VIRUSMYTH HOMEPAGE
LOOKING BACK ON BERLIN
By John Lauritsen
HEAL (New York) Newsletter Fall/Winter 1993
In June 1993 I attended the International AIDS conference in Berlin
as a working journalist. There I observed what happened and did not happen.
These had little resemblance to what was reported in the media, where almost
everything newsworthy was blacked out. At some point-whether in the self-censoring
heads of reporters or in home-office editorial rooms-widely observed events
became non-events, if they were displeasing to the AIDS Establishment.
For the record, I'll describe what happened, and then pose the question:
what do AIDS conferences really accomplish?
Despite over 6,000 presentations, nothing useful came out of the IXth
International Conference on AIDS (Berlin: 7-11 June 1993). The prevailing
mood was one of despair and confusion. Initially hopes had been aroused
by an experimental vaccine developed by Jonas Salk, to be given to those
already "infected" with HIV. These hopes were shattered when
Salk gave an unimpressive presentation, which showed that the vaccine did
nothing.
Some drama was provided by Wellcome Pharmaceutical's frenetic efforts
at "damage control", in the aftermath of the Concorde Trial.
The top researchers of the Anglo-French Concorde study adamantly stood
by their findings, that AZT had no benefits for asymptomatic, HIV-positive
individuals: AZT neither delayed the onset of AIDS nor prolonged their
lives. Wellcome sponsored satellite symposia, gave free lunches, and published
advertisements designed to disparage and downplay the Concorde findings,
but to no avail. The media were unsympathetic, and share prices continued
to fall.
However, in one respect Berlin was a breakthrough. For the first time
at an international AIDS conference, alternative voices could be heard,
attacking the HIV-hypothesis, antiviral therapy, and other AIDS dogmas.
The AIDS Establishment, which had previously relied upon censorship, was
forced to respond with a series of slander campaigns and even violence
directed against AIDS-critics.
AIDS-dissidents came to Berlin from North and South America, Africa,
India, and most European countries. Many of us had not met, or even known
about each other before. During the entire week of the conference, the
English language version of Fritz Poppenberg's documentary film, "The
AIDS Rebels", was shown in a Berlin cinema. AIDS-critics stood outside
the conference center (ICC), with signs and leaflets denouncing the "AIDS
lie" and the "rat poison, AZT", and calling for a boycott
of Wellcome. On Berlin's Open Channel Television, a total of 9 hours of
AIDS-critical programs were shown, produced by Peter Schmidt and Kawi Schneider.
For one day, before the conference organizers retaliated, AIDS-critics
had a table inside the ICC itself (about which more below). And, not least
important, some mainstream journalists began to criticize AIDS-orthodoxies,
and to demand a hearing for alternative views.
At the first press conference (6 June), several journalists asked conference
organizer Karl-Otto Habermehl why no alternative viewpoints were represented.
Why had not an invitation been issued to the foremost AIDS-critic, Peter
Duesberg? Habermehl said that Duesberg had not submitted an abstract, and
that alternative voices had not been excluded: they were represented
at the conference by Act Up. Journalists were not satisfied with his answer,
and pointed out that the conference had issued special invitations to members
of Act Up and Project Inform, as well as to the discredited American AIDS
expert, Robert Gallo. Habermehl angrily refused to respond, and the moderator
said that no more such questions could be allowed.
Later on the 6th, Act Up held a press conference, attended
by only a handful of media people. Most of the 300 Act Up members had the
950 DM entrance fee waived by the organizers. Many of them had travelled
to Berlin, staying in luxurious hotels with swimming pools, with all expenses
paid by Wellcome Pharmaceuticals, the manufacturer of AZT. In response
to a journalist's question, the Act Up representative from London admitted
that his group had taken 50,000 pounds from Wellcome, adding: "But
that was only to bring us to the conference!" Representatives from
TAG (New York) and several other Act Up groups admitted that they also
had taken money from Wellcome.
The same day a Berlin television program attacked AIDS-critics. Christian
Joswig, Peter Schmidt, Kawi Schneider and others were shown passing out
leaflets entitled, "12 Years of the AIDS-Lie are enough!" In
rebuttal, Matthias Wienold -- head of Deutsche AIDS-Hilfe, Germany's leading
AIDS organization- declared that the AIDS-critics were wrong, and nobody
should listen to them. He displayed an elaborately produced pamphlet of
the Deutsche AIDS-Hilfe, "Everything a Lie? Arguments Against AIDS-Criticism".
To conclude the program, the woman narrator referred to AIDS-critics as
"rotten eggs", after which the camera showed a close-up of a
splattering egg. Thus was AIDS-criticism rebutted.
At a press conference on the 7th, representatives of the
World Health Organization and the World Bank discussed vast amounts of
money that are being allotted to "AIDS prevention". For example,
$250 million has been lent to Brazil, so that the population can be informed
about condoms and "safe" needles. Of course, if the HIV-hypothesis
is wrong, and all of the "prevention" efforts are based on it,
billions of dollars will be going down the drain, and the Brazilians will
be misinformed as to the real risks for developing AIDS.
At an intense press conference on the 8th, Joan Shenton of
Meditel Productions of London, asked: Was it not time to re-appraise the
basic AIDS orthodoxies, including alleged heterosexual spread? This perfectly
reasonable statement so incensed Martin Delaney of Project Inform, that
he rushed up, seized her wrist, and began shaking it./1/ Robert Laarhoven,
a representative of the Dutch Foundation for Alternative AIDS Research
(S.A.A.O.) and a journalist for the Dutch magazine, CARE, asked Habermehl
whether the invitation to Robert Gallo was issued before or after he had
been found guilty of "scientific misconduct". Habermehl evaded
the question; Gallo became angry, and later yelled at a reporter, "Don't
bother me!"
