In an extensive article in the Summer-Autumn 1990 issue of "Top
Secret", Prof J. Segal and Dr. L. Segal outline their theory that AIDS is a
man-made disease, originating at Pentagon bacteriological warfare labs at Fort
Detrick, Maryland. "Top Secret" is the international edition of the
German magazine Geheim and is considered by many to be a sister publication to
the American Covert Action Information Bulletin (CAIB). In fact, Top Secret
carries the Naming Names column, which CAIB is prevented from doing by the
American government, and which names CIA agents in different locations in the
world. The article, named "AIDS: US-Made Monster" and subtitled
"AIDS - its Nature and its Origins," is lengthy, has a lot of
professional terminology and is dotted with footnotes. AIDS FACTS "The
fatal weakening of the immune system which has given AIDS its name (Acquired
Immuno-Deficiency Syndrome)," write the Segals, "has been traced back
to a destruction or a functional failure of the T4-lymphocytes, also called
'helper cells`, which play a regulatory role in the production of antibodies in
the immune system." In the course of the illness, the number of functional
T4- cells is reduced greatly so that new anti-bodies cannot be produced and the
defenceless patient remains exposed to a range of infections that under other
circumstances would have been harmless. Most AIDS patients die from
opportunistic infections rather than from the AIDS virus itself. The initial
infection is characterized by diarrhea, erysipelas and intermittent fever. An
apparent recovery follows after 2-3 weeks, and in many cases the patient remains
without symptoms and functions normally for years. Occasionally a swelling of
the lymph glands, which does not affect the patient's well-being, can be
observed. After several years, the pre-AIDS stage, known as ARC (Aids- Related
Complex) sets in. This stage includes disorders in the digestive tract, kidneys
and lungs. In most cases it develops into full-blown AIDS in about a year, at
which point opportunistic illnesses occur. Parallel to this syndrome, disorders
in various organ systems occur, the most severe in the brain, the symptoms of
which range from motoric disorders to severe dementia and death. This set of
symptoms, say the Segals, is identical in every detail with the Visna sickness
which occurs in sheep, mainly in Iceland. (Visna means tiredness in Icelandic).
However, the visna virus is not pathogenic for human beings. The Segals note
that despite the fact that AIDS is transmitted only through sexual intercourse,
blood transfusions and non- sterile hypodermic needles, the infection has spread
dramatically. During the first few years after its discovery, the number of AIDS
patients doubled every six months, and is still doubling every 12 months now
though numerous measures have been taken against it. Based on these figures, it
is estimated that in the US, which had 120,000 cases of AIDS at the end of 1988,
900,000 people will have AIDS or will have died of it by the end of 1991. It is
also estimated that the number of people infected is at least ten times the
number of those suffering from an acute case of AIDS. That in the year 1995
there will be between 10-14 million cases of AIDS and an additional 100 million
people infected, 80 percent of them in the US, while a possible vaccination will
not be available before 1995 by the most optimistic estimates. Even when such
vaccination becomes available, it will not help those already infected. These
and following figures have been reached at by several different mainstream
sources, such as the US Surgeon General and the Chief of the medical services of
the US Army. "AIDS does not merely bring certain dangers with it; it is
clearly a programmed catastrophe for the human race, whose magnitude is
comparable only with that of a nuclear war", say the Segals. " They
later explain what they mean by "programmed," showing that the virus
was produced by humans, namely Dr. Robert Gallo of the Bethesda Cancer Research
Center in Maryland. When proceeding to prove their claims, the Segals are
careful to note that: "We have given preference to the investigative
results of highly renowned laboratories, whose objective contents cannot be
doubted. We must emphasize, in this connection, that we do not know of any
findings that have been published in professional journals that contradict our
hypotheses." DISCOVERING AIDS The first KNOWN cases of AIDS occurred in New
York in 1979. The first DESCRIBED cases were in California in 1979. The virus
was isolated in Paris in May 1983, taken from a French homosexual who had
returned home ill from a trip to the East Coast of the US. One year later,
Robert Gallo and his co-workers at the Bethesda Cancer Research Center published
their discovery of the same virus, which is cytotoxic. ( i.e poisonous to cells
) Shortly after publishing his discovery, Gallo stated to newspapers that the
virus had developed by a natural process from the Human Adult Leukemia virus,
HTLV-1, which he had previously discovered. However, this claim was not
published in professional publications, and soon after, Alizon and Montagnier,
two researchers of the Pasteur Institute in Paris published charts of HTLV-1 and
HIV, showing that the viruses had basically different structures. They also
declared categorically that they knew of no natural process by which one of
these two forms could have evolved into the other. According to the professional
"science" magazine, the fall 1984 annual meeting of the American
Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), was almost entirely devoted
to the question of: to what extent new pathogenic agents could be produced via
human manipulation of genes. According to the Segals, AIDS was practically the
sole topic of discussion. THE AIDS VIRUS The Segals discuss the findings of
Gonda et al, who compared the HIV, visna and other closely-related viruses and
found that the visna virus is the most similar to HIV. The two were, in fact,
60% identical in 1986. According to findings of the Hahn group, the mutation
rate of the HIV virus was about a million times higher than that of similar
viruses, and that on the average a 10% alteration took place every two years.
