reclaimthebrain.com
a tv/internet network striving for clarity
Show 1: The HIV/AIDS Debate
Video | First Time Visitors | Background Text and Links | News
See links below to some of the articles President Thabo Mbeki read before convening his Panel of Inquiry into HIV/AIDS.
"The important thing is not to stop questioning."
- Albert Einstein
Stay tuned for more video and audio reports on the meetings of the South African Panel of Inquiry into HIV/AIDS, further background video and updates on further developments as the search for the truth about HIV/AIDS continues.
our email address reclaimthebrain@yahoo.com
“An error can never become true however many times you repeat it. The truth can never be wrong, even if no one ever hears about it.”
-Mahatma Gandhi
as quoted by Dr. Stefan Lanka, “HIV; Reality or Artefact”, Continuum Magazine, 10/95(see links to this and other articles below)
Huw Christie, London based editor of “Continuum” magazine who has been publishing since 1993 the papers of many of the scientists and physicians who have participated in the South African inquiry into HIV/AIDS, was an observer at the latest round of the Panel. Click on Huw’s video and audio reports on the meetings of President Mbeki’s Panel of Inquiry into HIV/AIDS that took place in May and July
See video from a guest appearance on the John Robbie radio show in Johannesburg where Huw gives a brief intro to Biophysicist Eleni Eleopulos’s view of US scientist Robert Gallo's April 1984 announcement about having found the "probable cause of AIDS". Also see video of Huw reporting from Pretoria in May from in front of the Presidential offices on the initial round of the proceedings and briefly explaining Eleni Eleopulos and the Perth Group's view on the non-specificity of HIV testing or how the so-called “HIV test” can test positive for 60 reasons that have nothing to do with the presence of an alleged “HIV”.Check out the phone- in reports from London on the most recent meeting of President Mbeki’s Panel that Huw observed in Johannesburg July 3-4.
A global challenge :
While checking out the new video and audio postings (more on the way) please note the video of South African Journalist Anita Allen describing the articles she sent to President Mbeki before he convened his Panel of Inquiry into HIV/AIDS. We challenge anyone who cares about finding clarity about what has been called “HIV/AIDS” to find the time to read these articles that were among those read by Thabo Mbeki before he arranged his precedent setting meeting of minds.
Some of the articles President Thabo Mbeki read before convening his Panel of Inquiry into HIV/AIDS:
1. Keynote address: Professor Peter Duesberg. University of California-Berkeley Alumni: http://www.virusmyth.com/aids/data/pdlecture.htm
2 Aids in Africa. Eleni Papadopulos-Eleopulos et al. http://www.virusmyth.com/aids/data/epafrica.htm
3. A critique of the evidence for the isolation of HIV. Perth Group: http://www.virusmyth.com/aids/data/epsummary.htm
4. Do HIV Antibody tests prove HIV infection? Transcript of radio talk by Dr Val Turner: http://www.virusmyth.com/aids/data/vttests.htm
5. Coming to grips with health facism a lecture by Hiram Caton: http://www.virusmyth.com/aids/data/hcfascism.htm
6. The Pharmacology of AZT . Eleni Papadopulos-Eleopulos et al Medical Research and Opinion, July 1999:http://www.virusmyth.com/aids/data/epazt.htm
7. With therapies like this who needs disease? From book: Inventing the AIDS Virus by Bryan Ellison and Peter Duesberg: http://www.virusmyth.com/aids/data/pdazt.htm
September 8, 2000
see the following Q&A in an interview with Thabo Mbeki in Time Europe online conducted by Time Atlantic editor Christopher Redman and South Africa bureau chief Peter Hawthorne 9/04/2000(www.TimeEurope.com)
TIME: You've been criticized for playing down the link between HIV and AIDs. Where do you now stand on this very controversial issue?
Mbeki: Clearly there is such a thing as acquired immune deficiency. The question you have to ask is, what produces this deficiency? Now, if you go through the literature, ordinary standard literature available in medical schools, there will be a whole variety of things [that] can cause the immune system to collapse. Endemic poverty, the impact of nutrition, contaminated water, all of these things, will result in immune deficiency. If you take the African continent you add to that things like repetitive infections of malaria, ordinary STDs [sexually transmitted diseases] — syphilis, gonorrhea etc. All of these will result in immune deficiency. Now it is perfectly possible that among those things is a particular virus. But the notion that immune deficiency is only acquired from a single virus cannot be sustained. The problem is that once you say immune deficiency is acquired from that virus your response will be anti-retroviral drugs. But if you say the reason we are getting collapsed immune systems is a whole variety of reasons, including the poverty question which is very critical, then you have a more comprehensive response to the health condition of a person.
TIME: Are you prepared to acknowledge that there is a link between HIV and AIDS?
Mbeki: This is precisely where the problem starts. No, I am saying that you cannot attribute immune deficiency solely and exclusively to a virus.
TIME: But would you acknowledge that HIV is a causal factor in AIDS?
Mbeki: I am saying sure, no problem at all, there may very well be a virus. But there is a lot of debate among scientists which is why we said let all these different factions come together. Let's all get together ourselves and sort out this question. There cannot be any dispute about all these other things which result in immune deficiency. It's in the medical school textbooks at university. So one of the first things they are going to try to answer is, when you take a person's blood and measure it, what are you measuring? Are you measuring a virus or what? For what has been said is that these tests are measuring HIV. But what are these tests really measuring? The scientists are not agreed among themselves that what they are measuring is a virus. They are measuring the response of the immune system to something attacking it. But TB [tuberculosis], for example, destroys the immune system and at a certain point if you have TB you will test HIV positive because the immune system is fighting the TB. Then you will go further to say TB is an opportunistic disease of AIDs whereas in fact TB is the thing that destroyed the immune system in the first place. But if you come to the conclusion that the only thing that destroys immune systems is HIV then your only response is to give them anti-retroviral drugs. There's no point in attending to this TB business because that's just an opportunistic disease. What is fundamental is the AIDs. So much so that even in everyday language AIDs is said to be a disease. It's no such thing. AIDs is a syndrome. It's a whole variety of diseases which affect a person because something negative has happened to the immune system. If the scientists come back and say this virus is part of the variety of things from which people acquire immune deficiency, I have no problem with that. But to say this is the sole cause therefore the only response to it is anti-retroviral drugs, I am saying we'll never be able to solve the AIDs problem.
August 8, 2000
President Thabo Mbeki’s Panel of Inquiry into HIV/AIDS met for the first time May 6-7 and again July 3-4 after a six week internet session. The fact that President Mbeki convened the panel that included highly qualified scientists and physicians relegated to the term “ dissident” provoked controversy in the mainstream press internationally .But there was little coverage of the actual workings of the panel.
