What reason is there to suspect man-made AIDS origin?
In the late 1970s, a US government-sponsored trial of hepatitis B vaccine
recruited an unprecedented number of gay men
in New York and San Francisco - more men in fact than would have been necessary
for measuring statistical significance
and for trying to ascertain the safety of a new vaccine. These men
immediately, dramatically starting coming down with a new
disease that was unknown at the time, and lacked even a name.
After the fact, the infections of these men was blamed on their own sexual
orientation and their promiscuity.
There is a kind of circular reasoning: "Gay men are a risk group because there
is an epidemic breaking out
among gay men, so the fault of their being infected is due to their membership
in a risk group."
This "blame the victim" logic is a little too quick in forgetting the fact
that the gay men in these studies were not
the only sexually active gay men in the cities of New York and San Francisco.
The question that should have been
asked -and was not asked, as a conspicuous and inexplicable omission- was
whether the gay men in these vaccine trials
were infected at a significantly higher rate than other, comparably active men
in the same cities, who might, after all,
have had their first infections
from the very men in the vaccine trial.
This is similar to the legal situation that would arise if a fast-food
franchise was accused of spreading a disease to patrons
due to unsanitary practices of an infected worker. In a legal case, the
question would be settled by a statistical comparison
of infections among the restaurant patrons versus the general population.
This is a methodology suitable for making a verdict
in a court of law. By the same token, the same methodology can reach a
"verdict" concerning the gay vaccine program.
The political sensitivity and dire implications of the conclusion are irrelevant
to the application of a similar test.
This website describes in detail such an investigation. The result is
clear enough that its denial would involve a kind of
devil's advocacy, on a par with denial of global warming for political
motivations.
Context is equally important. Our country's unfortunate, extensive
history involving biological warfare research and the
deep corruption that has been documented in our country's secretive intelligence
establishment constitutes a sort of
"character evidence" that is vital toward understanding the full picture. This
context will also be discussed in more detail.