DUNKY THE LITIGIOUS JOURNALIST Gay McCarthyism in England

By John Lauritsen

New York Native 20 May 1991

There is a climate of fear in the British gay community now, as a result of an antigay backlash that began about one and a half decades ago. In 1976 the successful prosecution of Gay News editor, Denis Lemon, for blasphemy played a role in the demise of what was then the best gay newspaper in the world. In the eighties, British Customs almost succeeded in destroying Britain's most important gay bookstore, Gay's The Word. In the past few years, new antigay legislation is undoing the Wolfenden reforms of the fifties. Clause 28 prohibits anything that might encourage homosexuality. Clause 25, the "Criminal Justice Bill" which is now before Parliament, would greatly expand the criminal definitions of "soliciting" and "gross indecency" when applied to gay men. "Soliciting" could be nothing more than one gay man introducing two other gay men to each other, or one gay man telling another that he is attractive. "Gross indecency" could be nothing more than two gay playfully touching each other, even fully clothed and away from public view.(1)

In addition, the gay community is divided and intimidated by a terror campaign spearheaded by a journalist, Duncan Campbell. "McCarthyism" is the closest word I can find to describe his approach -- fostering of fear and suspicion, character assassinations based on unsubstantiated charges, guilt-by-association, violent rhetoric, malignant innuendos, repudiation of logic. And I speak as one whose adolescence occurred in the America of the fifties. I can still remember the internalized dread of that period, when any form of nonconformity was tantamount to treason. My best friend and I were beaten up for having spoken out against Senator Joseph McCarthy in a junior high school social studies class. After that we discussed him only with each other or our parents who, although themselves conservatives, thought that the man had bad manners. Each day I went to the woman next door to get her copy of the Christian Science Monitor, which was the first, and for a long time the only, newspaper in the United States that dared to stand up to McCarthy.

Campbell's first targets were AIDS dissidents -- those who questioned the HIV hypothesis and the benefits of AZT. When others had the audacity to come to their defence, Campbell widened his attacks to include the defenders also, and he came close to destroying Britain's only national gay newspaper, an AIDS organization, and a number of gay men.

I should state that I am a partisan, having myself been subjected to an ad hominem attack by Campbell in the pages of the left-liberal magazine, The New Statesman and Society, for my participation in the documentary, "The AIDS Catch". I don't claim to be neutral, but will try to be fair and objective. A journalist is, after all, entitled to have a point of view.

Duncan Campbell

Duncan Campbell studied physics at Oxford. From physics he went to technical journalism, and then to left-wing writing in The New Statesman and Society. He achieved fame in 1987 for uncovering a more or less secret piece of British military hardware, the Zircon spy satellite. An article of his, "The Parliamentary Bypass Operation",(2) disclosed that Parliament had not been informed exactly what Zircon was or how much it would cost. The government responded flamboyantly -- police raids on the New Statesman and the homes of Duncan Campbell and other journalists, an injunction against Duncan Campbell, demands that newspapers not publish the (already published) spy satellite story, a ban on members of Parliament viewing the spy satellite film in the House of Commons, and so on. The government briefly imprisoned Campbell and pressed serious charges, which were then dropped. Campbell's martyrdom -- the only journalist to be imprisoned for security reasons in over two decades -- made him a hero in the freedom of information movement.

It is difficult to understand why the government reacted so excessively over disclosures of their plans to put a satellite dish in the sky. Other governments had done so. Considering the state of present-day British technology, one would think they'd be proud as Punch if they could build the thing and it actually worked.

Campbell established himself as an authority on government secrecy, with a five-part series on "The Secret Society". He reviewed Peter Wright's Spycatcher, a book which for some reason the government had banned. A skeptic might question why, if the British government were all that secretive, it let so many secrets drop in the lap of Duncan Campbell. But no matter. He was voted "investigative journalist of the year" for 1987.

Articles on secrecy in general, and Zircon in particular, became increasingly tiresome. By 1990 Campbell was reduced to talking to "Mary 'X'" -- his mother! -- who had been in the Secret Intelligence Service (or M16) during World War II.(3) He doesn't say whether he himself followed in her footsteps, though some are convinced that he did.

Campbell's renown was further enhanced, as well as his bank account, when he won a law suit against the BBC. Private Eye, the satire magazine, describes "Dunky's" triumph as follows:

Gay investigative journalist Duncan Campbell spent much of last week drumming up publicity for his libel victory over the BBC, posing outside the High Court and distributing a long, boastful press release headlined, "Knickers Case Costs Beeb 100,000". (The case, for those unfortunate few who missed it, arose from G.F. Newman's television play Here is The News in which an investigative journalist not unlike Campbell is shown to be a shoplifter who likes dressing up in women's knickers. For this unspeakable libel on Campbell the BBC agreed to pay 50,000 pounds damages plus 50,000 pounds costs.)(4)

In an interview with Ivan Briscoe in the Oxford student paper, Cherwel, Campbell says: "I took a stand to counter the myth which is spread that if he's a queer he's got no reputation to stand on. And I won."(5)

Campbell is a nouveau homosexual, having discovered his true nature only a few years ago in San Francisco, after "a string of unsatisfying heterosexual relationships".(6) He lost no time in exploiting his new status. In 1988 he wrote an article for the Guardian, in which he exposed his new-found sexuality. He then founded a gay group, Stonewallers, and became a prominent gay spokesman. Speaking at Oxford on anti-homosexual discrimination, Campbell declared that "We're talking about sodomy, we're talking about arseholes!", and he asseverated that "Sodomy is bloody good fun!"(7)

By January 1988 Campbell was already presenting himself as an AIDS expert. A three-page article, "1,227 and Counting",(8) relays the standard AIDS propaganda of the period -- "HIV infection", explosion into the heterosexual community, 190,000 Americans dead from AIDS by the end of 1990, and the rest of it. Campbell is concerned that public funds might not be freely available for the "life-preserving, but expensive, drug AZT."

