There is general agreement that old (pre-1978) American blood samples all test negative for HIV antibodies. This is the reason why most medical epidemiologists believe HIV was introduced into the U.S. sometime around 1978.

Pre-1978 blood specimens taken from gay men in Szmuness' hepatitis experiment have tested negative for HIV. However, examination of 1978-1979 blood samples stored at the New York City Blood Center reportedly show that 6.6% of the gays injected with the hepatitis vaccine were positive for HIV.

How did these gays become HIV-positive in 1978? Was HIV present in New York City before 1978? And if HIV was present in the gay population before 1978, did the virus contaminate Szmuness' vaccine, which was made from the blood of gay men carrying the hepatitis B virus?

It is unlikely that the source of HIV was the pooled gay blood that was used to make the experimental vaccine because the vaccine took 65 weeks to make. This means that vaccine production for Szmuness began in 1977. If HIV was already in the Manhattan gay community in 1977, then some gay blood specimens should have tested positive. But, as stated, 1977 gay blood tests were negative for HIV.

Was HIV "introduced" into the several hundred gay volunteers who were injected with the vaccine in the months before Szmuness' experiment officially began in November 1978? This possibility cannot be discounted.

Despite these unanswered questions, it seems obvious that the source of the AIDS virus traces back to Szmuness' gay experiment. Furthermore, there are no proven cases of AIDS in Manhattan recorded in 1976, or 1977, or 1978. According to CDC epidemiologists, the first proven gay AIDS case appeared in Manhattan in 1979, shortly after the experiment began.

In 1982, one year after the "official" onset of the AIDS epidemic, 30% of the men in the Szmuness experiment were HIV positive! For that year, this extremely high infection rate is the highest rate of HIV infection ever recorded for any "high risk" group in the AIDS medical literature. This 1982 rate of 30% far exceeds the rate for any African population, where Gallo and others claim the disease has been around "for decades" or "for millennia."

Twelve years after the "official" 1981 beginning of the AIDS epidemic, not one AIDS expert has ever commented on the obvious connection between the gay experiment and the exclusive outbreak of AIDS in the gay community.

After Robert Strecker went public with his views in 1986, and after AIDS and the Doctors of Death was published in 1988, the experts invented new theories to explain how AIDS started in the male homosexual community. Strecker and I assumed the government AIDS researchers were feeding stories to the media to discredit our own research into the origin of AIDS.

One theory that quickly disappeared was presented by Mathilde Krim, Ph.D., who is co-chairperson (along with Elizabeth Taylor) of the American Foundation for AIDS Research. In Interview magazine (February 1987) Krim explains how AIDS began in the gay community. "We probably gave AIDS to gay men to start with, by inoculating them with infected gamma globulin, which is probably what happened." (Gamma globulin is a non-sterile, injectable blood product sometimes used to temporarily increase immunity against diseases like hepatitis and other viral diseases.)

According to Krim, the pooled blood used in the production of gamma globulin was accidentally contaminated with the AIDS virus. This contaminated blood was supposedly obtained from prisoners incarcerated in Africa and the Caribbean. She quickly dismisses any association with the 1978 hepatitis B experiment by declaring (erroneously) that "we had AIDS cases before then." She maintains that AIDS cases "occurred at least five years before that" and concludes that "AIDS must have occurred in the early 1970s." (As already mentioned, the CDC traces the first AIDS case back to New York City in 1979.)

Despite Krim's views on the origin of AIDS, I never again saw her theory in print, nor did I ever hear any other AIDS researcher comment on it. The probable reason for this was that her theory had so many holes and inaccuracies that it was impossible to support.

In assessing the origin of AIDS, it is important to realize that there is no scientific agreement on two vitally important questions regarding AIDS and HIV. First: Is AIDS a new disease or an old one? Second: Is HIV a new virus or an old one?

These two questions are further complicated by the fact that AIDS is both a disease and a definition. By definition, AIDS must be caused by HIV, the AIDS virus. Also by definition the "disease" AIDS consists of specific "opportunistic" infections, most of which are "old" diseases (which predate the "introduction" of the AIDS virus).

