alone. But he said to us, 'Look, if you approve the drug, we can assure you that we will work together with Burroughs Wellcome and make sure the drug is given to the right people.' It was like saying 'please do it.'''
- Brad Stone, FDA press officer, was at that meeting. He says he doesn't recall that particular speech, but that there is nothing ''unusual'' about FDA officials making such speeches at advisory meetings. ''There was no political pressure,'' he says. ''The people in that meeting approved the drug because the data the company had produced proved it was prolonging life. Sure it was toxic, but they concluded that the benefits clearly outweighed the risks.'' The meeting ended. AZT, which several members of the panel still felt uncomfortable with and feared could be a time bomb, was approved.
- [featuredStoryParallax id=''165197'" thumb=''http://static.spin.com/files/2015/10/aids-research-now-1992-145145.jpg'']
- Flash forward: August 17, 1989. Newspapers across America banner-headlined that AZT had been ''proven to be effective in HIV antibody-positive, asymptomatic, and early ARC patients,'' even though one of the panel's main concerns was that the drug should only be used in a last-case scenario for critically-ill AIDS patients, due to the drug's extreme toxicity. Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), was now pushing to expand prescription.
- The FDA's traditional concern had been thrown to the wind. Already the drug had spread to 60 countries and an estimated 20,000 people. Not only had no new evidence allayed the initial concerns of the panel, but the follow-up data, as Dr. Brook predicted, had fallen by the wayside. The beneficial effects of the drug had proven to be temporary. The toxicity, however, stayed the same.
- The majority of those in the AIDS-afflicted and medical communities held the drug up as the first breakthrough on AIDS. For better or worse, AZT had been approved faster than any drug in FDA history, and activists considered it a victory. The price paid for the victory, however, was that almost all government drug trials, from then on, focused on AZT '-- while over 100 other promising drugs were left uninvestigated.
- Burroughs Wellcome stock went through the roof when the announcement was made. At a price of $8.000 per patient per year (not including blood-work and transfusions), AZT is the most expensive drug ever marketed. Burroughs Wellcome's gross profits for next year are estimated at $230 million. Stock market analysts predict that Burroughs Wellcome may be selling as much as $2 billion worth of AZT, under the brand name Retrovir, each year by the mid-1990s '-- matching Burroughs Wellcome's total sales for all its products last year.
- ''Does AZT do anything? Yes, it does. But the evidence that it does something against HIV is really not there.''
- AZT is the only antiretroviral drug that has received FDA approval for treatment of AIDS since the epidemic began ten years ago, and the decision to approve it was based on a single study that has long been declared invalid. The study was intended to be a ''double-blind placebo-controlled study,'' the only kind of study that can effectively prove whether or not a drug works. In such a study, neither patient nor doctor is supposed to know if the patient is getting the drug or a placebo. In the case of AZT, the study became unblinded on all sides, after just a few weeks.
- Both sides contributed to the unblinding. It became obvious to doctors who was getting what because AZT causes such severe side effects that AIDS per se does not. Furthermore, a routine blood count known as a CMV, which clearly shows who is on the drug and who is not, wasn't whited out in the reports. Both of these facts were accepted and confirmed by both the FDA and Burroughs Wellcome, who conducted the study.
- Many of the patients who were in the trial admitted that they had analyzed their capsules to find out whether they were getting the drug. If they weren't, some bought the drug on the underground market. Also, the pills were supposed to be indistinguishable by taste, but they were not. Although this was corrected early on, the damage was already done. There were also reports that patients were pooling pills out of solidarity to each other. The study was so severely flawed that its conclusions must be considered, by the most basic scientific standards, unproven.
- The most serious problem with the original study, however, is that it was never completed. Seventeen weeks into the study, when more patients had died in the placebo group, the study was stopped, five months prematurely, for ''ethical'' reasons: It was considered unethical to keep giving people a placebo when the drug might keep them alive longer. Because the study was stopped short, and all subjects were put on AZT, no scientific study can ever be conducted to prove unequivocally whether AZT does prolong life.
- Dr. Brook, who voted against approval, warned at the time that AZT, being the only drug available for doctors to prescribe to AIDS patients, would probably have a runaway effect. Approving it prematurely, he said, would be like ''letting the genie out of the bottle.''
