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The Fifty Shades of AIDS Viruses
Charles Ortleb
To see what is in
front of one's nose needs a constant struggle.
--
George Orwell
Why do you call
HHV-6/7/8 “The Fifty Shades of AIDS Viruses”?
Because
they are a family of multisystemic viruses capable of causing all the problems
in AIDS and a dozens of other illnesses. HHV-6 seems to be the most
destructive, but the other two emerged at the same time and seem to also play a
role in the world “Fifty Shades of AIDS epidemic.”
So HHV-6 is a
major public health threat?
It
is the biggest public health threat of our time. Only climate change is a
bigger issue and maybe that is only number two considering what HHV-6 is doing
to the health of the entire human race. And this isn’t about something that
will happen in the future. This is about a viral plague that is going on for
decades and everyone in the world may be dealing with.
What Illnesses has
HHV-6 been linked to?
The
list goes on and on because it is variable and multisystemic. You can find a
lot of the illness as HHV-6 University or The HHV-6 Foundation.
Is HHV-6 capable
of causing AIDS?
Absolutely.
It was originally found in AIDS patients.
Is it capable of
causing Chronic Fatigue Syndrome?
Sure.
It was also originally found in CFS patients. That should have sealed the deal
on the relationship between AIDS and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.
Is it
immunosuppressive?
Yes.
Can it cause cancer?
All
kinds.
Is it neurotropic?
Very
much so.
Can it cause
encephalitis?
Yes.
Can it play a
triggering role in Multiple Sclerosis?
Yes.
Is it associated
with mesial temporal lobe epilepsy?
Yes.
Can HHV-6 destroy
t-cells?
Yes.
That’s why it should have been called the real AIDS virus.
Can HHV-6 destroy
natural killer cells?
Yes.
That’s also why it should have been called the real AIDS virus.
Can HHV-6 also
destroy monocytes and macrophages?
Yes.
That’s also why it should have been called the real AIDS virus.
Can HHV-6 cause
hemorrhages?
Yes.
And that is another bit of evidence that it may be related to African Swine
Fever Virus, or that it behaves like African Swine Fever Virus.
Has it been linked
to illnesses in children?
It
can cause roseola, febrile illnesses and encephalitis in infants.
Is it a problem in
transplant patients?
It’s
a big one.
Does it persist in
people?
Well,
that is complicated. The conventional wisdom is that it persists in people with
impaired immune function, but since it is
capable of impairing the immune function itself, it may be a problem in
everyone regardless of immune status. Besides, we really don’t know what the
spectrum of multisystem immune problems is in this country. Probably because
the Centers for Disease Control is afraid to look.
Can HHV-6 persist
in the central nervous system and cause problems?
Yes.
Can HHV-6 cause an
alteration of cytokines that leads to all kinds of symptoms?
Yes.
Does HHV-6
interfere with the body’s ability to fight off viruses and bacteria.
Absolutely.
Can HHV-6
stimulate other viruses like CMV, HHV-8 and EBV?
Unfortunately,
yes.
Has HHV-6 been
difficult to detect?
Yes.
The problem with testing is probably why HHV-6 has not been declared the real
AIDS epidemic.
Is it true that
there is very little free virus circulating in the serum?
Apparently.
Is it also true
that it is difficult to distinguish between active in latent infections?
Yes,
and it is possible that HHV-6 is never truly latent. Just less active. That’s
why it is a plague.
Is HHV-6 able to integrate itself into human
chromosomes?
Yes,
and for all we know, in animal chromosomes, too.
Where in the body
can one find high levels of HHV-6?
In
blood, sera, and hair follicles.
Is it true that a
significant percentage of children who have viral encephalitis have chromosomal
integration of HHV-6 in the spinal fluid?
Yes.
Is HHV-6
integrated into monocytes and t-cells?
Yes.
Can one do a test
on a person’s hair to see if they have HHV-6 chromosomal integration?
Yes.
Will a person with
chromosomal integration of HHV-6 always test positive for the virus?
Yes.
Will someone with
chromosomally integrated HHV-6 also have the virus in their central nervous
system?
Yes.