For example, AIDS-related diseases such as Kaposi's sarcoma have been known for over a century; Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia has been known for over a half century. Confusion as to whether AIDS is new or old is compounded by the claims of AIDS researchers who rediscover "old" cases of Kaposi's and pneumocystis recorded in the medical literature --And then conclude that "AIDS cases have been around for a long time."

Until recently, most AIDS experts have conceded that HIV is a "new" virus, dating back (in the U.S.) to the 1970s, more specifically 1978. In Virus Hunting Robert Gallo states: "The AIDS virus surely became prevalent for the first time only in the 1970s, at least in the United States and other developed nations, but did exist in humans prior to that first recognition of it." As noted, legendary scientist Jonas Salk says the AIDS virus is 900 years old!

Still another source of confusion is that "old" blood may test "false-positive" for HIV. Some African blood tests first reported as "positive" were later retested by more sophisticated methods and found to be "negative." Nevertheless, these "false positive" blood tests were used as evidence that HIV infection was present in Africa "for a long time."

A new laboratory technique based on "DNA probing" claims to be a "specific" test for HIV infection, but this claim is questionable. Some AIDS researchers now use DNA testing to prove "old" (pre-1978) infections caused by HIV. In microbiology, absolute proof of causation has traditionally required "culturing" and biochemical testing of the suspected "live" organism from the diseased tissue or body fluids. Never before has "proof" consisted of DNA analysis of dead tissue. Whether the new DNA technology will prove 100% accurate in detecting infection with a "specific" microbiologic agent remains to be seen. But some scientists already accept DNA test results as absolute proof that "old" AIDS infections with HIV exist.

Everyone agrees that current HIV blood tests are not 100% accurate in diagnosing infection with the AIDS virus. "False positive" HIV tests can occur when a blood specimen tests "positive" even though no HIV is present. For example, in the fall of 1991 my internist strongly suggested I get vaccinated against the upcoming "Beijing" flu virus because the epidemic was predicted to be severe. (It wasn't.)

Ordinarily I decline vaccines, for obvious reasons. However, my internist was insistent. Rather than upset him, I agreed to take the injection. Two months after receiving the flu vaccine, I read in The New York Times (December 19, 1991) that some blood donors who received the Beijing flu shot were testing positive to HIV-- and also testing positive to two other viruses! Upon further blood testing, the "positive" HIV tests were determined to be "false-positive."

The scientists were baffled. Commenting on the scientific mystery, James Mason, the Head of the Public Health Service, assured the public "there is no possibility the vaccine could contain any of these three viruses." Having received the flu shot, I hoped Mason's assessment was correct. The whole affair made me again suspect that if Beijing flu vaccine recipients could test "positive" for HIV, then the reliability of these same AIDS tests to detect "old" pre-1978 cases of AIDS was certainly in doubt.

In reality the science of AIDS is a "pseudoscience." Pseudoscience serves to hopelessly confuse and confound those in search of reason and truth. AIDS scientists have often been guilty of promoting disinformation by attempting to convince people that false is true; and that true is false.

The reason for AIDS disinformation is obvious: to cover up the man-made origin of this disease.

In the fall of 1987, a group of physicians reported an "old" AIDS case dating back to 1968. The patient was a 15-year-old, mildly retarded Black youth from St. Louis, Missouri. For the last year of his life "Robert" wasted away with a bizarre disease that severely bloated his legs and genitals. At autopsy, the pathologist found internal lesions of Kaposi's sarcoma, the cancer that would be associated with AIDS two decades later.

The fact that the boy had KS of the rectum caused his doctors to speculate whether the AIDS epidemic "evolved" from this case. Stored in a frozen state since 1969, the boy's old blood sample was retested for HIV. DNA testing was also done on stored tissue remains. The blood and DNA test results were reported as HIV-positive. Robert's case was reported in JAMA (The Journal of the American Medical Association), October 14, 1988.

Was the boy's virus "identical" to HIV? According to JAMA, "this sexually active teenager was infected with a virus closely related or identical to human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) type 1."