- Brook pointed out that since the drug is a form of chemotherapy, it should only be prescribed by doctors who have experience with chemotherapeutic drugs. Because of the most severe toxic effect of AZT '-- cell depletion of the bone marrow '--patients would need frequent blood transfusions. As it happened, AZT was rampantly prescribed as soon as it was released, way beyond its purported parameters. The worst-case scenario had come true: Doctors interviewed by the New York Times later in 1987 revealed that they were already giving AZT to healthy people who had tested positive for antibodies to HIV.
- The FDA's function is to weigh a drug's efficacy against its potential hazards. The equation is simple and obvious: A drug must unquestionably repair more than it damages, otherwise the drug itself may cause more harm than the disease it is supposed to fight. Exactly what many doctors and scientists fear is happening with AZT.
- ''I personally do not prescribe AZT. I have continued to experience that people live longer who are not on it.''
- AZT was singled out among hundreds of compounds when Dr. Sam Broder, the head of the National Cancer Institute (NCI), found that it ''inhibited HIV viral replication in vitro.'' AIDS is considered a condition of immune suppression caused by the HIV virus replicating and eating its way into T-4 cells, which are essential to the immune system. HIV is a retrovirus which contains an enzyme called reverse transcriptase that converts viral RNA to DNA. AZT was thought to work by interrupting this DNA synthesis, thus stopping further replication of the virus.
- While it was always known that the drug was exceedingly toxic, the first study concluded that ''the risk/benefit ratio was in favor of the patient.''
- In the study that won FDA approval for AZT, the one fact that swayed the panel of judges was that the AZT group outlived the placebo group by what appeared to be a landslide. The ace card of the study, the one that canceled out the issue of the drug's enormous toxicity, was that 19 persons had died in the placebo group and only one in the AZT group. The AZT recipients were also showing a lower incidence of opportunistic infections.
- While this data staggered the panel that approved the drug, other scientists insisted that it meant nothing '-- because it was so shabbily gathered, and because of the unblinding. Shortly after the study was stopped, the death rate accelerated in the AZT group. ''There was no great difference after a while,'' says Dr. Brook, ''between the treated and the untreated group.''
- ''That study was so sloppily done that it really didn't mean much,'' says Dr. Joseph Sonnabend, a leading New York City AIDS doctor. Dr. Harvey Bialy, scientific editor of the journal Biotechnology, is stunned by the low quality of science surrounding AIDS research. When asked if he had seen any evidence of the claims made for AZT, that it ''prolongs life'' in AIDS patients, Bialy said, ''No, I have not seen a published study that is rigorously done, analyzed, and objectively reported.''
- Bialy, who is also a molecular biologist, is horrified by the widespread use of AZT, not just because it is toxic, but because, he insists, the claims its widespread use are based upon are false. ''I can't see how this drug could be doing anything other than making people very sick,'' he says.
- [featuredStoryParallax id=''165201'" thumb=''http://static.spin.com/files/2015/10/aids-azt-treatment-145145.jpg'']
- The scientific facts about AZT and AIDS are indeed astonishing. Most ironically, the drug has been found to accelerate the very process it was said to prevent: the loss of T-4 cells.
- ''Undeniably, AZT kills T-4 cells [white blood cells vital to the immune system],'' says Bialy. ''No one can argue with that. AZT is a chain-terminating nucleotide, which means that it stops DNA replication. It seeks out any cell that is engaged in DNA replication and kills it. The place where most of this replication is taking place is in the bone marrow. That's why the most common and severe side effect of the drug is bone marrow toxicity. That is why they [patients] need blood transfusions.''
- AZT has been aggressively and repeatedly marketed as a drug that prolongs survival in AIDS patients because it stops the HIV virus from replicating and spreading to healthy cells. But, says Bialy: ''There is no good evidence that HIV actively replicates in a person with AIDS, and if there isn't much HIV replication to stop, it's mostly killing healthy cells.''
- University of California at Berkeley scientist Dr. Peter Duesberg drew the same conclusion in a paper published in Proceedings, the journal of the National Academy of Sciences. Duesberg, whose paper addressed his contention that HIV is not a sufficient cause for AIDS, wrote: ''Even if HIV were to cause AIDS, it would hardly be a legitimate target for AZT therapy, because in 70 to 100 percent of antibody-positive persons, proviral DNA is not detectable'... and its biosynthesis has never been observed.''
