AIDSgate?
by Billy Russo
I was surprised a couple of months ago
when I opened issue number 117 of New
York Native to the full page headline:
AIDSGATE BEGINS [followed by]
SHOULD GALLO & ESSEX BE IN JAIL?
In a searing editorial, publisher and editor-
in-chief, Charles L Ortieb accuses Dr. Robert
Gallo of the National Cancer Institute and Dr.
Max Essex of the Harvard School of Public
Health of falsifying test results and other sci
entific fraud
Ortieb bases his allegations on the
following:
1. ...th a t Gallo's lab‘stole’the discovery [the
HTLV-Ill/LAV controversy] from the
French, after ignoring the French discov-
The
Roseburg
Report
ery for over a year, thereby setting treat
m ent and vaccine research back im
measurably.
2. That the linking of an AIDS-associated
virus with HTLV-I and HTLV-II was a delib
erate attem pt to confuse scientists and the
public, to enjoy acclaim, and to obtain
grants and other benefits. . .
Ortieb goes on to support his allegations
with the following facts: through his position
at the National Institutes of Health, Gallo has
imposed a high level security clearance on
the virus, which eliminated many scientists
from doing research. Secondly, samples of
the virus are available to other researchers
only through Dr. Gallo. And lastly, only papers
co-authored by Gallo may be published from
work done on HTLV-fll, giving Gallo total
censorship power.
Ortieb accuses Dr. Essex of collaboration.
On the surface most of this may seem
irrelevant; however, as Ortieb points out, “ ...
the crucial decisions we make about our own
health, and the decisions our doctors make,
are life-and-death decisions — they cannot
be based on fraudulent science. We cannot
tolerate inertia on the part of scientists and
public health administrators who feel they
can look the other way while scientists steal
viruses and push them into phony categories.”
In another editorial entitled “Waltzing With
Mathilde,'’ Ortieb attacks Dr. Mathilde Krim,
founder and chairperson of the AIDS Medical
Foundation, for moralizing at our expense.
According to O rtieb, Krim stated during a
television interview that AIDS is an epidemic
not because of the total num ber of cases but
because of the rate at which it was replicating
itself am ong the degenerate and unrepen-
tent. She concluded that the entire popula
tion of the earth conceivably could perish
within the next 60 years.
I d o n ’t think that the N ew York N ative 's
aggressive posture regarding this epidemic
is especially unreasonable. Over 1,900
people have died of the disease in New York
City alone. And anyone in the gay community
who defends the national scientific/political
response to this plague is either uninformed
or a blatant Waxed Fruit When I received my
copy of issue 118 and saw letters from many
gay activists defending the above mentioned
scientists I was aghast at all these conde
scending Waxed Fruits (Waxed Fruit is a label
m em bers of the Faerie m ovem ent assigned
to gay Uncle Toms).
Ortieb wasn’t too impressed, either, in re
sponse to their letters supporting Gallo, Krim,
et al, he calls the executive director of the
Lambda Defense and Education Fund a
hypocrite, the head of the National Gay Task
Force "wimp of the year," and Nathan Fain of
the Gay Men’s Health Crisis "the Unde Tom
of the homophile movement" Ortieb is fight
ing mad, and he isn’t taking any shit
And how can he expect fair treatment with
people like Dr. Jam es O. Mason in charge of
The Centers for Disease Control? Mason was
formerly head of health care for the Mormon
Church; his office supervised the church's
cure for homosexuality — aversion therapy
by electric shock.
At best our nation s leaoers are pleased
that they can get away with pointing an ac
cusing fìnger at the queers and say we’re
responsible for the century's worst epidemic
however, I fear that they have something
much worse in store for us.
speaking out against the establishment's
mediocre response to this Ufe-and-death is
sue. And we’d be a stronger community to
day if more of our nation's activists took such
personal risks and focused more of their en
ergy on bringing the homophile community
together instead of using their positions to
further their personal careers.
F o r Inform ation
re g a rd in g
a d ve rtisin g
call
236-1252
The N ative's AIDSGATE stance is
com m endable. Ortieb has nothing to gain by
M ^S
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