That’s part of the tragedy of the decades of mistakes make by the Centers for
Disease Control and National Institutes of Health.
So, is there an
increased risk for a variety of illnesses if one has chromosomally-integrated
HHV-6?
Absolutely.
Can people with chromosomally-integrated
HHV-6 benefit from antivirals?
That
work needs to be done, but because of the CDC’s refusal to admit that it is
driving a major pandemic that includes AIDS and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, that
work has not been done yet.
Is it true that
HHV-6 can cause amnesia in people who have transplants?
Yes.
It results from the HHV-6 related encephalitis.
Are there those
who think that HHV-6 causes a kind of autoimmune disease?
Yes.
And one of the theories is it involves molecular mimicry in that the virus
genome has certain properties which are identical to myelin protein. To the
body makes antibodies against the virus and itself. That may be another thing
that suggests HHV-6 is really related to African Swine Fever Virus. Or at least
does a great impression of it.
Is it true that
HHV-6 may interfere with the ability of cells in the brain to repair
themselves?
Yes.
Does HHV-6
incorporate myelin proteins from the infected person in such a way that it
could be the cause of the symptoms in Multiple Sclerosis and Chronic Fatigue
Syndrome?
Exactly.
Is there total
confusion about latent and active HHV-6?
Yes.
And as we said, whether HHV-6 is ever truly latent is up in the air. That’s why
it is a complicated plague in a scientific Tower of Babel.
Can HHV-6 explain
all the problems with brain function in Multiple Sclerosis, autism, and Chronic
Fatigue Syndrome?
And
AIDS, of course.
Does HHV-6 then
explain the problems in the prefrontal grey matter of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
patients?
Yes.
When did you
become familiar with HHV-6?
Back
in the 1980s, my newspaper, New York
Native, did the most reporting of any publication in the world on the
virus.
Did you think it
was the real AIDS virus?
Absolutely.
If it had been discovered before HIV it would have been called the AIDS virus.
Scientists got it backwards and they kept it backwards for decades to hide
their mistake.
Has the CDC been
covering up the HHV-6 Epidemic?
Yes,
obviously.
Why?
These
days, people in public health feel that they have the right to control
information about illness, usually under the pretext of keeping the public from
panicking. But that pretext can also be a mask for covering up their own
mistakes. Not recognizing that HHV-6 was driving the AIDS epidemic was probably
the biggest mistake in the history of science and medicine. And the CDC
endangered the health of the entire planet by getting that wrong.
Who did the most
important work linking HHV-6 to AIDS?
Two
scientists. Konnie Knox and Donald Carrigan.
What exactly is
HHV-6?
HHV-6
is a DNA virus that was supposedly discovered in 1986 by scientists in the
laboratory of Robert Gallo.
Supposedly?
There
is the very real possibility that they stole the work of another virus and
renamed that scientist’s virus.
Who was the
scientist?
His
name was John Beldekas and he was a scientist at Boston University. According
to a report (on the internet, reference to come) "In
August, 1986, John Beldekas was invited to go to the NCI and present his
findings on the link between ASFV and AIDS, which he did. Beldekas gave samples
of all his lab work to Gallo. Later, the government asked Beldekas to turn over
all his reagents and lab work to the government, which he did. Beldekas had
found ASFV presence in nine of 21 AIDS patients using two standard procedures.
At the meeting, Gallo was reported saying: 'we know it is not ASFV.' How could
Gallo know this as he hadn’t done any of his own tests to look for ASFV? Two
months later, Gallo published an article in Science (Oct 31, 1986) that he
discovered a new possible co-factor in AIDS, a virus he called Human B Cell
Lymphotropic Virus which he named HBLV. Like ASFV, HBLV infected B cells and
also lived in macrophages. Did Gallo steal Beldekas’s ASF virus he found in
AIDS patients and rename it HBLV? Later on, when Gallo found that HBLV could
also infect other immune cells, he changed the name of HBLV to HHV-6.
Eventually, Gallo identified his HBLV as the variant A strain of HHV-6 and
called it a human herpesvirus."
What did the Department of Agriculture say about this?
They said that it was impossible for
African Swine Fever to infect people. But that turned out to be true.