- As a chemotherapeutic drug, explained Duesberg, AZT ''kills dividing blood cells and other cells,'' and is thus ''directly immunosuppressive.''
- ''The cell is almost a million-fold bigger target than the virus, so the cell will be much, much more sensitive,'' says Duesberg. ''Only very few cells, about one in 10,000, are actively making the virus containing DNA, so you must kill incredibly large numbers of cells to inhibit the virus. This kind of treatment could only theoretically help if you have a massive infection, which is not the case with AIDS. Meanwhile, they're giving this drug that ends up killing millions of lymphocytes [white blood cells]. It's beyond me how that could possibly be beneficial.''
- ''It doesn't really kill them,'' Burroughs Wellcome scientist Sandra Lehrman argues. ''You don't necessarily have to destroy the cell, you can just change the function of it. Furthermore, while the early data said that only very few cells were infected, new data says that there may be more cells infected. We have more sensitive detection techniques now.''
- ''Changes their function? From what '-- functioning to not functioning? Another example of mediocre science,'' says Bialy. ''The 'sensitive detection technique' to which Dr. Lehrman refers, PCR, is a notoriously unreliable one upon which to base quantitative conclusions.''
- When specific questions about the alleged mechanisms of AZT are asked, the answers are long, contradictory, and riddled with unknowns. Every scientific point raised about the drug is eventually answered with the blanket response, ''The drug is not perfect, but it's all we have right now.'' About the depletion of T-4 cells and other white cells, Lehrman says, ''We don't know why T-4 cells go up at first, and then go down. That is one of the drug mechanisms that we are trying to understand.''
- When promoters of AZT are pressed on key scientific points, whether at the NIH, FDA, Burroughs Wellcome, or an AIDS organization, they often become angry. The idea that the drug is ''doing something,'' even though this is invariably followed with irritable admissions that there are ''mechanisms about the drug and disease we don't understand,'' is desperately clung to. It is as if, in the eye of the AIDS storm, the official, government-agency sanctioned position is immunized against critique. Skepticism and challenge, so essential to scientific progress and so prevalent in every other area of scientific endeavor, is not welcome in the AZT debate, where it is arguably needed more than anywhere else.
- The results, finally and ironically, are what damns AZT.
- The toxic effects of AZT, particularly bone marrow suppression and anemia, are so severe that up to 50 percent of all AIDS and ARC patients cannot tolerate it and have to be taken off it. In the approval letter that Burroughs Wellcome sent to the FDA, all of 50 additional side effects of AZT, aside from the most common ones, were listed. These included: loss of mental acuity, muscle spasms, rectal bleeding, and tremors.
- Anemia, one of AZT's common side effects, is the depletion of red blood cells, and, according to Duesberg, ''Red blood cells are the one thing you cannot do without. Without red cells, you cannot pick up ???gen.''
- Fred, a person with AIDS, was put on AZT and suffered such severe anemia from the drug he had to be taken off it. In an interview in the AIDS handbook Surviving and Thriving With AIDS, he described what anemia feels like to editor Michael Callen: ''I live in a studio and my bathroom is a mere five-step walk from my bed. I would just lie there for two hours; I couldn't get up to take those five steps. When I was taken to the hospital, I had to have someone come over to dress me. It's that kind of severe fatigue. The quality of my life was pitiful'... I've never felt so bad'... I stopped the AZT and the mental confusion, the headaches, the pains in the neck, the nausea, all disappeared within a 24-hour period.''
- ''I feel very good at this point,'' Fred went on. ''I feel like the quality of my life was a disaster two weeks ago. And it really was causing a great amount of fear in me, to the point where I was taking sleeping pills to calm down. I was so worried. I would totally lose track of what I was saying in the middle of a sentence. I would lose my directions on the street.''
- ''Many AIDS patients are anemic even before they receive the drug,'' says Burroughs Wellcome's Dr. Lehrman, ''because HIV itself can infect the bone marrow and cause anemia.''