Another article, "The Amazing AIDS Scam",(9) exposes details of how drug companies are concerned with making profits. It appears impressive at first, but on closer scrutiny is seen to be radical more for style than for substance. The article commendably recounts how Wellcome, the manufacturer of AZT, swept information about some of the drug's side effects (notably muscle disease) under the rug. However, no mention is made of the fact that AZT was approved on the basis of invalid research (which Campbell ought to have known, as both Joseph Sonnabend and I wrote extensive exposs of the Phase II AZT trials in 1987). Likewise, Campbell neglects to mention the really serious toxicities of AZT: severe anemia, as well as the potential to cause cancer.

Campbell subsequently became a keen advocate of "early intervention" with AZT for healthy people with HIV antibodies. His 1989 article, "Aids: The Race Against Time", has as its central premise the biggest AIDS lie of all: the lie that all those with HIV antibodies will go on to develop "AIDS", and that all those with "AIDS" will die. In Campbell's words:

Without therapeutic intervention, all those already infected -- plus anyone newly infected in 1988 and subsequent years -- will probably also go on to suffer and die from "full-blown" Aids.(10)

This lie is one that I thoroughly demolished in the pages of the New York Native(11) and SPIN Magazine. It is a form of voodoo which is programming healthy people to die.

Later in 1989 Campbell branched out into "quackbusting" revelations regarding unorthodox AIDS treatments.(12) He commenced a ferocious persecution of Positively Healthy, a self- help group that dared to question the merits of AZT and the journalism of Duncan Campbell. A description of Positively Healthy will be helpful in understanding the issues involved and the chain of events that followed.

Positively Healthy

Positively Healthy (PH) is an organization run by and for people living with "AIDS" and those who have been diagnosed as HIV-antibody-positive. As reflected in its name, Positively Healthy differs from other AIDS organizations most notably in its optimism. Members of PH flatly reject the AIDS Establishment's model of an inevitable and linear progression: from HIV to ARC to AIDS to DEATH. PH sees no reason why people with "AIDS" (PWAs) should not recover, and no reason why HIV-positives should not remain healthy.

In the first issue of Positively Healthy News (January 1989), the lead article, "Killing Us Softly With Their Song", is a trenchant critique of bad survey research conducted by the San Francisco Department of Health and the Centers for Disease Control, in which it was claimed that virtually all of those with HIV antibodies would go on to develop AIDS. In fact, the San Francisco sample was so extraordinarily unrepresentative, of the universe of people with HIV antibodies, that no conclusions of any kind should be drawn from the study. The editors of the newsletter comment:

"We in PH suggest that a significant cause of disease in people living with AIDS is the effect of believing misinformation such as this, which programmes people to a same death-oriented agenda is emphasized by Burroughs Wellcome along with the British Medical Association in their joint booklet issued in 1988, 'Aids And You', in their statement 'Aids kills everyone who gets it'.

PH does not hesitate to challenge AIDS orthodoxies, including the big two: HIV and AZT. Every issue of PHN contains critiques of the HIV-AIDS hypothesis, including an article on Peter Duesberg by Joseph Schwartz ("The Politics of Aids Research", issue #1), an interview with Joseph Sonnabend (issues 3-5), and articles by and about Jad Adams, author of The HIV Myth.

An article, "Power & Persuasion: a critical look at the use of AZT in healthy people" (PHN #1), sets its premise with a quote by Robin Weiss: "I don't see why people who are well should take a drug which pretty reliably will make them sick." (Robin Weiss is at the very center of the AIDS Establishment in Britain, perhaps the equivalent of Robert Gallo in this country.) The article takes a hard look at some of the ethical and scientific issues involved in a British trial of AZT on healthy HIV-positive people, in particular the lack of candor shown by Burroughs Wellcome, the manufacturer of AZT, and Karen Gelmon, the administrator of the trial.

Another article, "The Trials of AZT" (PHN #2), states: "We are not being given the true facts about the health risks which healthy people with HIV antibodies may encounter if they participate in the current Medical Research Council AZT Trial." It reports that research conducted in France and elsewhere fails to find any tangible benefits from AZT therapy, and that severe AZT side-effects have been swept under the rug by the AZT advocates.

In contrast to other AIDS organizations, PH encourages PWAs to help each other, rather than relying upon help from professional or volunteer counsellors. This is central to the PH philosophy; as expressed by Cass Mann:

We teach that healing is healing 100% of our lives and involves healing others, and this is precisely what our weekly support groups facilitate and what we encourage people to join. We learn from each other's experiences and expectations and provide a jargon-free and attitude-free network where people access the level of support and empowerment they choose.

The self-help approach of PH is described by Graham Pyper, one of the "two hundred men and women who have used the advice and support of Positively Healthy in learning to live with HIV and AIDS":

AIDS has brought people a lot of problems, and the group is a place where they can be dealt with. It's great to see how people respond to each other and in so many ways. Y'know, dealing with the hassles around money and housing, illnesses and diet, medication and treatments, the need for information and facts, all the things that become an everyday reality for people with AIDS. (Graham Pyper, "Rubber Luvin Leather and Holistics", The Pink Paper, 11 November 1989)

Although Duncan Campbell was to portray PH as cultist, it is consciously anti-doctrinaire, having as one of its basic aims, "to present options, not answers." Graham Pyper recounts in his Pink Paper article how on his first weekend with PH he was told, "Question everything you hear, including what we tell you." People in PH receive the message that they must put themselves in charge of their own healing, not doctors, not social workers, and not anyone else.