Beginning at noon on Wednesday the 9th, Robert Laarhoven
set up a literature table on the "bridge", which leads from the
ICC's main conference area to the exhibition area. He put out reprints
of "Rethinking AIDS", the publication of the Group for the Scientific
Re-Evaluation of the HIV-AIDS Hypothesis (which consists of a rapidly growing
number of scientists and others, including Nobel laureates)./2/ All afternoon
the table was a gathering point for AIDS-critics. I had expected a certain
amount of hostility, but it was just the opposite-many dozens of people
came up to talk to us, keenly interested in hearing our ideas.
On the 9th, Peter Schmidt was denied a press pass under the
express orders of Habermehl, although he had credentials as a well-known
television journalist. Later he was admitted as my guest, and was in the
conference for several hours, until he was spotted by Habermehl. Led by
press chief, Justin Westhof, conference officials removed his guest pass
and expelled him from the ICC. Westhof refused to give any reason for this
action, and threatened to take away my own press pass if I asked any more
questions.
On Thursday the 10th the AIDS Empire struck back. Robert
Laarhoven was approached by conference officials, police, and a member
of the border control. His press pass was confiscated and he was threatened
with deportation from Germany for having committed "criminal trespass"
-- by placing copies of "Rethinking AIDS" on an unauthorized
table! Many other groups had put their literature on tables in the
same area, but the conference officials were not concerned about them.
Earlier in the week, the S.A.A.O. had applied for permission to put copies
of "Rethinking AIDS" in the press release area; their request
was denied.
About the same time on the 10th, Peter Schmidt and Christian
Joswig, who were handing out leaflets in front of the ICC, were violently
attacked by several dozen members of Act Up, who destroyed signs, burned
leaflets, and attempted to destroy camera equipment. These acts were witnessed
by conference officials, who did nothing to stop the violence. Police,
acting under orders of the conference officials, forced Peter Schmidt to
go into the ICC, where they took the cassette from his video recorder and
deleted it. They then ordered the peaceful demonstrators, whose only offense
had been to challenge AIDS dogmas, to stay at least 100 meters from the
ICC. No action was taken against the attackers from Act Up.
Also on the 10th, about 100 Act Up members destroyed an official
booth in the exhibition area, belonging to AIDS-Information Switzerland
(AIS). They chanted obscenities, smashed panels, destroyed displays and
chairs, and tore up all of the group's literature, before covering the
remains of the booth with 30 rolls of toilet paper. The Swiss group had
criticized the promotion of condoms, which at an AIDS conference is equivalent
to defiling the "Sacred Host" during a Catholic mass.
Juerg Barben, the president of AIS and a physician who treats AIDS patients,
said that Act Up had not only destroyed his group's stand, but distorted
their positions. AIDS-Information Switzerland believes in voluntary, not
mandatory testing, to protect the population, and believes that there is
a real, if small risk to using condoms.
At the final press conference on Friday the 11th, a dozen
AIDS-critics passed out a press release, "Offenses Against Free Speech".
I asked conference organizer Habermehl if he would apologize for those
offenses against free speech for which he personally was responsible, and
if he would rebuke Act Up for their violent attacks on the rights of others.
He indignantly declined to do so. The moderator refused to allow other
known AIDS-critics, like Joan Shenton, to speak.
And that was the IXth International Conference on AIDS.
Many of us were shocked by the brutal disregard which was shown for
the principle of free enquiry. But at least the true nature of such conferences
became clear: They are trade shows. Their entire purpose is to promote
the commodities of the AIDS Industry. They are about buying and selling.
If Science is present at all at AIDS conferences, it is in the role of
a handmaiden, or perhaps I should say whore, for the pharmaceutical companies.
Least of all are AIDS conferences concerned with the welfare of people
with AIDS, who are seen entirely in marketing terms.
For years now "AIDS activists" have been clamoring for a "cure".
The image in their head is always that of a new, powerful, high-tech drug
that will destroy whatever the cause of AIDS is. Hoping against hope, they
look to every AIDS conference for an announcement that the cure
has been found.
I see things very differently. "AIDS" is not a single, coherent
disease entity, and therefore the notion of a cure is fallacious. However,
recovery is entirely possible, and is happening here and now. In
reality, people who have received AIDS diagnoses are sick in different
ways and for different reasons. There are real and specific reasons why
they became sick, and there are real and specific steps that can be taken
so they will get better.
For this may be the best-kept secret of the epidemic: people really
are recovering from "AIDS". Some of them individually, some of
them as members of such health-oriented groups as HEAL (New York), Positively
Healthy (London), Cure Now (Los Angeles), Continuum (London), and the Moveable
Feast study group (Houston) - - people with "AIDS" are returning
to health./3/
Notes:
1. Project Inform is a California group that is funded
by Wellcome and other pharmaceutical interests. Delaney was a featured
conference speaker, although he has no scientific credentials whatever;
his prominence as an AIDS activist began with his activities as a smuggler
of illegal drugs from Mexico into the United States. (See the laudatory
account of Delaney's career in ACCEPTABLE RISKS by Jonathan Kwitny [New
York 1992].)
2. The name has been changed to The Group for the Scientific
Reappraisal of the HIV-AIDS Hypothesis, and the address
is: 7514 Girard Ave, #1-331, La Jolla, CA 92037; fax: 619 272 1621.
3. A central chapter in THE AIDS WAR by John Lauritsen
(New York 1993) puts forward a comprehensive program of "Recovery
From AIDS".
VIRUSMYTH HOMEPAGE