If African Swine Fever was really HHV-6, can you find it in
pigs?
While there has been no research on
that, it is possible that HHV-6 in pigs is porcine Herpes Virus I and II. And
Porcine Herpes Virus I and II could actually be a renamed form of African Swine
Fever Virus.
So is it possible pigs in America are infect with strains of
African Swine Fever that have been renamed Porcine Herpes Virus I and II?
Is it easy to play these name games
with virus. Porcine Herpes Virus I and I were discovered after ASFV has been
ignored or renamed in American pigs for decades.
Is the naming of viruses that arbitrary?
Yes, but the public doesn’t realize
how subjective and political it is. Along with everything else that has to do
with science and medicine. The public has not even entered kindergarten where
the political nature of science and medicine is concerned. Pepole don’t have a
clue.
HHV-6 and Pets
Can HHV-6 infect pets?
If one looks at CFS as one of the
epidemiological markers for the HHV-6 epidemic, the answer is absolutely yes.
Do you mean dogs and cats can become infected with HHV-6 and
get illnesses like Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and all the other illnesses
associated with HHV-6?
Yes, for starters.
Who discovered this?
A dentist named Thomas Glass. He did
a study titled, “The
Human/Animal Interaction of Chronic Fatigue and Immune Dysfunction
Syndrome: A Look At 127 Patients and Their 463 Animals.”
What was his
background?
In
addition to his D.D.S., he was a Ph.D. Professor Emeritus of Oral and
Maxilofacial Pathology and Pathology University of Oklahoma.
Why did he do the
study?
Because
there had been anecdotal reports about domestic animals belonging to Chronic
Fatigue Syndrome patients who seemed to also get sick. In his study he studied
mainly dogs and cats.
How did he decide
who was a Chronic Fatigue Syndrome patient?
He
used the definition created by the Centers for Disease Control
Did the pets
generally get sick after the owners got sick?
That’s
what the Glass paper reports. But sometimes the patients got sick after the
animals were sick, suggesting that the pets were carrying something that they
passed on to their owner.
How sick did the
pets get?
According
to Glass’s paper, they got so sick that it was necessary to euthanize them.
Did the illnesses
the pets got resemble the illnesses of their owner?
Yes,
according to the Glass research.
What did he find
in the animals?
Glass
wrote in his paper, “Observations from my animal biopsy service demonstrate two
interesting findings in animals of CFIDS patients (unpublished findings).
Gingival biopsies from cats demonstrated an unusual epithelial viral vesicle associated
with an equally unusual submucosal inflammatory response. Several melanomas
were found in dogs of CFIDS patients which had the unique feature of a striking
progression of the tumor in the absence of an inflammatory response.”
Are people who
have CFS more likely to have had animal contact than the general public?
Yes,
according to the Glass paper. He found that 97% of patients had Chronic Fatigue
Syndrome.
So people with
pets are some kind of risk group for acquiring Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.
That’s
what it sounds like. Ownership of cats and dogs was much higher for CFS
patients. Thomas said that the typical CFS patient he studied was an “animal
lover.”
What other animals
did the patients he studied have contact with?
According
to Glass, “Birds (parakeets and ducks were mentioned most often), followed by
horses, cows, rabbits, goats, and guinea pigs. Two (2) [Chronic Fatigue
Syndrome] patients had contact with primates.”
Did the patients
have a great deal of interaction with their pets?
That’s
what Glass reports.
What was the
conclusion of the studies?
The
first study, which was a retrospective study using questionnaires asking
patients to describe the health of their pets concluded that “a large number of
these animals have atypical or unusual diseases which at least mimic” Chronic
Fatigue Syndrome.”
What was the
second study?
He
focused on 343 sick pets which were owned by CFS patients.
What did we see in
sick pets.