That would mean that in 1984, the difference between HIV and visna would have
been only 30%, in 1982- 20%, 10% in 1980 and zero in 1978. "This
means," say the Segals, "that at this time visna viruses changed into
HIV, receiving at the same time the ability to become parasites in human
T4-cells and the high genetic instability that is not known in other
retroviruses. This is also consistent with the fact that the first cases of AIDS
appeared about one year later, in the spring of 1979." "In his
comparison of the genomes of visna and HIV," add the Segals, "Coffin
hit upon a remarkable feature. The env (envelope) area of the HIV genome, which
encodes the envelope proteins which help the virus to attach itself to the host
cell, is about 300 nucleotides longer than the same area in visna. This
behaviour suggests that an additional piece has been inserted into the genomes
of the visna virus, a piece that alters the envelope proteins and enables them
to bind themselves to the T4-receptors. BUT THIS SECTION BEHAVES LIKE A
BIOLOGICALLY ALIEN BODY, which does not match the rest of the system
biochemically. The above mentioned work by Gonda et al shows that the HIV virus
has a section of about 300 nucleotides, which does not exist in the visna virus.
That length corresponds with what Coffin described. That section is particularly
unstable, which indicates that it is an alien object. According to the Segals,
it "originates in an HTLV-1 genome, (discovered by Gallo-ED) for the
likelihood of an accidental occurrence in HIV of a genome sequence 60% identical
with a section of the HTLV-1 that is 300 nucleotides in length is zero."
Since the visna virus is incapable of attaching itself to human T4 receptors, it
must have been the transfer of the HTLV-1 genome section which gave visna the
capability to do so. In other words, the addition of HTLV-1 to visna made the
HIV virus. In addition, the high mutation rate of the HIV genome has been
explained by another scientific team, Chandra et al, by the fact that it is
"a combination of two genome parts which are alien to each other BY
ARTIFICIAL MEANS rather than by a natural process of evolution, because this
process would have immediately eliminated, through natural selection, systems
that are so replete with disorders." "These are the facts of the
case," say the Segals. "HIV is essentially a visna virus which carries
an additional protein monomer of HTLV-1 that has an epitope capable of bonding
with T4 receptors. Neither Alizon and Montagnier nor any other biologist know of
any natural mechanism that would make it possible for the epitope to be
transferred from HTLV-1 to the visna virus. For this reason we can come to only
one conclusion: that this gene combination arose by artificial means, through
gene manipulation." THE CONSTRUCTION OF HIV "The construction of a
recombinant virus by means of gene manipulation is extraordinarily expensive,
and it requires a large number of highly qualified personnel, complicated
equipment and expensive high security laboratories. Moreover, the product would
have no commercial value. Who, then," ask the Segals, "would have
provided the resources for a type of research that was aimed solely at the
production of a new disease that would be deadly to human beings?" The
English sociologist Allistair Hay (as well as Paxman et al in "A Higher
Form of Killing"-ED), published a document whose authenticity has been
confirmed by the US Congress, showing that a representative of the Pentagon
requested in 1969 additional funding for biological warfare research. The
intention was to create, within the next ten years, a new virus that would not
be susceptible to the immune system, so that the afflicted patient would not be
able to develop any defense against it. Ten years later, in the spring of 1979,
the first cases of AIDS appeared in New York. "Thus began a phase of
frantic experimentation," say the Segals. One group was working on trying
to cause animal pathogens to adapt themselves to life in human beings. This was
done under the cover of searching for a cure for cancer. The race was won by
Gallo, who described his findings in 1975. A year later, Gallo described gene
manipulations he was conducting. In 1980 he published his discovery of HTLV. In
the fall of 1977, a P4 (highest security category of laboratory, in which human