With regard to treatment options, PH adopts a "free marketplace of ideas" approach, with special emphasis on therapies which are commonly referred to as "alternative" or "holistic"; these would include nutritional therapies, homeopathy, Chinese medicine, herbal therapies, and acupuncture. Some people in PH have strong opinions, and do not hesitate to express them, but no one is obliged to go along with them. For example, Cass Mann is opposed to eating meat, fish or poultry, on ethical grounds and because of the various hormones, antibiotics and other adulterants found in flesh foods. However, many and perhaps most of the PH members remain unrepentant carnivores.

PH takes nutrition seriously, and have not been afraid to attack a substance dear to most people: sugar. Cass Mann asserts that "More people are addicted to sugar than to any other drug in the world." He describes sugar as "an anti- nutrient, the consumption of which depletes the body of B vitamins."(13) In addition, the consumption of sugar is a major co-factor for yeast infections (candida/thrush), and is therefore counterindicated for people with AIDS or ARC. (The case against sugar should not be dismissed lightly -- my own opinion is that sugar is harmful for many people, if not necessarily for everybody. Suggested background reading: William Dufty's Sugar Blues(14) and William G. Crook's The Yeast Connection(15).)

PH strongly believes that tap water should be avoided. This rather surprised me until I realized that many of the people I knew in London kept bottled water in their homes. London tap water is not very good, and has been accused of containing cryptosporidium, as well as innumerable toxins. In the London underground stations huge posters put up by the City of London inform the public that many measures are taken to ensure the safety of the water supply. These are countered by smaller, though much cleverer, posters advertising a gadget that filters water; if you use it, you are told, there will be no "unsightly sludge" on the inside of your tea cup. This message got through to me, and for the rest of my stay in London I drank bottled water.

PH also believes that psychological factors are important in staying healthy. Approaches they have offered include mutual meditation, weekend seminars on the theme "Victim to VICTOR!", group outings, Tai Chi (an ancient Chinese system of therapeutic exercise), and a Meditation Masterclass (which they describe as "based on the Eastern and Western Esoteric practices of TANTRA, ZEN and SHAMANISM -- with a pinch of Hollywood and a dash of Broadway thrown in for good measure!"). They also offer a series of "Deep Relaxation & Self-Healing Cassettes", with "original music and special effects by Robert Hole and visualisations by Cass Mann" (the profits from which go to fund PH's free seminars, workshops, and celebration groups).

The bottom line is that the PH approach works. For whatever reasons, people in PH are recovering and staying well. PH is thus a rebuke to the medical establishment, whose dogma states that HIV and AIDS are "invariably fatal", and whose AIDS therapies have been so consistently lethal. PH's success is well known. Many people in the London gay community have friends, lovers, or themselves who have been helped by PH. As a result, they came to the group's defence when it was under attack.

The Attacks Begin

In April 1989 Duncan Campbell began making serious allegations against Positively Healthy. In August 1989 he disseminated a 6-page confidential document entitled "Positively Healthy" to AIDS organizations and gay publications in Britain. Campbell's clandestine document(16) made four main charges: 1) PH attacked AZT therapy, advocating instead "vitamin pills and quack cures"; 2) PH promoted "worthless and/or unproven quack cures and remedies"; 3) the "fundamental philosophy of PH promoted and sold nutritional supplements, some being "demonstrably dangerous".

Most of the document consists of unsubstantiated innuendoes attacking Cass Mann and other members of PH. As an example of Duncan Campbell's argumentation, let the following specimen suffice, in which PH members are accused of criticizing the people who criticize them:

Because Mann and other members of the group work full-time at promoting themselves and their ideas, he and his colleagues, and a group of adherents rapidly subject anyone criticising anything they do, or saying anything they disagree with to a stream of criticism - direct, through the gay periodicals, and indirectly by innuendo and rumour. Rather like a cult, the faithful can be and are relied on to wear down opponents.(17)

Campbell characterizes PH as a band of bullies, who go around threatening scientists they disagree with -- a characterization which is untrue and preposterous, according to every person in London with whom I discussed PH. I myself have talked to Cass Mann on several occasions, and can hardly imagine anyone less bully-like or dogmatic.

It is clear that criticism of AZT represents the main sin of PH. Campbell returns to the topic again and again. He charges that PH is attempting to sabotage the Concorde Trial ("A belligerent and ugly attempt has been made to destroy the current trial of the drug AZT on asymptomatic HIV patients."). He quotes Dr. Matthew Helbert, a leading AIDS doctor:

He [Cass Mann] is doing a lot of harm. I know people who have come off AZT because of Cass Mann. He is exploiting the anxiety and disempowerment that people feel because of Aids and dealing with doctors.

Helbert's statement is rubbish -- the criticisms of AZT research made in the pages of Positively Healthy News are fair, rational, and well-supported. Helbert has a sick and totalitarian mind if he feels that the expression of a viewpoint contrary to his own represents "exploiting anxiety and disempowerment". Mann should be commended if he has succeeded in persuading people to "come off AZT" -- by doing so he has probably saved their lives. Does Helbert really feel that he is "empowering" people by killing them with AZT? Or hasn't the good doctor found out yet that people on AZT therapy don't live very long?

So far as the various charges of promoting "quack cures" are concerned, the issue here is really that of PH's faith in free speech. The PH approach is not to exclude unconventional ideas, but rather to encourage people to think for themselves. In the words of Cass Mann:

We are not foisting ideas on the unsuspecting public. People do bring their brains to the seminars and do use them. We are aware that there are many rogues in both alternative and traditional medicine and welcome open investigation and exposure of them.(18)

It is bizarre that Campbell should attack the basic philosophy of PH, the essence of which is optimism for PWAs and HIV-positives. PH believes that PWAs can recover and HIV positives can remain healthy -- and this, according to Campbell, is "psychologically extremely damaging to patients". Yet Campbell himself is a proponent of the dogma that HIV- inevitably-leads-to-AIDS-which-is-invariably-fatal. Is that supposed to be psychologically beneficial?