- This argument betrays a bizarre reasoning. If AIDS patients are already burdened with problems such as immune suppression, bone marrow toxicity, and anemia, is compounding these problems an improvement?
- ''Yes, AZT is a form of chemotherapy,'' says the man who invented the compound a quarter-century ago, Jerome Horwitz. ''It is cytotoxic, and as such, it causes bone marrow toxicity and anemia. There are problems with the drug. It's not perfect. But I don't think anybody would agree that AZT is of no use. People can holler from now until doomsday that it is toxic, but you have to go with the results.''
- The results, finally and ironically, are what damns AZT. Several studies on the clinical effects of AZT '-- including the one that Burroughs Wellcome's approval was based on '-- have drawn the same conclusion: that AZT is effective for a few months, but that its effect drops off sharply after that. Even the original AZT study showed that T-4 cells went up for a while and then plummeted. HIV levels went down, and then came back up. This fact was well-known when the advisory panel voted for approval. As panel member Dr. Stanley Lemon said in the meeting, ''I am left with the nagging thought that after seeing several of these slides, that after 16 to 24 weeks '-- 12 to 16 weeks, I guess '-- the effect seems to be declining.''
- A follow-up meeting, two weeks after the original Burroughs Wellcome study, was scheduled to discuss the long-range effects of AZT and the survival statistics. As one doctor present at that meeting in May 1988 recalls, ''They hadn't followed up the study. Anything that looked beneficial was gone within half a year. All they had were some survival statistics averaging 44 weeks. The p24 didn't pan out and there no persistent improvement in T-4 cells.''
- HIV levels in the blood are measured by an antigen called p24. Burroughs Wellcome made the claim that AZT lowered this level, that is, lowered the amount of HIV in the blood. At the first FDA meeting, Burroughs-Welcome emphasized how the drug had ''lowered'' the p24 levels; at the follow-up meeting they didn't even mention it.
- As that meeting was winding down, Dr. Michael Lange, head of the AIDS program at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital in New York spoke up about this. ''The claim of AZT is made on the fact that it is supposed to have an antiviral effect,'' he said to Burroughs Wellcome, ''and on this we have seen no data at all'... Since there is a report in the Lancet [a leading British medical journal] that after 20 weeks or so, in many patients p24 came back, do you have any data on that?''
- ''What counts is the bottom line,'' one of the scientists representing Burroughs Wellcome summed up, ''the survival, the neurologic function, the absence of progression and the quality of life, all of which are better. Whether you call it better because of some antiviral effect, or some other antibacterial effect, they are still better.''
- Dr. Lange suggested that the drug may be effective in the same way a simple anti-inflammatory, such as aspirin, is effective. An inexpensive, nontoxic drug called Indomecithin, he pointed out, might serve the same function, without the devastating side effects.
- One leading AIDS researcher, who was part of the FDA approval process, says today: ''Does AZT do anything? Yes, it does. But the evidence that it does something against HIV is really not there.''
- ''There have always been drugs that we use without knowing exactly how they work,'' says Nobel Prize winner Walter Gilbert. ''The really important thing to look at is the clinical effect. Is the drug helping or isn't it?''
- A physician with extensive experience with AIDS patients who asked to remain anonymous told SPIN, point blank: ''I personally do not prescribe AZT. I have continued to experience that people live longer who are not on it.''
- ''I'm living proof that AZT works,'' says one person with ARC on AZT. ''I've been on it for two years now, and I'm certainly healthier than I was two years ago. It's not a cure-all, it's not a perfect drug, but it's effective. It's slowing down the progression of the disease.''
- ''Sometimes I fee like I'm swallowing Drano,'' says another. ''I mean, sometimes I have problems swallowing. I just don't like the idea of taking something that foreign to my body. But every six hours, I've got to swallow it. Until something better comes along, this is what is available to me.''
- ''I am absolutely convinced that people enjoy a better quality of life and survive longer who do not take AZT,'' says Gene Fedorko, President of Health Education AIDS Liaison (HEAL). ''I think it's horrible the way people are bullied by their doctors to take this drug. We get people coming to us shaking and crying because their doctors said they'll die if they don't take AZT. That is an absolute lie.'' Fedorko has drawn his conclusion from years of listening to the stories of people struggling to survive AIDS at HEAL's weekly support group.