What we weren’t told by the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal or any of the mainstream press, Network news or CNN is what really happened during those meetings. There was nothing mentioned on the evening news about how people considered part of the scientific and medical establishment like Dr. Helen Gayle of the United States Centers for Disease control, or Malegapuru Makgoba, President of South Africa’s Medical Research Council, during the second round of the Panel July 3-4 in Johannesburg sat with and heard presentations of the views of Former US Government funded researcher and Professor of Molecular Biology at Univ. of Cal, Berkeley, Dr. Peter Duesberg and Biophysicist Eleni Eleopulos and colleagues including Prof. Etienne de Harven, Dr Roberto Giraldo, Dr Manu Kothari, Dr Klaus Koehnlein, Dr Christian Fiala, Dr David Rasnick, Prof. Sam Mhlongo, Prof. Gordon Stewart, Dr Andrew Herxheimer. Though labelled simply as "dissidents", these scientists' critiques of the HIV hypothesis range from Dr. Duesberg’s view that HIV exists but is a harmless retrovirus that could not cause the illnesses attributed to it, to the thinking of Biophysicist Eleopulos of the Perth Group who argues that HIV has never been isolated or proven to exist. Both agree that illnesses in Africa and elsewhere have wrongly been attributed to a sexually transmitted HIV. Instead they find what is being called AIDS is a grouping of various illnesses related to poverty, malnutrition, hypoproteinaemia, oxidative stress, foul water, unhealthy lifestyles and toxic drugs, both recreational and the many medical drugs prescribed after an HIV/AIDS diagnosis(based on what Eleopulos finds a fundamentally questionable HIV test) (See their individual views in scientific papers linked above and below)
Included in the presentations seen by the entire panel this latest round was Dr.Duesberg's description of the grave dangers of AZT agreed to by all of those scientists, physicians and scholars considered dissidents. (an idea unofficially shared in part by establishment figure HIV discoverer Luc Montagnier over dinner with the dissidents in Pretoria May 7 where Montagnier agreed that AZT may have caused deaths, see coming video.Montagnier failed to attend this second round of the Panel.)Biophysicist Eleni Eleopulos’s colleague at the Royal Perth Hospital, physician Dr. Valendar Turner showed the panel how antibodies that have nothing to do with HIV can make an HIV test appear postive.This presentation illustrating the fundamental problems with finding or isolating HIV through existing tests raised again the basic question of what an HIV positive diagnosis is based on. Biophysicist Eleopulos and her colleague Dr. Turner’s presentation on the questions surrounding HIV testing and surveillance led to the current discussions of experiments and tests that could include the participation of scientists and physicians who support the ongoing HIV/AIDS establishment and those who challenge it . These experiments conducted under the auspices of President Mbeki’s cabinet approved Panel would be aimed at finding a definitive test for HIV/AIDS that will address all the questions surrounding the effectiveness of current HIV testing while seeking definitive proof about the actual presence or isolation of an “HIV” in people being classified as HIV positive. Several panel members called for the immediate halt of all current "HIV testing" and an end to all prescribed “anti-retroviral” pharmaceutical treatments currently given to those people classified as “HIV positive” via existing diagnostic methods and testing.
Stay tuned for more video and audio reports on the meetings of the South African Panel of Inquiry into HIV/AIDS, further background video and updates on further developments as the search for the truth about HIV/AIDS continues.
comments contact: reclaimthebrain@yahoo.com
(You'll need either windows media player or real player to view the video. If you haven't downloaded and installed a player yet(both player downloads are free) you can do so by clicking on either player's icon. After you've installed a player, to view President Mbeki's opening address to his panel of Inquiry into HIV/AIDS click on your modem or connection speed listed underneath the icon of the player you've installed.)
 Download Windows Media Player |
 Download Free RealPlayer |
| 28.8 kbps | 28.8 kbps |
| 56 kbps | 56 kbps |
| 80 kbps | 80kbps |
| 300 kbps | 300 kbps |
President Thabo Mbeki
A little background: For the last 16 years, we’ve all been told by mainstream media that an infectious disease called AIDS caused by a virus called HIV is spreading epidemically. Upon closer examination, we find first that AIDS or Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, is not actually one infectious disease, but a constantly expanding list of illnesses. We find that this so called HIV was announced as the cause of AIDS in 1984 by US Government scientist Robert Gallo alongside President Reagan's Secretary of Health and Human Services Margaret Heckler before any formal scientific peer review.
It turns out that Dr. Gallo was found to have based his “discovery” of the alleged “virus that probably causes AIDS” on materials sent him by French scientist Professor Luc Montagnier, another member of President Mbeki’s new Panel, whose own cell culture material had only suggested a virus may be present. Gallo was accused of scientific misconduct, investigated and found guilty by a US Congressional committee and allowed to leave government service without facing any official penalties.
Gallo’s and Montagnier’s “HIV”, though never validated through the normal procedure of scientific publication and debate, has to this day remained the ruling AIDS ideology, driving an ever more powerful biomedical industry. Through confused and confusing reporting done by most mainstream media ever since, the world wide public has been led to believe that there is no doubt that a retrovirus called HIV causes the more than 30 illnesses that are called “AIDS”.
To some long censored but highly qualified scientists, what we have all been led to call AIDS, has little or nothing to do with what we've been led to believe is sexually transmitted HIV virus. Instead they find a grouping of various illnesses related to poverty, malnutrition, hypoproteinaemia, oxidative stress, foul water, unhealthy lifestyles and toxic drugs, both recreational and the many medical drugs prescribed after an HIV/AIDS diagnosis. These are the scientists that some powers- that-be may not have wanted you to know about.
Bio-Physicist Eleni Eleopulos and her scientific and medical colleagues of Australia’s Perth Group have published extensively on HIV/AIDS in the scientific press, but their views are rarely discussed elsewhere. Eleopulos, a medical nuclear physicist with the support of fellow scientists and physicians of the Perth Group, argues that the so called HIV test does not prove the presence of any specific virus. According to Dr. Eleopulos’s data, one can test positive on the “HIV test” due to over 60 conditions that cross react with the test including pregnancy, tuberculosis, oxidative stress and even excessive exposure to sun. Further, and stunningly, Dr. Eleopulos and colleagues have argued in the mainstream scientific press that upon closer examination, this is an inevitable consequence of Gallo and Montagnier’s “HIV” never having been isolated or proven to exist.
Professor of Molecular Biology at Univ. of Ca. Berkeley and National Academy of Science (NAS) member Dr. Peter Duesberg is the former US Government researcher whose government funding was discontinued shortly after he refuted his former colleague Dr. Gallo’s HIV hypothesis in the journal of the NAS. Though supported in his dissent by Noble prize winning scientists, physicians and colleagues internationally, Dr. Duesberg has been denounced and marginalized by the scientific establishment and mainstream media.
For more scientists, see later.
With billions of dollars spent world wide in the name of HIV and AIDS, it’s not hard to see why researchers like biophysicist Eleopulos and Dr. Duesberg who question the very foundation of the HIV/AIDS hypothesis are scorned and attacked with aspersions and distortions by institutions, individuals and media who have huge financial interests in the perpetuation of the AIDS industry and little desire to challenge the fruits of their own careers. While these marginalized scientists of impeccable credentials are being denounced with expressions like "heretics", "flat earth thinkers" and even "holocaust denyers", millions of people remain threatened by ambiguous medical treatment, the stigma and ostracism that comes with the highly questionable HIV/AIDS diagnosis and the toxic, often lethal prescriptions accompanying it .