And yet in a way Campbell's attack makes sense. The PH philosophy is a threat to the prevailing AIDS paradigm in general, and to AZT therapy in particular. In promotional literature for AZT, and in reports written by Burroughs-Wellcome "scientists", the assertion is often made that AIDS is invariably fatal. It is never claimed that a patient undergoing AZT therapy could recover, only that the drug might "extend life" or perhaps "improve the quality of life". The point is important. It is now becoming obvious to anyone with eyes to see that patients on AZT are all dying. Burroughs Wellcome itself now claims not to know the longest period of time anyone has been able to survive on continuous AZT therapy. So far as we know, it's not over three years. All of the original participants in the Phase I trials (1985) and the Phase II trials (1986) are dead now. Untold thousands of people on AZT therapy have already died, and there are at least 100,000 taking the drug right now.

Campbell's obsession with vitamin pills is particularly absurd. All PH did was to organize a buyers club in order to offer high-quality, high-potency nutritional supplements known as "Imu-Power Packs", which they sell at about $1.70 per day, which is slightly above the wholesale cost. One could debate the benefits of the many components of the Imu-Power Packs, but there is nothing in them that is harmful, and they are not expensive relative to ordinary medicines (or the price of a beer or package of cigarettes). The only valid objection Campbell makes to the Imu-Power Packs is that one would have to swallow about 65 pills a day. But if people don't mind, why shouldn't they do so? They're a lot better off than if they were taking AZT.

Campbell falsely charges that PH "have also urged patients to take a poisonous drug called 'organic germanium'." In fact, PH never promoted the substance; organic germanium is not mentioned in any of the PH newsletters, and is not included in the Imu-Power Packs.

Positively Healthy Defended

On 27 August 1989 Campbell wrote a "private and confidential" letter to Edward King, one of the organizers of an up-coming conference, "Promoting Our Health". Accusing PH of having "promoted a long string of crooks, idiots and quacks in their exploitation of PWAs, threatened and bullied doctors and patients, and done their utmost with dirty tricks to sabotage important medical trials", Campbell stressed the "need to limit this dangerous organisation from doing any further damage to the health of gay men". He urged the organizers to "disinvite them from the conference altogether".

On 30 August 1989 the organizers replied to Campbell. Firmly and with dignity they refused to disinvite PH, and came down on the side of free speech:

The Promoting our Health2 collective does not wish to censor voices that are controversial. We are content that Positively Healthy's participation in the "HIV and AIDS Treatment and Research Issues" discussion panel, in which representatives of the medical profession, Body Positive and Frontliners will also take part, will allow contentious issues to be debated in a rational and adult manner. If you would like to take part in this debate yourself, your presence will be welcomed.

Britain's leading gay newspaper, The Pink Paper, then came to the defence of Positively Healthy in its issue of 16 September 1989. The header to their lead article, "Witch Hunt!", states:

Journalist Duncan Campbell is being challenged to "come clean" about his allegations against the AIDS support organization Positively Healthy, which offers a variety of complementary approaches to HIV and AIDS treatment.(19)

The article reports that the London gay newspaper, Capital Gay, for which Campbell was a reporter, had refused to carry any more advertising for PH seminars, and that The Pink Paper, had been pressured to refuse advertising from PH. Cass Mann is quoted as urging the immediate publication of Campbell's allegations, "so that people can judge for themselves." Mann vigorously rebuffed Campbell's charges: "Campbell portrays Positively Healthy as 'preying' on people with HIV and AIDS, but we are 200 people living with HIV and AIDS."

The article describes how, in defiance of Duncan Campbell, the organizers of the conference, Promoting Our Health, invited Stuart Marshall, editor of Positively Healthy News, to speak on two panels. During the panel discussion many speakers expressed support for Positively Healthy. Stuart Marshall made the statement:

I will decide the route that I will follow. I refuse anyone, be they pharmaceutical industry, doctor, political spokesman, or journalist to tell me how I will live.... I'm fighting for my life, but I don't know what Duncan Campbell is fighting for.(20)

The Campbell-Townson Article

Duncan Campbell's allegations against Positively Healthy were finally published in the 29 September 1989 issue of The New Statesman and Society, of which Campbell was and is an associate editor. Co-authored with Nigel Townson, the article is entitled, "Positively Unhealthy: Duncan Campbell and Nigel Townson uncover an intense and damaging campaign against orthodox treatments for Aids."(21) It is largely a re-hashed version of the document Campbell had circulated privately.

Much of the article consists of ad hominem attacks on Cass Mann, who is condemned, among other things, for the clothes that he wears, and for once having been "the promoter of London's glitziest gay nightspot, the Embassy Club." Campbell describes Mann as "a self-proclaimed 'healer', who wears costumes reminiscent of seaside fortune-tellers and a large egg-sized crystal around his neck."(22)

Well now, Cass Mann, who is of mixed Indian and European ancestry, does indeed wear clothes that are exotic by western standards. But so what? Are his ideas any less valid on this account, than are Campbell's ideas on account of the clone uniform that he favors? Those who have been gay for more than a few years are aware that colorful attire is not unknown in our community. Campbell should get used to it.

Here is an all-too typical Campbell- Townson innuendo: "Only five months ago the National Aids Trust gave Positively Healthy 10,000; the funds, he [Cass Mann] said afterwards, would go into his own pocket as 'salary'". The insinuation is clearly that Mann was misappropriating funds, diverting PH monies into "his own pocket". In fact, the grant from the National Aids Trust was made explicitly to pay Mann's salary as administrator of PH. There was no malfeasance of any kind on his part.

In the thicket of charges made against Cass Mann and Positively Healthy, the central offense is having criticized AZT. In the words of Campbell and Townson, "The most dangerous part of Mann's activities has been a one-sided campaign to stop patients taking the drug AZT." The authors recount what is meant to be a horror story: when Mann noticed a man swallow an AZT capsule, he "demanded, 'Why are you poisoning yourself?'" The man, Richard Barker, then had to "justify taking the drug". Barker is quoted as saying, "I know of three people who have stopped AZT because of him."