- ''I wouldn't take AZT if you paid me,'' says Michael Callen, cofounder of New York City's PWA coalition, Community Research Initiative, and editor of several AIDS journals. Callen has survived AIDS for over seven years without the help of AZT. ''I've gotten the s''t kicked out of me for saying this, but I think using AZT is like aiming a thermonuclear warhead at a mosquito. The overwhelming majority of long-term survivors I've known have chosen not to take AZT.''
- ''I'm convinced that if you gave AZT to a perfectly healthy athlete he would be dead in five years.''
- The last surviving patient from the original AZT trial, according Burroughs Wellcome, died recently. When he died, he had been on AZT for three and one-half years. He was the longest surviving AZT recipient. The longest surviving AIDS patient overall, not on AZT, has lived for eight and one-half years.
- An informal study of long-term survivors of AIDS followed 24 long-term survivors, all of whom had survived AIDS for more than six years. Only one of them had recently begun taking AZT.
- In the early days, AZT was said to extend lives. In actual fact, there is simply no solid evidence that AZT prolongs life.
- ''I think AZT does prolong life in most people,'' says Dr. Bruce Montgomery of the State University of New York at Stony Brook, who is completing a study on AZT. ''There are not very many long-term survivors, and we really don't know why they survive. It could be luck. But most people are not so lucky.''
- ''AZT does seem to help many patients,'' says Dr. Bernard Bahari, a New York City AIDS physician and researcher, ''but it's very hard to determine whether it actually prolongs life.''
- ''Many of the patients I see choose not to take AZT,'' says Dr. Don Abrams of San Francisco General Hospital. ''I've been impressed that survival and lifespan are increasing for all people with AIDS. I think it has a lot to do with aerosolized Pentamadine [a drug that treats pneumocystis carinii pneumonia]. There's also the so-called plague effect, the fact that people get stronger and stronger when a disease hits a population. The patients I see today are not as fragile as the early patients were.''
- ''Whether you live or die with AIDS is a function of how well your doctor treats you, not of AZT,'' says Dr. Joseph Sonnabend, one of New York City's first and most reputable AIDS doctors, whose patients include many long-term survivors, although he has never prescribed AZT. Sonnabend was one of the first to make the simple observation that AIDS patients should be treated for their diseases, not just for their HIV infection.
- Several studies have concluded that AZT has no effect on the two most common opportunistic AIDS infections, Pneumocystic Carinii Pneumonia (PCP) and Kaposi's Sarcoma (KS). The overwhelming majority of AIDS patients die of PCP, for which there has been an effective treatment for decades. This year, the FDA finally approved aerosolized Pentamadine for AIDS. A recent Memorial Sloan Kettering study concluded the following: By 15 months, 80 percent of people on AZT not receiving Pentamadine had a recurrent episode of pneumocystis. Only 5 percent of those people who did get Pentamadine had a recurring episode. ''All those deaths in the AZT study were treatable,'' Sonnabend says. ''They weren't deaths from AIDS, they were deaths from treatable conditions. They didn't even do any autopsies for that study. What kind of faith can one have in these people?''
- ''If there's one resistance to AZT in the general public at all, it's within the gay community of New York,'' says the doctor close to the FDA approval, who asked to remain anonymous. ''The rest of this country has been brainwashed into thinking this drug really does that much. The data has all been manipulated by people who have a lot vested in AZT.''
- ''If AIDS were not the popular disease that it is '-- the money-making and career-making machine '-- these people could not get away with this kind of shoddy science,'' says Bialy. ''In all my years in science I have never seen anything this atrocious.'' When asked if he thought it was at all possible that people have been killed as a result of AZT poisoning rather than AIDS he answered: ''It's more than possible.''
- August 17, 1989: The government has announced that 1.4 million healthy, HIV antibody-positive Americans could ''benefit'' from taking AZT, even though they show no symptoms of disease. New studies have ''proven'' that AZT is effective in stopping the progression of AIDS in asymptomatic and early ARC cases. Dr. Fauci, the head of NIH, proudly announced that a trial has been going on for ''two years'' had ''clearly shown'' that early intervention will keep AIDS at bay. Anyone who has antibodies to HIV and less than 500 T-4 cells should start taking AZT at once, he said. That is approximately 650,000 people. 1.4 million Americans are assumed HIV antibody-positive, and eventually all of them may need to take AZT so they don't get sick, Fauci contended.
