[GN] Where and Why Did U.S. AIDS Begin?
Tom Keske
Here is some information that might help to clarify Michael's
earlier question about when/where the first U.S. AIDS case
occurred.
Alan had mentioned to me about a CDC report in 1981
that covered the first known cases that had transpired over
the previous 30 months, and indicated Manhattan as the source
of the first cases.
Edward Hooper's book, "The River" discusses these first
reports, on pages 6-7, and clarifies why some people
wrongly claim that Los Angeles was the site of the
"first" cases.
The very first report from the CDC was in May 1981,
in the CDC's "Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report",
(MMWR). This was written by two Los Angeles doctors,
Michael Gottlieb and Wayne Shandera, and was titled,
"Pneumoncystis Pneumonia- Los Angeles".
However, Hooper goes on to say, "In fact, the Los Angeles
team was not the first to recognize the new condition, but
rather the first to announce its existence in print. Four weeks
later, another piece appears in MMWR, this time cowritten by
several doctors from New York and California, headed by
Alvin Friedman-Kien and Linda Laubenstein of the New
York University Medical Center. It transpires that for the
last thirty months, these doctors have been seeing another
rare disease in homosexual men- this time a malignant
condition known as Kaposi's sarcoma."
This is the report to which Alan referred. Of these men,
20 were from New York and 6 from California.
In the past, I have gotten arguments on the gaynet
newsgroup, from people who claimed that Los Angeles
was the site of the "first" AIDS cases, and that therefore
the experimental hepatitis vaccines given to gay men in
NY and SF could not have started the epidemic. Clearly,
those arguments were poorly-informed misrepresentations.
For an in-depth explanation of why AIDS in U.S. gay men
almost certainly was sparked by intentionally contaminated
vaccines, please see this URL:
http://www.bhc.edu/eastcampus/leeb/aids/aidtesk.htm
Now, a bit of a philosophical tangent...
The fact that there are two different alleged links, on two
different continents, for two different vaccines,
independently charged with sparking AIDS, ought
by rights to be making the gay community look a
little more seriously. In fact, the critic who spread
this misinformation did not find the clarification in
Hooper's book, because at another time, the same
critic was claiming that Hooper's book wasn't worth
reading.
Why are people like this? I suspect for similar reasons
that we see an "ex-gay movement.", which is probably
is also a variation of the "self-hating Jew" syndrome,
or the phenomenon of concentration camp victims
developing an emotional dependency on their sadistic
captors.
In 1865, the Confederacy passed a bill allowing the
arming of slaves to fight against the Union. You would
think that if you armed slaves, they would turn on their
owners, but obviously, there must have been some who
would not only refuse to question authority, but would
cooperate with it willingly, no matter how hostile that
authority might be to their basic dignity.
Philosophers long ago warned that slavery would someday
take an "invisible" form. It appears that the same prediction
could have been made for the art of genocide.
Our battle is to get people over their tendency to be slaves to
their own preconceptions, and slaves to their own sense
of comfort and safety.
Tom Keske
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Chief Thracian
wrote:
>Why are people like this? I suspect for similar reasons
>that we see an "ex-gay movement.", which is probably
>is also a variation of the "self-hating Jew" syndrome,
>or the phenomenon of concentration camp victims
>developing an emotional dependency on their sadistic
>captors.
Many of us are brainwashed to feel very, very guilty if we do not
"love thine enemy". Taken to its logical conclusion, this implies that
whomever bashes us to a bloody pulp, we must then fall deeply in love
with...more so than any lesser enemy. That is to say: we ought to love
whoever despises us, and love them even more, the more they despise
and bash us.
And this is an absurd notion, to say the least; which psychologically
disarms gay people, making us incapable of fighting back, (even with
mere words.)
What about our real friends? Don't they deserve our love far more than
these enemies? Loving one's enemy is way, way out of context when it
is intended to allow one's enemies to run roughshod over you, and over
your friends and community.
The furthest I will ever go with regards to "loving" one's enemy, is
to always put my best foot forward the first time around. Beyond that,
the issue is my survival and well-being over that of any enemy.
If you do not love yourself more than the enemy, you will forever be
incapable of resisting tyranny, and of supporting others within your
community which suffers the same outrages. In fact, you'd be likely to
sabotage the good works of your own gay associates.
Love yourself. Love your gay brothers and sisters. But arm yourself
against the enemy, and be clever about it!
---
Lavender-Velvet Revolution
http://surf.to/gaybible