After recounting yet another horror story (a patient who, persuaded by Mann to stop his AZT, "went on to get Aids"), Campbell and Townson shift gears in order to attack Brian Deer, a Sunday Times journalist who had criticized AZT in print. (Deer had no connection with Positively Healthy, but then consistency is not a strong point of the article.) Deer is accused of hurting the feelings of Dr. Ian Weller, who is administering the Concorde trial of AZT treatment for "asymptomatic" HIV-positives. And then Stuart Marshall of PH is accused of having flown to Canada, allegedly for the sole purpose of harassing Dr. Karen Gelmon, joint coordinator with Weller of the Concorde trial. And then Brian Deer is attacked again, this time for having written an article claiming that participants in the Concorde trial were not fully informed about "potentially fatal side effects" of AZT treatment. (Campbell and Townson are highly indignant, but Brian Deer was right. Unless participants in the Concorde trial were told that cancer is an expected consequence of AZT therapy, they were not fully informed as to the "potentially fatal side effects" of AZT treatment.)

In their final salvo, the authors accuse Mann of having "exploited the vulnerability of people confronted by a life- threatening disease, and undermined their confidence in the most effective treatments yet known." There should be no doubt that "effective treatments" = AZT.

In October 1989, Cass Mann filed a complaint to the Press Council against The New Statesman and Society for the article "Positively Unhealthy", replying point-by-point to the many malicious inaccuracies contained therein. He explored the possibility of a libel suit, only to found out that in England you have to be rich to sue for libel. And Mann is not rich.

"The Sick Statesman"

The Pink Paper came to the defence of Positively Healthy with a front-page article, "The Sick Statesman: Left-wing journal's photographer harasses meeting of people with HIV and AIDS".(23) The staff of The Pink Paper investigated Duncan Campbell's allegations, and found them to be groundless. The article reported on "a storm of protest" that had broken out in the gay community over the The New Statesman and Society article. Many people who knew Cass Mann personally said the picture of him drawn in the NSS article was not one they could recognise.

The writer, Simon Watney, is quoted as saying:

This appears to have been a witch-hunt which has been conducted more in the manner of a Sun expose than a piece of reputable journalism. While Duncan Campbell purports to speak on behalf of vulnerable people with HIV, the distinction between protecting the vulnerable and denying people access to information seems extremely thin.... The entire article is written in a tone of shrill, spiteful malice rather than the measured careful tone we should expect from a journalist of such wide, international standing.(24)

The Pink Paper article describes acts of harassment committed by Duncan Campbell and The New Statesman against PWAs and members of Positively Healthy. According to Stephen Burn, a former editor of The Pink Paper, a PWA belonging to PH received a phone call from Campbell that was so threatening he broke out in an anxiety rash, and had to lie down for half an hour. A New Statesman photographer belligerently harassed people attending a PH seminar:

The conduct of a New Statesman photographer has also been highlighted by this week's publication. In June their photographer stood outside a Positively Healthy seminar at the Royal Entomological Society in London, and took photographs of people arriving and leaving the meeting, attended by many people with HIV and AIDS. Some who were planning to attend turned back when they saw the photographer and others were upset that their faces would appear in print. A member of Positively Healthy said the man refused to stop taking pictures when asked and began intimidating people saying they would be captioned as people with AIDS.(25)

The Pink Paper article discloses what may be the heart of the matter: Duncan Campbell's links to the organization, Campaign Against Health Fraud, popularly known as "Quackbusters":

This lobby group of doctors, lawyers and journalists listed Duncan Campbell as a "leading member of the Campaign" in its statement of aims".(26)

The Journal of Alternative Medicine stated that Campbell was an "editorial adviser" for the group. According to Campbell himself, he was merely "an ordinary member". Later, Campbell would deny having any connection to Quackbusters at all.

The key to Campbell's behavior may be found in links between Quackbusters and the Wellcome Foundation, parent company of Burroughs Wellcome, manufacturers of AZT. In a news item in the British Medical Journal of 14 May 1990, the address of Quackbuster's founder, Caroline Richmond, is given as the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine. Although Wellcome has denied funding Quackbusters, the British government has refused to give money to the group because of a lack of assurances that it is not supported by pharmaceutical interests.

Litigation

The Pink Paper's article, "The Sick Statesman", was basically the defence of a small and vulnerable group that had come under attack. The article contained no ad hominem attacks on Duncan Campbell. The strongest criticisms were directed against an article, rather than a person or publication, and were expressed by persons interviewed by The Pink Paper, which simply reported what they said. Therefore, the staff of The Pink Paper were shocked and dismayed to find themselves the target of litigation by Duncan Campbell and The New Statesman and Society.

On 6 October 1989 The Pink Paper received a letter from Campbell's lawyer, Brian Raymond of Bindmans, stating that the "Sick Statesman" article was defamatory. The solicitors for The Pink Paper advised that the article was in no way libellous, and responded to Bindmans by urging that any dispute should be resolved without recourse to the Courts. The Pink Paper wrote to deny that the article was defamatory, and generously offered Campbell and The New Statesman the right to respond with 1,000 words on page 2 of the paper with a flag on the first page.

On 23 October 1989 Campbell's lawyers replied with a set of blatantly unreasonable demands:

a: The Pink Paper shall publish in the issue dated 1st. November, 89, an article of at least 1,000 words, text to be supplied by us, in rebuttal of the defamatory material previously published in your paper.

b: This article will be carried on the front page of the paper under a headline of our specification. There will be no other material of any nature in that issue of the paper in relation to this matter, save for a statement on the front page recording the terms of this settlement.

c: You will indemnify both Duncan Campbell and The Statesman and Nation Publishing Company in respect of their legal costs.

d: You will make a substantial donation to a nominated AIDS charity as a mark of your regret.