Will President Thabo Mbeki’s hard look at what we have been taught to call HIV/AIDS fundamentally change things? Will the scientific arguments of Eleopulos, Duesberg, Prof. Etienne de Harven, Dr Roberto Giraldo, Dr Manu Kothari, Dr Klaus Koehnlein, Dr Christian Fiala, Dr David Rasnick, Prof. Sam Mhlongo, Prof. Gordon Stewart, Dr Andrew Herxheimer, Dr Stefan Lanka and their many colleagues and supporters around the world finally be seen as central elements of a scientific debate leading to a clarity that help will wipe out what the world has learned to call AIDS? Will people in various positions of influence who have tried to censor scientific views that differ from the ruling “HIV/AIDS” hypothesis one day be held accountable for global misinformation that has led to medical crimes against humanity?
Stay tuned...
reclaimthebrain.com via video, webcasting and further information links, hopes to be able to help a worldwide audience break through the confusion, distortion and misinformation as dedicated international scientists, physicians and concerned people do their best to get to the truth about the “AIDS” crisis
comments contact:reclaimthebrain@yahoo.com
THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA
South African President Thabo Mbeki, March 2000
"I am taken aback by the determination of many people in our country to sacrifice all intellectual integrity to act as salespersons of the product of one pharmaceutical company...I am also amazed at how many people, who claim to be scientists, are determined that scientific discourse and inquiry should cease, because 'most of the world' is of one mind...The debate we need is not with me, who is not a scientist, or my office, but [with] the scientists who present 'scientific' arguments contrary to the 'scientific' view expressed by 'most of the world'... By resort to the use of the modern magic wand at the disposal of modern propaganda machines, an entire regiment of eminent 'dissident' scientists is wiped out from the public view, leaving a solitary Peter Duesberg alone on the battlefield, insanely tilting at the windmills."
There's been a major story unfolding that America's tv networks haven't been covering.
As you read this now, President Thabo Mbeki has convened long marginalized scientists and physicians to join an ongoing open debate about the scientific thinking behind what we have been taught to call AIDS and anti-AIDS drug treatments prescribed worldwide. The first meeting was on 6th and 7th May in Pretoria.
On April 20, 2000 the United States networks' news blackout of events leading to this historic meeting in Pretoria seemed to be ending as ABC-TV World News anchor Peter Jennings presented a report on President Mbeki raising fundamental questions about what much of the world understands as AIDS caused by HIV, the accuracy of testing for it, and the prescribed treatments. When ABC's coverage of this story finally appeared on the evening news long after breaking press reports from around the world (see below), the report was deeply biased in its unfavourable spin on President Mbeki's initiative.
With questionable assertions, ambiguous pictures and politically correct spokespeople, ABC News suggested that President Mbeki's examination of what we've all been led to believe is an epidemic called "AIDS" endangers not only all Africa, but the whole planet.
ABC News, who advertise themselves as the place where "more Americans get their news than any other newscast" cited concern from many quarters, including the White House, about President Mbeki's taking seriously information he may have accessed on the internet regarding the thinking of scientists who question the common assumption that "HIV causes AIDS". Only near its conclusion, the ABC News report briefly alluded to some of the highly qualified scientific support for President Mbeki's controversial questions via a quote from former "anti-AIDS" drug developer, Biochemist Dr. David Rasnick of UCLA..
NEW YORK TIMES LIES ABOUT PRESIDENTIAL SPEECH
The growing media scandal
On the day after President Mbeki’s moving opening address to the new Panel of Inquiry on 6th May in Pretoria, the Sunday New York Times falsely summarized it with the International section headline "Mbeki admits AIDS Cause". Times journalist Rachel Swarns reported in her article," Mbeki Details Quest to Grasp South Africa's AIDS Disaster",“Today Mr Mbeki said that he and his ministers know that the human immune deficiency virus causes AIDS.” In fact, no such statement was ever made by or on behalf of the President! The New York Times has utterly misrepresented the speech. What is their agenda? How are they allowed to do this? Said Panel member Professor Etienne de Harven, a senior virus researcher who attended the whole weekend’s proceedings, “Certainly President Mbeki said no such thing.”
Coming soon: video of Professor de Harven and other panel members' comments and conversations.
Stay tuned...
see links to scientific papers and other background information and stayed tuned as reclaimthebrain.com aims to webcast reports and interviews from South Africa and around the world that the mainstream media in the US and other nations are not providing. Stay tuned as we do our best to bring you this story of global importance as it unfolds.
-rd
See an article from South Africa's, "The Citizen"(3/4/2000):
-HIV link questioned
-Mbeki in call to world for AIDS rethink
CAPE TOWN- President Mbeki intends to lobby other world leaders to gather support for a new look at issues such as whether HIV causes AIDS, according to a prominent AIDS dissident. American biochemist David Rasnick, who disputes that AIDS is transmitted sexually said he spoke to President Mbeki by phone in February.
President Mbeki told him he would write to President Bill Clinton, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and German Chancellor Joachim Fechner to join his efforts to bring about an international discussion on AIDS and the anti-HIV therapies. President Mbeki had said this discussion would happen well before the international AIDS conference in Durban in July. He said President Mbkei wanted to provide a public forum where the leading proponents of the "hypothesis" that HIV (the human immuno-deficiency virus) caused Aids and its leading critics could present the evidence for and against popular beliefs. Dr. Rasnick said he had suggested to President Mbeki that these include the beliefs that Aids was sexually transmitted, that HIV caused Aids and that anti-HIV drugs promoted life and health. Dr. Rasnick's statements follow this week's news that the Health Department has begun searching for international scientists to take part in a panel on Aids that is expected to re-examine the scientific evidence surrounding the disease, including the link between HIV and Aids.
The plan met with a storm of protest from doctors, Aids activists and the media who said the dissident arguments had been discredited years ago, and that South Africa risked becoming the laughing stock of the world. In a statement this week, Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang declined to say whether leading dissident Peter Duesberg, co-author with Dr. Rasnick of scientific papers, would be on the panel.
"My department is talking to a wide range of specialists to see who is available to participate." she said. "My personal view is that those with more extreme views are unlikely to participate because we are looking for a consensus view." The team members, to meet in South Africa as soon as possible, would be encouraged to look at issues including " local evidence regarding the causes and diagnosis of Aids."
(SAPA)
Stay tuned...
see links to scientific papers and more information below and stayed tuned to reclaimthebrain.com for links to background video and live/archived webcast coverage of this unfolding story.
comments, contact reclaimthebrain@yahoo.com
"If AIDS critics accept that no proof
establishes the existence of HIV, then the construction of "AIDS" -- so premised
on the existence of HIV that its proponents call it "HIV" disease -- collapses
immediately, and all the so-called "HIV" tests are automatically unmasked as
being useless. If, on the other hand, AIDS critics accept the existence of HIV, their
debate with HIV-AIDS could continue endlessly, no matter how many sacrifices they make. In
this regard, Peter Duesberg's unprecedented professional and personal ordeal provides a
wise and timely lesson to us all."
-Eleni Papadopulos-Eleopulos, Bio-physicist, Dr. Valendar F. Turner, MD et al. (The Perth Group) Dec.'99 "Reappraising AIDS" newsletter
Click here for background video on Perth Group's presentation at Geneva '98 12th International AIDS conference and future video/webcast coverage of Perth's views.