- The leading newspapers didn't seem to think it unusual that there was no existing copy of the study, but rather a breezy two-page press release from the NIH. When SPIN called the NIH asking for a copy of the study, we were told that it was ''still being written.''
- We asked a few questions about the numbers. According to the press release, 3,200 early ARC and asymptomatic patients were divided into two groups, one AZT and one placebo, and followed for two years. The two groups were distinguished by T-4 cell counts; one group had less than 500, the other more than 500. These two were then divided into three groups each: high-dose AZT, low-dose AZT, and placebo. In the group with more than 500 T-4 cells, AZT had no effect. In the other group, it was concluded that low-dose AZT was the most effective, followed by high-dose. All in all, 36 out of 900 developed AIDS in the two AZT groups combined, and 38 out of 450 in the placebo group. ''HIV-positive are twice as likely to get AIDS if they don't take AZT,'' the press declared.
- However, the figures are vastly misleading. When we asked how many patients were actually enrolled for a full two years, the NIH said they did not know, but that the average time of participation was one year, not two.
- ''It's terribly dishonest the way they portrayed those numbers,'' says Dr. Sonnabend. ''If there were 60 people in the trial those numbers would mean something, but if you calculate what the percentage is out of 3,200, the difference becomes minute between the two groups. It's nothing. It's hit or miss, and they make it look like it's terribly significant.''
- The study boasted that AZT is much more effective and less toxic at one-third the dosage than has been used for three years now. That's the good news. The bad news is that thousands have already been walloped with 1,500 milligrams of AZT and possibly even died of toxic poisoning '-- and now we're hearing that one third of the dose would have done?
- With all that remains so uncertain about the effects of AZT, it seems criminal to advocate expanding its usage to healthy people, particularly since only a minuscule percentage of the HIV-infected population have actually developed ARC or AIDS.
- Burroughs Wellcome has already launched testing of AZT in asymptomatic hospital workers, pregnant women, and in children, who are getting liquid AZT. The liquid is left over from an aborted trial, and given to the children because they can mix it with water '-- children don't like to swallow pills. It has also been proposed that AZT be given to people who do not yet even test positive for HIV antibodies, but are ''at risk.''
- ''I'm convinced that if you gave AZT to a perfectly healthy athlete,'' says Fedorko, ''he would be dead in five years.''
- ''This is such shoddy science it's hard to believe nobody is protesting.''
- In December 1988, the Lancet published a study that Burroughs Wellcome and the NIH do not include in their press kits. It was more expansive than the original AZT study and followed patients longer. It was not conducted in the United States, but in France, at the Claude Bernard Hospital in Paris, and concluded the same things about AZT that Burroughs Wellcome's study did, except Burroughs Wellcome called their results ''overwhelmingly positive,'' and the French doctors called theirs ''disappointing.'' The French study found, once again, that AZT was too toxic for most to tolerate, had no lasting effect on HIV blood levels, and left the patients with fewer T-4 cells than they started with. Although they noticed a clinical improvement at first, they concluded that ''by six months, these values had returned to their pretreatment levels, and several opportunistic infections, malignancies, and deaths occurred.''
- ''Thus the benefits of AZT are limited to a few months for ARC and AIDS patients,'' the French team concluded. After a few months, the study found, AZT was completely ineffective.
- The news that AZT will soon be prescribed to asymptomatic people has left many leading AIDS doctors dumbfounded and furious. Every doctor and scientist I asked felt that it was highly unprofessional and reckless to announce a study with no data to look at, making recommendations with such drastic public health implications. ''This simply does not happen,'' says Bialy. ''The government is reporting scientific facts before they've been reviewed? It's unheard of.''
- ''It's beyond belief,'' says Dr. Sonnabend in a voice tinged with desperation. ''I don't know what to do. I have to go in and face an office full of people asking for AZT. I'm terrified. I don't know what to do as a responsible physician. The first study was ridiculous. Margaret Fischl, who has done both of these studies, obviously doesn't know the first thing about clinical trials. I don't trust her. Or the others. They're simply not good enough. We're being held hostage by second-rate scientists. We let them get away with the first disaster; now they're doing it again.''