These terms are non-negotiable.

At this point the utter hypocrisy of The New Statesman should be noted. At no time did they ever grant the right-to- reply to Positively Healthy or to Cass Mann, despite the fact that right-to-reply requests were made and material was submitted to them.

Campbell also began resorting to court injunctions, in order to prevent The Pink Paper from publishing any more articles critical of himself. Articles reporting on Campbell's hounding of Alan Beck and Brian Deer (about which more below) had to be pulled. On the front page of The Pink Paper of 11 November 1989, half of the space is blank -- under a headline, "EDITORIAL", appears the following statement: "This article has had to be withdrawn because of a High Court injunction issued on behalf of Duncan Campbell."

Because of the crushing financial burden that a lengthy and protracted libel action in the High Court would entail, The Pink Paper was advised to settle, even though they had not been in any way libelous. Pragmatically they offered to contribute to their opponents' costs, and to publish a response from The New Statesman on the front page.

Campbell & Co. responded by upping the ante. Pat Coyne, the Chief Executive of The New Statesman and Society, and Duncan Campbell now demanded a mortgage on the home of one of the defendants, Alan Beck, a freelance writer who in fact had not even taken part in writing "The Sick Statesman". The Pink Paper felt this was an unacceptable demand and told them so. Campbell's lawyers then issued a High Court libel writ.

The headline of the 2 December 1989 issue of The Pink Paper read: "The New Statesman Sues The Pink Paper". Readers were informed, "Costs to everyone involved in the matter are expected to be substantial." Support for The Pink Paper and revulsion against Duncan Campbell began to be expressed, both within and outside the gay community. A defence fund was organized to help pay the phenomenal legal costs that The Pink Paper faced in defending itself against libel charges before the High Court. A number of famous names signed a statement entitled "Our Right To Speak". (See footbar.)

In a front page article, "Buyer Beware!: Statesman intensifies legal battle against lesbian and gay community paper", The Pink Paper reports that "the troubled left-wing magazine, which last week was forced to sell its offices to pay off mounting debts, has halted all negotiations with The Pink Paper which in February were moving towards a settlement to avoid High Court proceedings."(27)

A date was set, 26 June 1990, on which the libel charges would be heard before the High Court in a closed hearing. Legal advisors for The Pink Pape regarded this as a maneuver to prevent the case from reaching open court, where the details could be reported. Therefore, The Pink Paper took its case directly to its readers.

The article reports that Stuart Weir, editor of The New Statesman and Society, finally supplied The Pink Paper with their response in March 1990:

It repeated the attack on Positively Healthy and added others in a manner which our barrister judged to be libellous on seven different counts. It extended their charges against national newspapers and other individuals.
Our barrister advised us to print the reply, but with the defamatory comments deleted to prevent us from being sued ourselves by other parties.
The New Statesman objected to this, claiming the article was their copyright and that we could only print it with the defamatory statements included. Again, on legal advice we refused to do this.(28)

The Pink Paper reaffirmed its defence of Positively Healthy: "We have asked The New Statesman to produce evidence of any wrongdoing in the administration of Positively Healthy. Stuart Weir has declined to do so."

The defence of PH continues:

We have found nothing amiss in this organisation. Its books have been certified by an independent auditor and inspected by the National AIDS Trust.
It has received advice from the Department of Health on its entitlement to sell vitamin pills, all readily available in the high street. We believed and we still believe that the attack on this organisation was unwarranted.(29)

The article concludes with the rueful statement: "If the dispute continues to escalate, in the future there may not be a Pink Paper at all. The price of free speech is sometimes costly."(30)

A piece in Private Eye achieved satire by describing reality:

"Dunky" Campbell now seems to have developed a taste for litigation: he is about to resume his hounding of a homosexual weekly organ, The Pink Paper. Last year the paper questioned an article by "Dunky" in the The New Statesman and Society which had attacked an outfit called Positively Healthy. For their impudence, the Pink Paper hacks found themselves bludgeoned with writs and injunctions from Campbell and the Staggers (see Eyes passim). The case returns to the High Court on 26 June, and if it drags on as long as both sides expect the costs could be 200,000 -- a fact which may be of interest to anyone tempted to buy shares in the 400,000 "rescue package" that has just been unveiled for the New Statesman. Potential investors may find their money passing straight into the hands of m'learned friends.(31)

On 21 May 1990 Act Up London issued an open letter to The New Statesman and Society, calling upon it "to apologise for its harassment of members of Positively Healthy and to withdraw its legal action against the Pink Paper." Act Up also expressed concern about "Campbell's connections with the Campaign Against Health Fraud (CAHF) and its connections with Wellcome, the manufacturers of Retrovir (formerly AZT)."

In his article in The Sun, "Dunky's Double Talk On Freedom Of speech", Richard Littlejohn expresses the contempt with which other journalists regarded Campbell's actions:

I wish I could give more wholehearted support those lobbying for the lifting of the ban [on free speech and freedom of information]. But I can't. Such campaigns harbour hypocrites, liars and political extremists. The freedoms they seek are selective.
Take Duncan Campbell, for instance, a Left- wing journalist prominent in the freedom of information movement.... He demands freedom of speech for himself, but seeks to gag others. He is currently taking me to the Press Council for calling him a shirt-lifter. He says this terms is offensive.
It was MEANT to be offensive. I find Campbell offensive. I wanted to offend him. It worked. But it is his hypocrisy I find offensive, not his homosexuality.(32)