Print/audio on Perth Group's scientific views since 1985 and-Joan Shenton/Meditel video report on Perth's satellite presentation at Geneva '98.10
"We need give and take of different opinions. Progress in science was never dictated from the top, it was generated by the exchange of different views, in fact by arguments. Arguments are necessary for science, necessary for progress. In particular if you are fixed to an entirely unproductive hypothesis as the "virus/AIDS" hypothesis that doesn't produce anything for the patient, nothing for the public. Only for the scientists who are working on it and for the biotechnology companies who are "AIDS" testing for millions and millions of dollars and treating people with AZT terminating their DNA synthesis."
-Dr. Peter Duesberg, Professor of Molecular Biology, U.C.Berkeley former NIH scientist whose US gov't research grant was discontinued shortly after he refuted the official "HIV/AIDS" hypothesis. Above excerpted transcript from video segment of Dr.Duesberg via satellite on 9/3/92 live tv broadcast produced and directed by Rob Drescher. Click here for this and other video featuring Dr. Duesberg.
See www.virusmyth.com link below for Dr.Peter Duesberg's and others' scientific papers that refute and offer alternatives to the "HIV/AIDS" hypothesis as well as an overview of his and others' longstanding and ongoing role in the struggle to bring true scientific debate to "AIDS" science and an end to the terror and death that came with the "HIV/AIDS" hypothesis announced in 1984 by Dr.Duesberg's former colleague at the National Cancer Institute, Dr. Robert Gallo.
"In an interactive world, we not only experience the future-we help make it! If we must change the global dogma of an invisible immunosuppressive retrovirus, we will reshape concepts of wellness and responsibility. In the historical cycle of freedom and oppression, we will choose life, lucidity and human rights. These joyful sunken treasures are now lifted again into view on a tide of reappraisal undreamed of by many."
-10/96 Huw Christie, editor "Continuum"
Click here for video links to Huw Christie in Geneva, London, Bern and New York (1998-99) directed by rob drescher and future webcast coverage with Huw in South Africa . See transcript below of video segment from Geneva ‘98 press conference with Huw raising questions inspired by Perth groups’ views. Also see links below to “Continuum” articles including Huw’s interview with the Perth Group’s Dr. Val Turner, “Do antibody tests prove HIV infection? ”, link to further info on “Continuum” magazine and a recent interview with Huw as seen in “Positive Nation”.
"This is all revolving around the putative virus
"HIV" and its putative impact on humanity and the whole world. And we have
colleagues here who are arguing that there is no such thing as "HIV". So what is
truly terrifying, this is what is so Orwell, it doesn't matter if there is such a thing as
"HIV". Now we have the technology to create alternate reality and this is one
gigantic alternate reality, scarier than toxic drugs. They can build a rocket ship to take
us to unreason. Rocket ship takes off, end of reason. End of fact, journalism, checking,
veracity, everything. Just this weird spell over everyone."
-Celia Farber , journalist, from Geneva '98 video directed by rob drescher, the above a segment of Celia describing the perpetuation of the "HIV/AIDS" orthodoxy mindset in the press room at the 12th International "AIDS" conference, Geneva July 1998 where global media received its news directly from pharmaceutical company press releases while the same press corps ignored en masse a satellite presentation that took place a few days earlier at the conference when the scientists of the Perth group presented via satellite their study questioning the isolation or the actual existence of "HIV".
Click here for video links of Celia in Geneva ‘98 and other video segments of Celia covering the HIV/AIDS debate. See link below for a selection of Celia's reporting on the HIV/AIDS debate from 1987 to the present.
A little background for the big picture: virtually no coverage from the international corps of media correspondents assembled for the 12th International AIDS conference in Geneva in 1998 was given to a satellite presentation of bio-physicist Eleni Papadopulos-Eleopulos and her colleagues of the Perth Group. In their satellite presentation ignored by global mainstream media, the Perth Group officially challenged the very foundation of the worldwide "AIDS" paradigm by calling into question all current scientific proof of the existence of the "HIV/AIDS" virus that Robert Gallo claimed to have discovered in 1984.
Despite all the suspect aspects surrounding Gallo and Montagnier’s so called HIV/AIDS virus since it's 1984 'discovery' and despite Molecular Biologist Dr. Peter Duesberg's questioning "HIV"'s ability to cause what we have been taught to call "AIDS" and Eleni Eleopulos and the Perth Group's questioning the isolation or the very existence of "HIV", every moment each day, right now as you are reading this, all major media like The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, all newspapers, local or network television news and entertainment programming are repeating the common phrase, "HIV, the virus that causes AIDS." Almost every other day on some cable or network channel you’ll find Tom Hanks in his Oscar winning performance as an "AIDS victim" in "Philadelphia" or you’ll be able to catch a syndicated episode of America’s number one tv drama, "ER" with its recurring "HIV positive" character or hear about Elton John and well intentioned red ribbonned friends around the world lighting a candle or staging a benefit or speaking out for "AIDS research", whatever that means.
A small group of journalists have for many years been covering scientists, physicians and activists with views differing from the ruling “HIV/AIDS” hypothesis. Some of their past and present exceptional work and others’ current reporting on the unfolding awakening taking place in South Africa is now globally accessible on “dissident” websites that President Mbeki may be surfing . (see links below). Yet the idea that "HIV" is an infectious, sexually spread retrovirus responsible for a widening "AIDS" epidemic requiring “aggressive” pharmaceutical treatment remains constantly reinforced via the predominant global media. So just as someone, somewhere, this very instant, on tv/print/or web is describing "HIV as the cause of AIDS", South Africa’s President Thabo Mbkei faces condemnation for taking a closer look at the entire “AIDS” picture and for supporting true scientific debate about the prevailing wisdom on "HIV/AIDS" and anti-“AIDS” treatment with AZT and other highly toxic drugs.
Meanwhile, the President and Vice President of the United States, the US Congress, the Secretary General of the United Nations, most leaders, governments, institutions and mass media across the world, continue to accept and reinforce the insistence of those in power in science and medicine (with the lobbying support of a global pharmaceutical industry) that Gallo and Montagnier’s questionable "HIV" is "the virus that causes AIDS”. All US government funded “AIDS” programs including a $200 million dollar appropriation to the NIH (National Institute of Health) for an “AIDS vaccine” announced by President Clinton on “World AIDS Day” operate underneath the prevailing “HIV/AIDS” hypothesis.
But are things about to change?
Stay tuned...
-rd
See below two views of this story. One from "The Australian Financial Review", March 31, 2000 the other from "Newsweek", April 17, 2000.
-"Tracking drug resistance in South Africa"
-"Andrew McIntyre on Thabo Mbeki's determination to buck conventional wisdom on AIDS"
The Australian Financial Review March 31, 2000
"In late October last year, South African President Thabo Mbeki, under pressure to supply the anti-AIDS drug AZT to thousands of rape victims in the country, let off a bombshell by strongly criticising the drug and declaring in Parliament that there exists a large volume of scientific literature alleging, among other things, the toxicity of this drug is such that it is in fact a danger to health".
While the news was briefly reported in Australia and elsewhere, the extent of the reaction and the furious debate that has followed in South Africa, has largely escaped international attention.
Mbeki claimed that AZT was being challenged by court cases in the US, Britain and South Africa and asked for an official inquiry into the issue by the Minister for Health, Dr Manto Tshabalala-Msimang.