The media picked up the story as "strong evidence" that AIDS was present in the U.S. in the 1960s. Strecker thought it was another attempt to disinform the public. Robert's sexual preference was unknown, but the doctors tried hard to insinuate the dying and bloated 15-year-old was gay. At autopsy, the pathologist's examination revealed a chronically inflamed rectum with prominent hemorrhoids, anal warts, and numerous abrasions and lacerations. Finger examination into the rectum indicated a "lax anal sphincter." The lax sphincter (more commonly known as a loose asshole), along with the other anal signs, were all interpreted as indicating the boy was homosexual.

I wondered how many other pathologists fingering the assholes of corpses could determine who was gay and who was straight. Perhaps a rectal experiment in the living might determine the accuracy of the pathologists' fingers in determining sexual preference.

Newsweek (November 9, 1987) was also impressed by the sensitivity and reliability of the after-death finger test. Although Robert claimed to have had sex with a neighborhood girl before his illness, Dr. William Drake, who performed the autopsy, "found signs of homosexual behavior, including hemorrhoids and inflammation suggesting that he had engaged frequently in anal intercourse." I mused: Hemorrhoid sufferers repent!

Despite the fact that the 15-year-old was hospitalized with progressive deterioration for the last sixteen months of his short life, the media wildly speculated on Robert's sexuality and his post-mortem diagnosis of homosexuality.

Memory Elvin-Lewis, a microbiologist who studied Robert's case, proclaimed to American Medical News (December 11, 1987) that, "We have to call it for what it was-- a boy who was repeatedly sodomized." When interviewed for People magazine, Dr. Lewis was positive other AIDS cases existed back in the 1960s, "but the disease didn't take hold." According to the microbiologist, "The real epidemic required the excesses of the sexual revolution of the 1970s. That condition was met when gay promiscuity and drug addiction gave the virus the amplification it needed to thrive."

In 1990 the media latched onto another "old" AIDS case--this one originating in Manchester, England, in 1959. The patient was an unmarried navy seaman who died of Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia and cytomegalovirus infection. The details of this unusual case were first recorded in the British medical journal Lancet in 1960. The case was again reported in Lancet (November 12, 1983) as a possible old 1959 AIDS case. In a third Lancet report (July 7, 1990), the case was recorded as definite "HIV infection in Manchester, 1959." In this instance, the positive AIDS test was based on DNA technology applied to the sailor's stored tissue remains, which "proved" infection with HIV.

The media again jumped on the story. The New York Times (July 24, 1990) devoted one-half of page 3 to "the oldest documented case of AIDS uncovered by new techniques." Strecker was convinced the fanfare was the media's attempt to defuse increasing rumors that AIDS was a biowarfare experiment.

The short, five-paragraph July report in Lancet made no mention of biowarfare, but major newspapers throughout the world used the sailor's case to discredit the biowarfare story. The Times wrote, "The case also refutes the widely publicized charges made by Soviet officials several years ago that AIDS arose from a virus that had escaped from a laboratory experiment that went awry or was a biological warfare agent. The human retrovirus group to which the AIDS virus belongs was unknown at the time. Nor did scientists then have the genetic engineering techniques needed to create a new virus."

The identification of HIV in the long-dead sailor reminded me of Gallo's virus-stealing controversy with Montagnier. When confronted with Montagnier's "live" LAV virus, Gallo claimed it was definitely not the AIDS virus. Later "Gallo's HIV virus" and "Montagnier's LAV virus" were proven to be absolutely identical. In fact, experts found that the genetic composition of Gallo's and Montagnier's AIDS viruses were more alike in structure than any other two AIDS viruses ever studied. To find "identical" HIV strains is extremely rare because HIV is a highly unstable virus, mutating wildly and changing its genetic structure as much as one percent per year. If scientists can detect HIV in dead tissue stored for 31 years, I wondered why virologists didn't use the new DNA probe in the Gallo-Montagnier controversy to determine, once and for all, which virus was which.

In all my reading and study it seemed to me that official medical "science" was filled with a substance that contaminated everything connected with AIDS research: the substance was "bullshit."

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Exerpted from QUEER BLOOD: The Secret AIDS Genocide Plot by Alan Cantwell Jr., M.D., published by ARIES Rising Press, P.O. Box 29532, Los Angeles, California, 90029 $12.95 ( Telephone: 213-462-6458)

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