Other Victims: Brian Deer, Tony Whitehead, Alan Beck

Alan Beck, a drama lecturer at the University of Kent and a writer for The Pink Paper, had nothing to do with the article, "The Sick Statesman". Nevertheless, Duncan Campbell made Beck a co- defendant in his libel suit, and did everything in his power to destroy Beck's career. On 24 October 1989, on New Statesman and Society stationary, Campbell wrote to the Registrar of the University of Kent, charging that Beck had improperly made use of university facilities, specifically a fax machine, in order to defame Duncan Campbell. Somehow Campbell managed to obtain a log of the university fax machine, which he incorporated into his letter, alleging that Beck had been sending copies of "The Sick Statesman" article to "various newspapers in order to incite them to further publication of the defamatory material." In case the university may not have been fully aware of Beck's gayness, Campbell hinted broadly:

We believe but have not yet confirmed that the Paris number belongs to the French gay weekly, 'Gai Pied', published by the 'Societe LFM'. We understand that Mr Beck writes frequently for this magazine as well as 'the Pink Paper'.(33)

Campbell's letter contains a thinly veiled threat to sue the university for libel, unless they appropriately punish Alan Beck. A paragraph from Campbell's letter exemplifies the menacing tone of his prose:

As you will appreciate, the transmission of this material from UKC facilities of itself constitutes a technical libel by the University, rendering the University open to action for defamation and the payment of damages, even if unaware of Back's extramural activities. We note the help and co-operation you and Mr Simpson have afforded us, and would not in these circumstances consider taking this matter further so far as the University is concerned. We would, however, be grateful for your assurance that the necessary steps will be taken to prevent the recurrence of this or similar libels or attempted libels by Beck through the use of UKC facilities.(34)

Campbell's letter was apparently an embarrassment to Stuart Weir, editor of The New Statesman and Society, and he attempted privately to apologize for what was written, going so far as to offer to visit the university personally to withdraw the allegations. But the damage to Beck's career was done.

According to an article in The Pink Paper, members of Stonewallers, a group that Campbell founded, called Beck daily and in the middle of the night:

Relaying messages continuously from Campbell, they pressed Alan to sign a public statement of apology. Alan was to admit that he wrote the article, and to say it was libellous and damaging. He was also to take no legal action over the New Statesman correspondence.(35)

Campbell repeatedly demanded that Beck's house be sold off in compensatory payment for libel, since none of the other co-defendants had assets. The Pink Paper article concludes, "By this campaign of harassment, the New Statesman have been trying to deprive Alan of his house and his job."(36)

Brian Deer of the Sunday Times, to my knowledge the only major journalist in England to have criticized AZT, was also on Duncan Campbell's hit list. Through many letters and telephone calls, Campbell informed senior management at the Sunday Times that Deer had committed the heinous offense of writing personal letters on Times stationary, and was otherwise a terrible person. In consequence Deer was transferred out of London to the hinterlands of San Francisco, and was forced to write a letter of apology to Campbell, which Private Eye described as "a grovelling apology reminiscent of a 'confession' at the old Stalinist show-trials."(37)

The full story of Campbell's crusade against Brian Deer came out at a special meeting held at the Terrence Higgins Trust, at which members from the Terrence Higgins Trust, Positively Healthy, Body Positive, The Pink Paper, and Brian Deer and Duncan Campbell were present. (See sidebar.) Campbell's tactics were repudiated, and full support was voiced for Positively Healthy.

The High Court and Afterwards

"High Court Rejects New Statesman Summons" is the triumphant headline on the 29 June 1990 issue of The Pink Paper. "Judge orders Duncan Campbell's magazine to pay half Pink Paper's costs."

The Pink Paper summarizes their victory as follows:

In the High Court on Tuesday the New Statesman failed in its attempt to have Pink Paper's defence struck out. The High Court victory means that the Pink Paper's defence stands on every point.
It was at 12:55 pm that the High Court Deputy Master, Mr Paul Miller, gave his decision. He ordered the New Statesman to pay not only their own costs but also half the Pink Paper's costs.(38)

Commenting on the High Court decision, The Pink Paper saw not only a victory for a lesbian and gay community paper, but also for the principle of freedom of choice in medicine:

Proprietor Kelvin Soltis added, "This is the first step vindicating both our journalistic integrity and the right for the membership of Positively Healthy, the AIDS support group, to take responsibility for their own health - living with HIV". Editor David Bridle drew attention to how much the New Statesman's counsel had focused on the issue of AZT when she summarized Campbell's article as "an expose of a damaging campaign against AZT treatment".(39)

And the last point may be the key to understanding why Campbell acted as he did. Those who are inclined to psychological explanations may choose to interpret Campbell as a particularly unpleasant study in abnormal psychology. Perhaps. But a more parsimonious hypothesis would be that he is a journalistic hit man for the pharmaceutical industry, in particular, Wellcome, which completely dominates AIDS research in the United Kingdom. In terms of wealth and power, Wellcome is as big as many countries in the world, and it undoubtedly has, in addition to a small army of "scientists", its own espionage services, its own saboteurs, its own journals and journalists, its own "gay leaders", and its own "AIDS activists".

Positively Healthy, Cass Mann, The Pink Paper, Brian Deer, Tony Whitehead, Alan Beck -- all of Duncan Campbell's targets survived, though not uninjured. Campbell himself was quiet for awhile, but has not given up his dirty work. His latest target has been Meditel, the producer of the Channel 4 documentary "The AIDS Catch", in which Peter Duesberg and others argue against the HIV-AIDS hypothesis and describe the dangers of AZT. I will write about the harassment of Meditel in a future article. *

References

1. C. Bard Cole, "Will Clause 25 Send Britain Back to the Days of Wilde?", New York Native, 22 April 1991.

2. Duncan Campbell, "The Parliamentary Bypass Operation", The New Statesman and Society, 23 January 1987.

3. Duncan Campbell, "Mum's The Word: This week, Duncan Campbell challenges the new Official Secrets Act -- by talking to Mary X", The New Statesman and Society, 9 March 1990.