His announcement produced bafflement and intense anger amongst health professionals who maintain that AZT is safe and believe Mbeki has political motives. The drug's manufacturer, Glaxo-Wellcome, responded that it was unaware of any such lawsuits. AZT is the mainstay of international efforts to treat AIDS patients and to prevent the transfer of the virus from HIV positive mothers to their babies.
Dr Joseph Perriens, the head of the care and support division of the UNAIDS program in Geneva, suggested Mbeki "inform himself better... [and]recast the debate in terms of cost". Dr Salim Abdool Karim, the head of AIDS research at the Medical Research Council, said, "I think [that] if the President doesn't want to provide AZT, he should find an excuse based on fact."
The South Africa Government has come under increasing pressure to provide expensive Western drugs like AZT that it cannot afford. There has been a bitter dispute over the rules which protect worldwide patents of pharmaceuticals. However, Mbeki's questioning of the drug was initially sparked by an Australian research group in Perth, headed by Eleni Papadoupoulos, which claims its work shows that AZT is,pharmacologically, a failure.
The drug manufacturers and clinical AIDS specialists claim that the drug improves "quality of life" and can reduce transmission of HIV. But Mbeki's statement has added momentum to critics of AZT who argues that the cure might just be worse than the disease. There is a growing number of scientists and medical professionals claiming that not only is there no clear scientific proof that AZT kills HIV or cures AIDS, but that there is ample evidence that it kills humans.
As evidence, they cite the 1994 publication of results from the Concorde trial, the most thorough double-blind randomised comparison of two policies of AZT treatment. This involved 1,749 symptom-free, HIV-infected individuals from centres in the UK, Ireland and France. The 347 deaths during the trial outnumbered the total of those in all other published trials in symptom-free and early symptomatic infection. The results showed there was no statistically significant difference in clinical outcome between the two therapeutic policies. In 1995, extended results of the Concorde study showed a significant increased risk of death among those patients treated early. However, despite this evidence that patients treated with AZT may continue to develop AIDS diseases, that the side-effects of AZT may mimic AIDS and that AZT given to non-HIV-infected babies causes the AIDS-defining pneumonia PCP, AZT continues to be the most commonly prescribed anti-HIV drug. Glaxo-Wellcome has described the Concorde study as flawed and said that its findings would not affect medical practice.
However, there are some eminent professionals ringing alarm bells. Dr Donald Abrams, professor of medicine and director of the AIDS program at San Francisco General Hospital has observed, "I have a large population of people who have chosen not to take any anti-retrovirals ... I've been following them since the very beginning... They've watched all of their friends go on the antiviral bandwagon and die." What united long-term survivors of AIDS was their resolve not to take AZT and other anti-retrovirals.
An article in last year's June New Scientist reported that French doctors had linked a rare but fatal childhood neurodegenerative illness to exposure to AZT while still in the womb and during or shortly after birth. Dutch AIDS specialist Kees Brinkman, of Amsterdam's Onze Lieve Vrouwe hospital, claims that several other side-effects may be explained by the drug's ability to block the production of mitochondria, the energy-producing, semiautonomous organelles that are found in every living cell in the human body. "When continually assaulted, only weakness and eventual death can follow," he said. In a paper in Lancet last year, he and his colleagues added that there were other common side-effects, such as nerve and muscle damage, pancreatitis and decreased production of blood cells. Brinkman concluded, "I strongly believe that [these anti-viral drugs] are much more toxic than we considered previously."
An Italian study published last May in the journal AIDS claimed that HIV-positive mothers who took AZT had children with "a higher probability of developing severe disease or severe immune suppression and a lower survival [rate]" than those whose mothers had refused this treatment. A September Lancet article reported the cases of eight children with the obscure-sounding condition of "mitochondria dysfunction", two of whom died.
Building on this evidence, AZT critics say that the very symptoms of AIDS we have become familiar with, particularly severe wasting, may not be caused by the AIDS virus attacking the immune system but by the very drug claimed to cure it. If it is true that the treatment remains better than the disease, it is reasonable that doctors and researchers continue to recommend AZT. But could they be wrong? AZT was originally designed to kill cells indiscriminately. And to make matters worse, most people who go onto anti-retrovirals, including AZT, are completely symptom-free at the start. In fact, the main targets for the makers of these drugs are those without symptoms.
Dr Stephen Kent, senior research fellow at the AIDS pathogenesis research unit of the Macfarlane Burnet Centre for Medical Research in Melbourne, argued recently in The Australian (February 4) that the effectiveness of these drugs in reducing morbidity and mortality had been shown in countless studies since 1996. Dr Kent described the belief that HIV was not the cause of AIDS as a conspiracy with the potential to 'mislead vulnerable people who are struggling with life-saving but difficult-to-manage HIV treatments".
Sceptical scientists claim the contrary - that there is still no study proving that any of these cocktails, separately or together, can extend life. In South Africa, material critical of AZT has become central to the debate, with claims that senior members of the AIDS medical establishment are unaware of the latest scientific literature. In a pointed rebuke of Dr William Makgoba, head of the Medical Research Council and a personal friend of Mbeki's, the President said, "What do you do if professors won't read articles about subjects they write about?"
Dr Kent has described the debate questioning existing treatments and research as "irrelevant" and "a disgraceful waste of time and resources". In a South African TV debate, a Glaxo-Wellcome representative said, "We find it unusual that these allegations of safety aspects on AZT have suddenly arisen in South Africa. They have not surfaced in any other country around the world, in over 100 countries where the drug is registered." To which the South Africa's health minister replied "If it is the first time, then somebody has to start."
With billions of dollars in drug-company profits and research grants at stake, not to mention reputations, Mbeki is under enormous domestic and international pressure. Just two weeks ago his office bitterly accused Western drug companies of enriching themselves from the AIDS epidemic and compared them to warmongers "who propagate fear to increase their profits". In the face of nearly 20 years of research and the largest amount of money ever spent on a single virus (with precious little to show for it), it is surprising that the Western media is not taking more of an interest in these difficult questions."
"Andrew McIntyre is a Melbourne writer who has written on HIV and AIDS for several years. "
(Any implications in the above or future cited articles that suggest an actual "HIV" "virus" has been proven to exist are implied by the authors of those articles and whatever sources they base their information on and are not proffered by reclaimthebrain.com as scientifically accurate views.)
Now see below an article of very questionable fairness in "Newsweek" magazine. How's the following for an unbiased title about President Mbeki wanting to have a thorough and open discussion about "HIV/AIDS" science?:
Flirting With Strange Ideas
Mbeki reaches out to a controversial AIDS researcher
By Tom Masland and Patricia King
Newsweek 17 April 2000
It was the first phone call David Rasnick ever received from a head of state. When the San Francisco biochemist's telephone rang last Jan. 21, South Africa's president, Thabo Mbeki, was on the line. Mbeki, Rasnick says, was eager to discuss Rasnick's controversial theories about AIDS: that the disease now ravaging sub-Saharan Africa is not caused by a virus, and that drug cocktails used in rich countries to defer the onset of AIDS are toxic. During the 10-minute call, Rasnick says, it was clear Mbeki is determined not to blindly follow the conventional scientific wisdom on AIDS and its treatment. "If he can stick it out and he has told me he will, he deserves a Nobel Prize," Rasnick says.