- ''It's a momentous decision to say to people, 'If you're HIV-positive and your T-4 cells are below 500, start taking AZT,''' says the AIDS doctor who wished to remain anonymous. ''I know dozens of people that I've seen personally every few months for several years now who have been in that state for more than five years, and have not progressed to any disease.''
- ''I'm ashamed of my colleagues,'' Sonnabend laments. ''I'm embarrassed. This is such shoddy science it's hard to believe nobody is protesting. Damned cowards. The name of the game is to protect your grant, don't open your mouth. It's all about money'... it's grounds for just following the party line and not being critical, when there are obviously financial and political forces driving this.''
- When Duesberg heard the latest announcement, he was partially stunned over the reaction of Gay Men's Health Crisis President Richard Dunne, who said that GMHC now urged ''everybody to get tested,'' and of course those who test positive to go on to AZT. ''These people are running into the gas chambers,'' says Duesberg. ''Himmler would have been so happy if only the Jews were this cooperative.''
- * = This sentence was changed to correct an error in the original version of this article, which wrongly stated that the FDA had approved Thalidomide.
- Anti-HIV 'Drug Cocktails' Equally Effective in Patients with or without History of Injection Drug Use, August 6, 2008 News Release - National Institutes of Health (NIH)
- Wednesday, August 6, 2008
- Highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) has been extremely effective at slowing the progression of HIV infection to AIDS as well as extending the lives and improving the quality of life for those with HIV. However, some doctors have been reluctant to prescribe HAART to HIV-infected injection drug users because of concern that they may not fully benefit from the therapy. A new study by investigators funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), part of the National Institutes of Health, and led by the British Columbia Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS in Canada, suggests that this is not the case: in their large, community-based study of HIV-infected people, injection drug users and people who did not inject drugs had equivalent survival rates seven years after initiating HAART. These results will be published August 6 in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
- "An estimated one million persons in the United States are living with HIV/AIDS, with approximately one-fourth of these cases attributable to injection drug use," said NIDA Director Dr. Nora D. Volkow. "This paper provides important evidence for the value of routinely providing HAART therapy to HIV-infected injection drug users who need treatment '-- benefiting both the patients and the public at large."
- The study included 3,116 patients aged 18 years or older beginning HAART treatment for HIV, 915 of whom were injection drug users. To compare the number of deaths between the two groups, the researchers took into account that accidental deaths are more common for injection drug users and excluded those deaths from their analyses. When accidental deaths were excluded, the mortality rate seven years after beginning HAART therapy was equivalent for injection drug users (about 22 percent) and people who did not inject drugs (about 19 percent). The authors plan to continue to follow the study participants to gather data on longer-term survival.
- "Hopefully, the findings from this study help address the commonly held assumption that HIV-positive injection drug users do not derive the full benefits of HIV treatment," says Dr. Evan Wood, lead author of the study. "We have an ethical and human rights imperative to deliver HIV care to this population, not only to reduce illness and death, but also to possibly reduce the rate of new infections in the community."
- HAART consists of a 'cocktail' of at least three medications that can decrease HIV viral load. HAART cannot cure a person of HIV infection, which without treatment will almost always progress to AIDS.
- HIV can be transmitted by contact with the blood or other body fluids of an infected person. Among people who inject drugs, HIV transmission can occur through sharing needles and other injection paraphernalia such as cotton swabs and rinse water.
- The National Institute on Drug Abuse is a component of the National Institutes of Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIDA supports most of the world's research on the health aspects of drug abuse and addiction. The Institute carries out a large variety of programs to inform policy and improve practice. Fact sheets on the health effects of drugs of abuse and information on NIDA research and other activities can be found on the NIDA home page at www.drugabuse.gov.
- About the National Institutes of Health (NIH):NIH, the nation's medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit www.nih.gov.
- NIH'...Turning Discovery Into Health®
- Music in this Episode
- Intro: ODB - Shimmy Shimmy Ya - 13 Seconds
- Outro: Peggy Scott Adams - Bill 16 Seconds
- Search for us in your podcast directory or use this link to subscribe to the feed