pathogens are subjected to genetic manipulations) laboratory was officially
opened in building 550 of Fort Detrick, MD, the Pentagon's main biological
warfare research center. "In an article in 'Der Spiegel`, Prof. Mollings
point out that this type of gene manipulation was still extremely difficult in
1977. One would have had to have a genius as great as Robert Gallo for this
purpose, note the Segals." Lo and behold. In a supposed compliance with the
international accord banning the research, production and storage of biological
weapons, part of Fort Detrick was "demilitarized" and the virus
section renamed the "Frederick Cancer Research Facility". It was put
under the direction of the Cancer Research Institute in neighbouring Bethesda,
whose director was no other than Robert Gallo. This happened in 1975, the year
Gallo discovered HTLV. Explaining how the virus escaped, the Segals note that in
the US, biological agents are traditionally tested on prisoners who are
incarcerated for long periods, and who are promised freedom if they survive the
test. However, the initial HIV infection symptoms are mild and followed by a
seemingly healthy patient. "Those who conducted the research must have
concluded that the new virus was...not so virulent that it could be considered
for military use, and the test patients, who had seemingly recovered, were given
their freedom. Most of the patients were professional criminals and New York
City, which is relatively close, offered them a suitable milieu. Moreover, the
patients were exclusively men, many of them having a history of homosexuality
and drug abuse, as is often the case in American prisons. It is understandable
why AIDS broke out precisely in 1979, precisely among men and among drug users,
and precisely in New York City," assert the Segals. They go on to explain
that whereas in cases of infection by means of sexual contact, incubation
periods are two years and more, while in cases of massive infection via blood
transfusions, as must have been the case with prisoners, incubation periods are
shorter than a year. "Thus, if the new virus was ready at the beginning of
1978 and if the experiments began without too much delay, then the first cases
of full-blown AIDS in 1979 were exactly the resultthat could have been
expected." In the next three lengthy chapters, the Segals examine other
theories, "legends" as they call them, of the origins of AIDS.
Dissecting each claim, they show that they have no scientific standing,
providing also the findings of other scientists. They also bring up the
arguments of scientists and popular writers who have been at the task of
discounting them as "conspiracy theorists" and show these writers'
shortcomings. Interested readers will have to read the original article to
follow those debates. I will only quote two more paragraphs: "We often
heard the argument that experiments with human volunteers are part of a barbaric
past, and that they would be impossible in the US today... We wish to present
one single document whose authenticity is beyond doubt. An investigative
commission of the US House of Representatives presented in October 1986 a final
report concerning the Manhattan Project. According to this document, between
1945 and 1975 at least 695 American citizens were exposed to dangerous doses of
radioactivity. Some of them were prisoners who had volunteered, but they also
included residents of old-age homes, inmates of insane asylums, handicapped
people in nursing homes, and even normal patients in public hospitals; most of
them were subjected to these experiments without their permission. Thus the
'barbaric past` is not really a thing of the past." "It is remarkable
that most of these experiments were carried out in university institutes and
federal hospitals, all of which are named in the report. Nonetheless, these
facts remained secret until 1984, and even then a Congressional committee that
was equipped with all the necessary authorization needed two years in order to
bring these facts to life. We are often asked how the work on the AIDS virus
could have been kept secret. Now, experiments performed on a few dozen prisoners
in a laboratory that is subject to military security can be far more easily kept
secret than could be the Manhattan Project."