What has come over Thabo Mbeki? He is Washington's favourite African leader urbane and brainy, the West's best hope for a continent mired in poverty, corruption and disease. No one doubts he is committed to fighting AIDS; Mbeki has put together a vigorous AIDS-awareness program and has also long tried to force Western drug companies into providing low-cost AIDS medicines to poor countries. But his flirtation with an obscure, discredited theory disheartens many AIDS researchers and flabbergasts administration officials preparing for Mbeki's state visit in late May. According to one senior U.S. official, Mbeki's contacts with the dissenters on HIV were discussed at the White House last week. Mbeki's "made a huge mistake," says this official, "but we don't know whether it was a cynical mistake or if there was pressure on him [to downplay HIV] or a genuine error. Either way, the consequences are serious."
Mbeki has done little to clear up the mystery. His office won't even confirm or deny that the phone call to Rasnick took place. Yet Mbeki has publicly insisted on revisiting the basis of AIDS science. Some critics suggest he's motivated by intellectual pride or the determination not to be dictated to by the West and by South Africa's mainly white and Indian medical establishment. "The president is saying there are a number of questions regarding the prevalence of AIDS in South Africa that need to be answered," says Joel Netshitenzhe, an Mbeki spokesman.
Mbeki must be wary of getting burned on AIDS policy. As vice president, he backed development of a locally produced AIDS treatment called Virodene, which contained a dry-cleaning solvent and proved ineffective. Now he's under pressure to make costly decisions. The main sticking point is whether to commit to a program involving symptom-fighting retrovirals, of the type used by AIDS victims in the West. A large-scale program could bust his budget, but activists demand that the government provide the drug AZT free to pregnant women and rape victims. Here, the dissident AIDS theory was a useful argument for caution. In Parliament last November, Mbeki said that "there exists a large volume of scientific literature alleging... that the toxicity of this drug is such that it is a danger to health."
A new skirmish in the AIDS war erupted last week. Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang told Parliament that five South African women had died during an American clinical trial involving the AIDS drug Nevirapine, a low-cost alternative to AZT. Doctors involved in the research said the minister had misleadingly conflated two studies. Meanwhile, Mbeki questioned the motives of those who continue to urge him to set up an AZT program. In a letter obtained by the press, he said the activists seem determined to "sacrifice all intellectual integrity to act as salespersons of the product of one pharmaceutical company." Some foreign experts are threatening to boycott the 13th International AIDS Conference, planned for Durban in July, if it appears the spat will dominate the proceedings. In San Francisco, Rasnick said he views the controversy as one more proof of his theory: AIDS is a "sociological and political phenomenon - that's why you get all these shrill attacks." But Mbeki, whose country has more than 4 million HIV-positive people, can't afford to be glib."
Who's being glib Newsweek? President Mbeki is in fact considering questions raised by long censored scientists of merit. You have glibly relegated President Mbeki's actually taking the time to read scientific papers by former US Government funded Molecular Biologist and Member of the National Academy of Science, Dr. Peter Duesberg as well as papers by Medical Nuclear Physicist Eleni Eleopulos and colleagues as a "flirtation with an obscure, discredited theory that disheartens many AIDS researchers and flabbergasts administration officials preparing for Mbeki's state visit in late May." Newsweek, when will you and most of your mainstream press colleagues take the time to read and then comprehensively present to the world the scientific critiques of the ruling HIV/AIDS hypothesis that President Mbeki has read. Again, who is being glib?(Glib: being facile with words or using them without due care or examination, superficial, or going for the apparent rather than what is actual, from the root "glibberich" or slippery.)-rd
stay tuned to reclaimthebrain.com for links to background information and video and live/archived webcast coverage of this unfolding story that you won't get on the evening news.
"Science commits suicide when it adopts a creed."
-Thomas Henry Huxley (1825-1895)
English biologist
"When we look closely at the science of AIDS, and particularly at Gallo's hypothesis, we realize quite quickly that we are not dealing with scientific truth in the normal sense of the expression. The idea that an HIV is the cause of AIDS-associated illnesses, is just that - an idea - there is, even now, no evidence but only supposition to support it..."
-Martin Walker, "AZT: AN AIDS DEFINING DRUG ("Continuum" Vol. 5, #1)
another coming video link:
A long and then medium shot of Dr. Stefan Lanka in Geneva, July ‘98 at the 12th International AIDS conference as he points up at the letters on the wall, "UNAIDS", and says, " ‘UNAIDS’, in Germany they are laughing at this, because it is un-aids, no aids..." A closer shot as he shares his critical view of the ruling "HIV/AIDS" hypothesis while sitting underneath the "UNAIDS" symbol long after most of the international press, pharmaceutical sales representatives, physicians, scientists, government and non-government agency officials, workers, or the more than 12,000 various "AIDS" "professionals" and "volunteers" have left the Palexpo conference center for the day and gone back to their hotels and or to Olde Geneva for per diem beverages and the mandatory fondue.
-rd
A close up as Dr Lanka says:
"I think we are the happiest people on this conference. And I don’t think we are the happiest people because we are so clever. I can speak also on behalf of my colleague, Dr. Kremer and Professor Dr. Hassig. They are not egomaniac people. Of course I know you need to be self confident to be able to express it. And to inform the public. But I am so happy to be able to help and I don’t know how many people here at the conference are not going to die because they learned that no deadly virus is inside them. But I hope that at least one is getting faith again in his body and is getting to be his own medical doctor. I’m convinced that we achieved this in some people which we run in to or they run into us so I think that’s the nicest things what we can do and this gives you a really nice feeling and power to go on even if this is a hard job because half of the world thinks we are crazy. But I can tell you, for me it was clear already being a young student when the first person told me once, "Look, I met you a year ago on a conference when you gave a talk and I’m still alive, I planned to commit suicide because I had such bad clinical signs, all the medications and I didn’t commit suicide, and I’m perfectly healthy, I read all your things and I thank you." And then I was really virtually starting to cry you know and I hoped he would stay longer to speak with him but he left as well and I was alone with this feeling and I knew I saved a life you know and since this time I was never thinking about why I’m doing this. There was never the question about this I knew I’m doing it. There was no way out and it was interesting because I knew I had the luck to run into great, great, great persons, experienced persons, And so, in Germany we have a word when something happens by accident, it’s a very nasty term in English "by accident", "accidents", it’s nasty, in Germany we have a nicer word, we say "zufaellig" if something it’s coming to us, "zufaellig " it means yeah it comes by accident, but literally it means, it comes to you, it comes towards you...and I think yeah, I’m happy for this and you can be sure we are going on on this.."
-Dr. Stefan Lanka, Ph.D., Virologist, from transcript of video interview underneath the "UNAIDS" (United Nations AIDS)sign in the near empty pressroom in Geneva July, 1998 at the 12th International AIDS conference.
Coming soon: links to video above and more with Dr.Stefan Lanka from Geneva '98 and future coverage. See links to Dr. Lanka's scientific views below.