4. Private Eye, [date missing -- probably April or May 1990].

5. Ivan Briscoe, "A Professional Outsider", Cherwell, 18 May 1990.

6. Briscoe, op. cit..

7. Briscoe, op. cit.

8. Duncan Campbell, "1,227 -- and Counting", The New Statesman and Society, 22 January 1988.

9. Duncan Campbell, "The Amazing AIDS Scam", The New Statesman and Society, 24 June 1988.

10. Duncan Campbell, "Aids: The Race Against Time", The New Statesman and Society, 6 January 1989.

11. John Lauritsen, "The Epidemiology of Fear", New York Native, 1 August 1988. Reprinted as Chapter III in Poison By Prescription: The AZT Story, Asklepios/Pagan Press, 1990.

12. Duncan Campbell, "Sharp Practice", The New Statesman and Society, 7 April 1989; "Let Them Eat Shit", The New Statesman and Society, 16 June 1989.

13. Cass Mann, "Sweet Poison and Deadly Diets", Quack Quack Quack, 2 pounds sterling, BCM-QuackQuackQuack, London WC1N 3XX, England.

14. William Dufty, Sugar Blues, New York 1975.

15. William G. Crook, M.D., The Yeast Connection, New York 1986.

16. Duncan Campbell, "Positively Healthy" (a privately circulated, 6-page document), dated 13 August 1991 and 15 August 1991.

17. Ibid.

18. Cass Mann, quoted in "Witch Hunt!", The Pink Paper, 16 September 1989.

19. "Witch Hunt", The Pink Paper, 16 September 1989.

20. Ibid.

21. Duncan Campbell and Nigel Townson, "Positively Unhealthy: Duncan Campbell and Nigel Townson uncover an intense and damaging campaign against orthodox treatments for Aids", The New Statesman and Society, 29 September 1991.

22. Ibid.

23. "The Sick Statesman: Left-wing journal's photographer harasses meeting of people with HIV and AIDS", The Pink Paper, 7 October 1989.

24. Ibid.

25. Ibid.

26. Ibid.

27. "Buyer Beware!: Statesman intensifies legal battle against lesbian and gay community paper", The Pink Paper, 28 April 1990.

28. Ibid.

29. Ibid.

30. Ibid.

31. News item in Private Eye, May or June 1990.

32. Richard Littlejohn, "Dunky's Double Talk On Freedom Of Speech", The Sun, 7 June 1990.

33. Letter from Duncan Campbell to Mr. A.D. Lyndford, The Registrar, University of Kent at Canterbury, 24 October 1989.

34. Ibid.

35. "Alan Beck and the New Statesman", The Pink Paper, 23 June 1990.

36. Ibid.

37. Private Eye, December 1989.

38. "High Court Rejects New Statesman Summons: Judge orders Duncan Campbell's magazine to pay half Pink Paper's costs", The Pink Paper, 29 June 1990.

39 Ibid.

Footbars:

1. OUR RIGHT TO SPEAK

In the last decade we have had to fight Mary Whitehouse's blasphemy prosecution against the old Gay News, Custom and Excise's raid on Gay's The Word Bookshop, and Section 28.

Britain's only free national lesbian and gay newspaper is now under attack. The New Statesman and Society magazine has begun libel action against The Pink Paper and has placed a High Court injunction upon it. The Pink Paper was advised by its barrister that the articles complained about by The New Statesman were not in any way libellous.

We believe that The Pink Pape must be able to speak out on issues of importance to the lesbian and gay community. Our Right To Speak is a fund now being set up to provide the necessary finance for this libel action to be defended, and major benefits are being planned.

We urge you to wholeheartedly support ORTS and its organisers.

(Signed by Susan Ardill, Neil Bartlett, Clare Beavan, Terrence Davies, Regina Fong, Patrick Galvin, Stephen Gee, Paud Hegarty, Derek Jarman, Isaac Julien, Stuart Marshall, Mandy Merck, Sue O'Sullivan, Bernard Padden, David Rees, Peter Robins, Lily Savage, Jimmy Somerville, Simon Watney, Tony Whitehead)

2. EXCERPTS FROM MINUTES OF MEETING HELD ON 11 NOVEMBER 1989 AT THE TERRENCE HIGGINS TRUST (THT), 52 GRAY'S INN ROAD, LONDON WC1:

Brian Deer stated that since February 1989 - when he published an investigation into AZT in the Sunday Times in a series of articles - Duncan Campbell had pursued a campaign of false allegations against him in New Statesman, New Scientist and Capital Gay. Between May and September Campbell had harassed senior management of the Sunday Times by sending them voluminous correspondence and making frequent telephone calls, even going so far as to phone them extremely late at night at their homes in order to make spurious and malicious allegations about Deer.

Deer was asked to apologise to Campbell by his employers at ST, but as he believed the latter's allegations were groundless, he only did so under protest. Deer wrote to the editor of NSS on 18 September, to try and set the record straight. His letter was not published, and he believes that Campbell's campaign was an attempt to lose him his job. He further believes that Campbell and his papers were set on mounting campaigns against any organisations or individuals who disagreed with him.

Deer then quoted from a letter written by Campbell to the editor of ST, which contained serious allegations about Deer's relationship with Tony Whitehead. The full letter was read out by Nick Partridge, and contained serious allegations that Deer had recorded conversations with Whitehead while they were in bed together, and that the tapes had been forwarded to the Pink Paper. During the ensuing discussion, it was made quite plain that there was no truth in any of these allegations.

Whitehead immediately withdrew any complaints he may have previously have made against Deer and the Pink Paper. He also dissociated himself from anything Campbell had written on the subject, and Dietmar Bolle publicly condemned Campbell for having launched the entire campaign without referring to - or in consultation with - the major Aids organisations....

Michael James then asked the others present at the meeting to express their support, and the representatives of all the bodies present unreservedly and unanimously pledged their future support for Positively Healthy.