As you explore this site, consider the possibility that an untold number of lives have been lost and remain threatened because the powers that be presiding over "AIDS" research, medicine and the mainstream press have kept vital scientific debate out of "AIDS" science by silencing or marginalizing any thinking contrary to the "HIV/AIDS" hypothesis. As seen at world "AIDS" conferences like the last one in Geneva '98, "HIV/AIDS" hypothesis following "scientists" and unscientific advocates of the ruling "HIV/AIDS" idea are subsidized with governmental, institutional and pharmaceutical industry money, flown around the world, put up in five star hotels and awarded cultural and cash bearing honors while censored scientists like Dr.Peter Duesberg, Dr. Eleopulos and the Perth Group and others whose arguments could contribute to a true scientific search for the truth about "AIDS" remain discredited, unfunded and unwelcome at the International "AIDS conferences. But as South African President Thabo Mbeki is now asking some very big questions about "HIV/AIDS" science and its accompanying pharmaceutical treatment, will things be fundamentally different before the next international "AIDS" conference scheduled to happen in July in Durban, South Africa?
Mahatma Gandhi's vigil for truth, justice and humanity began when he was a young attorney in a South Africa where the end of racial oppression was hard to imagine. Today in a new South Africa and world that Gandhi could only dream of, President Thabo Mbeki, with hopes of getting to the truth about "AIDS", is supporting a true scientific debate that can lead to an intellectual, physical and spiritual liberation that can change and save millions of lives in his country and around the world through clear thinking about the spell of fear, censorship, distortion and death that came with the questionable "HIV/AIDS" hypothesis announced in Orwell's nightmare year, 1984.
-rd
"When I despair I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they can seem invincible but in the end they always fall. Think of it. Always."
-Mahatma Gandhi
Transcript and video link from the closing press conference at the 12th International AIDS conference, Geneva, Switzerland, July 1998 where Dr. Anthony Fauci of the US Government's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), Mark Harrington, co-founder/policy director of TAG (Treatment Action Group) and Dr. David Ho, researcher behind Protease Inhibitor treatment (the questionable "drug cocktails"*) together defend the ruling infectious "HIV/AIDS" model and its accompanying "anti-viral" drug treatment against rather fundamental questions.(*See links below for reports on the drug cocktails' toxicity from Celia Farber’s recent "Science Fiction", Gear magazine March 2000 and excerpted in The New York Post . Also see at links below John Lauritsen's article "Protease Inhibitors in Provincetown" in Continuum, March '97 as well as his, Celia's and others' earlier reporting on the toxicity of AZT and other drugs prescribed via the viral "HIV/AIDS" hypothesis.
A bit more on the transcript below of soon to be linked video segment from Geneva '98 : The Perth Group of scientists and physicians' long held but marginalized scientific views questioning the specificity or the validity of the "HIV test" and their stunning and censored argument that there is no scientific proof of the existence of "HIV" were presented at a satellite meeting arranged by Michael Baumgartner as Secretary General of IFAS, International Forum for Accessible Science. IFAS, in a coalition of groups including Continuum magazine, Gay International Association, Meditel Productions(Joan Shenton, filmmaker/journalist), HEAL (Health Education AIDS Liaison, w/international chapters providing support and alternative/holistic information), COBRA (bio-health advocacy-Spain) together managed to get the satellite presentation of the Perth Group transmitted from Australia to Geneva under the auspices of the 12th Int'l AIDS conference only to find it officially scheduled the night before the opening day sessions of the conference when it was unattended by the mainstream press but attended in part by the conference Chairman, Dr. Bernard Heschel. A few days after Dr. Eleopulos and the Perth group's satellite presentation, Dr. Heschel presided over the conference's closing press conference where he discouraged questioning about the scientific basis of the "HIV/AIDS" diagnosis and its accompanying prescribed "anti-viral" drug treatment, did his best to dismiss and discredit Perth's scientific views and reigned over the proceedings that included the following Q&A:
-rd
Huw Christie : "My name is Huw Christie from Continuum in London... I think some of
people here know there was a genuine controversy here at the conference on Sunday evening
in the session that Doctor Heschel attended. There were senior scientists from France and
Australia saying that isolation of "HIV" has not been successfully achieved and
so forth. So my question really that came out of that is why has there never been a
demonstration of viremia without using PCR? If people have a viral load of 200, 000 or
whatever it should be possible shouldn’t it to demonstrate particles, viremia? Why is
it necessary to use a technique, which is designed for amplification of numbers? ... You
expect to be able to demonstrate just actual viremia as you do with other viral
conditions. These photographs that we’re all used to seeing about a field full of
morphologically similar particles thousands and thousands. Where are those pictures for
HIV?"
Dr. David Ho: "I think it’s a matter of numbers. If we take a plasma that has lots of virus. If we want to concentrate by spinning real hard and pallet down the virus and go take a picture of that it’s possible through electron microscopy to visualize it. But it’s not a practical thing that one can on patients on a day to day basis."
Huw Christie: "Once at least to satisfy this stuff that blew up Sunday night."
Mark Harrington: (loudly, holding the microphone right up against his mouth as he scolds:)
"Nothing’s going to satisfy certain people that do not look at the preponderance of evidence whether it’s electronic microscopy ... I don’t understand why you guys go to these meetings ...Why don’t you go out and do some other experiments in 12 people like the one that David did two years ago that turned the epidemic around? It shouldn’t be that expensive to do an experiment in 12 people if you have an alternative hypothesis. The epidemiological data from the developed countries where people have been taking these therapies supposedly against the virus ("Let the scientists talk" someone yells in the background) have actually dropped the death rate in places where these drugs are available by more than 50% , is that a coincidence?"
"Let the scientists answer, we don’t want to hear you"(a shout out from someone else in the audience off microphone)
Mark Harrington: answers back (off mike): "Well we don’t want to hear you. You’re wasting the time."
Huw Christie: "I’m sorry. That’s good news that you mention of course that people are being helped. But this did happen, this conference on Sunday night. Some of us were there. This is the burning question."
Dr. Bernard Heschel:(trying to move on saying):"OKAY...
Dr. Anthony Fauci: "I don’t think we can go on. Let me just, if there’s no virus in the plasma how did the hemophiliacs get infected?"
Huw Christie: "Well if there’s no virus, what proof of infection do you have?"
Dr. Bernard Heschel:(dismissing Huw Christie’s question by pointing to another person across the room) "Okay, next question please."
"The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed."
-Steve Biko (1946-1977)
South African political leader
-see below an excerpt from, "A New Century, A New ACT-UP" 2/11/2000, Rex Poindexter on the formation of a dissident ACT UP chapter, ACT UP Hollywood:
"When Rod Knoll of Alive & Well started talking about forming a new AIDS dissidents' group for direct action in L.A., few gave him much notice. But a determined Rod has found a way to marshall the well-planned efforts of a few into a burgeoning new force in L.A. gay and AIDS politics. It is called ACT UP HOLLYWOOD and it is already creating a buzz across the city. Its longterm effects are yet to be seen.
Some who were approached to join the effort openly wondered why L.A. might need another dissidents' group. And besides, L.A. is too blase, who wants to picket or protest anything, who notices, the media doesn't care, nobody cares. Still, a few people began small meetings to organize this new possibility, and the name 'Act Up' was discussed both for its positive and negative connotations. Someone asked: didn't Act Up get us all into this mess by screaming for more drugs and more money, instead of better answers?
Some of us had been involved in Act Up chapters here in L.A. and in D.C. and now had mostly regrets about having marched in the streets screaming for more money, more drugs... for having wheatpasted Silence Equals Death posters in the dead of night... for having been a part of the momentum that delivered toxic drugs into the community and killed so many of our friends. So, why would we want to use that name?
Why? Because we haven't surrendered the original Act Up name or spirit just because most chapters were bought off or diverted into following a blind orthodoxy. Because some of us may have been part of the problem and now we want to help undo the damage we helped create. Because the Act Up New York website says anyone who wants to help fight AIDS can start a new chapter just by declaring it, and going to work. And so we did.
To separate ourselves from the now-retired Act Up Los Angeles, we chose the name Act Up Hollywood. Because Hollywood, through Elizabeth Taylor, Sharon Stone and so many others have been partners in the AIDS propaganda, we are reclaiming the name Hollywood and inviting celebrities to come out of the AIDS orthodoxy closet. (Alive & Well was the recent beneficiary of a public concert by rock supergroup The Foo Fighters who are now also featuring a web link to Alive & Well on their official fan page. Now that's support! And other celebrities are waiting in the wings...). It has been the mass media's use of celebrities that has helped raise so much money and pollute the public discussion about AIDS. So, if that's the way you get people to notice you, we can play that game too! Then, while examining the acronym AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, someone said, "Enough power has already been unleashed. Isn't it time to start undoing some of the propaganda?" So, to complete our chapter's birth and naming, we made it official: AIDS Coalition to UNDO PROPAGANDA."
see excerpts from circulating email April 13, 2000:
"Hello Gang:
I am Rod Knoll, founder of one of the newer dissident chapters of ACT UP,ACT UP Hollywood. I wanted to let all of you know that a pow wow of sorts just took place last night between ACT UP San Francisco and ACT UP Hollywood. We took the liberty of going ahead with plans for actions in our respective cities on April 27th as a show of support for President Mbeki. We already decided on a few points which I would like to present to all those who may be interested in doing something in their respective cities. These are only suggestions, but we feel this opportunity is so important that we should start planning ASAP.
We agreed on the importance of stressing that these events are billed as a very positive (sorry for the pun!) international "RALLY OF SUPPORT" so that there is no danger of these rallies being perceived as protests AGAINST Mbeki or his country. This applies especially to events that are being planned around South African Consulates in various cities. If your city does not have a South African Consulate, there are other locations-prominent AIDS organizations or clinics-that could suffice for your event. We at ACT UP Hollywood, for example, have already decided to have our event at 12:00 noon on April 27th outside the South African Consulate's office here in Los Angeles. We will probably just do a rally and not a march, like what is planned in New York, I believe...We also want to suggest that you find out as soon as possible if there is a South African Consulate in your city so that you can contact them and let them know that you support President Mbeki and that you are planning a rally of support for him.
Again, I do not want to make it sound like you have to do things our way on this or not at all. We just wanted to bring as many people as possible into the planning and coordination of this event and to do so as soon as possible in light of our ever-decreasing time.
Your prompt response is appreciated, and thank you for your continuing efforts.
ACT UP Hollywood
...SUPPORT PRESIDENT MBEKI
The following organizations have joined forces to create The International Coalition to End AIDS Censorship in order to support President Mbeki's call for an open scientific debate on the definition, causation, treatment and prevention of "AIDS".
Academy of Nutrition Improvement (Nagpur, India), ACT UP San Francisco,Alberta Reappraising AIDS Society, Alive and Well AIDS Alternatives (Los Angeles), Alive and Well (Eugene, Oregon), Continuum Magazine (London), El Peque o Periodico, The Forum for Debating AIDS South Africa (FDASA), Fundacion Arte y Ciencia (Columbia), The Group for the Scientific Reappraisal of the HIV-AIDS Hypothesis, The Health Education AIDS Liaison (HEAL) Network (New York City, Denver, Hartford, Portland, San Francisco, Seattle, Washington, DC, Toronto, Uganda), International Forum for Accessible Science (IFAS), Joint Action Council Kannur (JACK), Journalists for a Free Media, Mothers Opposing Mandatory Medicine (MOM), The Mythbusters, New York Rethinking AIDS Society (NYRAS), The Sheppard Foundation, Students Against the HIV Causes AIDS Hypothesis (SATHIVCAH)
see a petition circulated via email available for signatures at virusmyth.com link below:
"PETITION OF SUPPORT:
In science, no theory should be immune from challenge, and debate over an issue affecting millions of lives should never be declared over. I support South African President Thabo Mbeki's intention to investigate the definition, causation, treatment and prevention of "AIDS"."
Coming soon: video of demonstrations of support for President Mbeki’s Panel of Inquiry featuring members of Act Up San Francisco, Heal, Journalists for a Free Media and international colleagues.
"...As broken structures rust
False idols turn to dust
All lies in ashes
And its not too late.
It's not too late, It's not too late,
It's not too late, It's not too late,
the atmosphere is lethal,
But I will fear no evil..."
-T-bone Burnett," It's not too late",from his CD, "The Criminal under my hat")
stay tuned for reclaimthebrain.com's webcast coverage of an unfolding awakening...- © Copyright 2000-2001 reclaimthebrain.com
All documentary video produced and directed by Rob Drescher, unless otherwise noted
Direct links to reclaimthebrain.com video streams are expressly prohibited.
contact: reclaimthebrain@yahoo.com
contact, comments reclaimthebrain@yahoo.com
(to return to reclaimthebrain site after visiting any link, click on the return to previous page(rewind) symbol on your toolbar)
go to Rethinking AIDS news for updates and "the
petition to support President Mbeki's intention to investigate the definition, causation,
treatment and prevention of "AIDS" at www.virusmyth.com/aids/news.htm
go to Eleni Papadopulous-Eleopulos, Dr.Valendar Turner and Perth Group link at http://www.virusmyth.com/aids/perthgroup/
go to Dr. Peter Duesberg link at http://www.virusmyth.com/aids/whistleblowers.htm#pd
go to "Continuum" editor Huw Christie's interview with the Perth Group's Dr.Val
Turner,"Do antibody tests prove HIV infection?" at http://www.virusmyth.com/aids/data/hcinterviewvt.htm
go to Dr. Stefan Lanka link at http://www.virusmyth.com/aids/index/slanka.htm
go to Rethinking AIDS website (virusmyth.com) link to find overview, the scientific views
of Dr.Peter Duesberg, Eleni Popadopulous-Eleopulos and Dr. Val Turner of the Perth Group,
Dr. Stefan Lanka and others, front news updates, some of the work of John Lauritsen, Celia
Farber, Joan Shenton, Neville Hodgkinson and others via "find" link at http://www.virusmyth.com/aids/index.htm
Click on the picture of Huw Christie, editor of "Continuum", for Huw's report on
the second round of the President's panel as it appeared in September's issue of "New
African" (To return to reclaimthebrain site after visiting this or other links click
on the return to previous page(rewind) symbol on your toolbar)
http://www.virusmyth.com/aids/news/hcpanel.htm
Video | First Time Visitors | Background Text and Links | News