The
symtoms were all over the place, like in CFS patients. He reported that the
animals exhibited “a variety of altered immune conditions. including allergies,
skin rashes, hair loss, systemic lupus erythematosus.” Here are more
descriptions of the what he saw:
122
animals (41 cats; 81 dogs) had "Neurological" signs. 32 animals (17 cat.;
15 dogs) of the neurological category had lethargy, weakness, or sleep
disorders. 30 animals (9 cats; 21 dogs) in the neurological category had
seizures, tremors, or tail twitching. 19 animals (4 cat:; 15 dogs) demonstrated
hind limb dragging, myalgia, arthralgia, or Bell's palsy. 16 animals (6 cats;
10 dogs) were anxious, depressed, moody, or demonstrated inappropriate
behavior, including urination and defecation outside their litterbox. 15
animals (4 cats; 11 dogs) had photophobia, ocular discharge, or blindness. 10
animals (1 cat; 9 dogs) had deafness, ear sensitivity, or loss of balance.
36
animals (21 cat.; 15 dogs) demonstrated "Gastrointestinal" signs. 13
animals (9 cats; 4 dogs) in the gastrointestinal category had inflamed gingiva,
mouth odor, tooth loss, or drooling. 10 animal, (4 cats; 6 dogs) in the
gastrointestinal category had diarrhea or abdominal distention. 9 animals (5
cat.; 4 dogs) demonstrated anorexia. 3 animals (2 cats; I dog) had increased
appetite without weight gain. 1 cat had hard stools.
33
animals (18 cats; 14 dogs; 1 other) showed "Reticuloendothelial or Blood
Disorders". 12 animals (3 cats; 8 dogs; 1 other) of this category
demonstrated bleeding or blood disorders. 10 animals (9 cats; I dog) in this
category developed leukemia. While all of the leukemic cats were positive for
feline leukemia virus [FLV], 5 of the cats had been vaccinated against FLV
prior to the onset of their feline leukemia. 7 animals (5 cat.; 2 dogs) died of
either feline AIDS or canine immune defidency (AIDS). 2 dogs showed massive and
generalized lymphadenopathy. 1 cat and 1 dog died of lymphoma (lymphosarcoma).
Excluding
leukemia and lymphoma, 15 animals (3 cats;12 dogs) developed tumors
("Neoplasia"). 8 animals (2 cats; 6 dogs) in this category had either
fatal and/or multiple tumors which were not further classified, but which
resulted in euthanasia of the animal. 4 dogs of this category died from
malignant tumors of epithelial origin (3 squamous cell carcinomas and 1
transitional cell carcinoma), while 1 cat developed perianal adenomas, but was
still living at the time of the survey. 1 dog died of a functional pituitary
tumor and 1 dog died of melanoma.
What was the
conclusion of his study?
He
concluded, “While this study demonstrates the multiplicity of CFIDS-like signs
in the animals, it is this same multi-organ involvement in the CFIDS patients
that makes CFIDS so difficult to diagnose in humans. As with CFIDS in humans,
the animals usually showed no laboratory evidence of a specific disease entity.
There was, however, a predominance of neumlogic, neuromuscular, and
rheumatologic symptoms in the animals just as there are in CFIDS patients. The
result of these studies need to alert the veterinary profession of the need to
inquire as to the health of the animal owner and their family. Conversations
with a number of clinical veterinarians have pointed out that they are commonly
confronted with conditions in domestic animals which do not fall into well
established disease patterns. The most common of these deal with neurological
and infectious diseases. These two areas were the most often reported as the
pet signs found by CFIDS patients.”
Why hasn’t this work gotten more attention and inspired more
research?
It all goes back to the Centers for
Disease Control that does not want to even admit to the public that Chronic
Fatigue Syndrome is contagious because that would lead to research that would
challenge everything they have told the public about AIDS, HIV, HHV-6, and a
lot of mysterious, multisystemic diseases (like autism) that are linked to
HHV-6. Covering up the fact that HHV-6 is what I call a “fifty shades of AIDS
virus” is what drives the CDC’s
behavior.
Did Glass look for HHV-6 in the pets?
No, but clearly it should have been
the leading suspect.
If HHV-6 can be found in the pets of CFs patients does that
raise the real possibility that it isn’t a human herpesvirus but is what John
Beldekas said he thought it might be, a form of African Swine Fever Virus?
It certainly raises that possibility.
If Glass had looked at pet pigs of CFS patients that had gotten sick, the
United States Department would probably have gotten involved. Given how many
different kinds of animals seemed to have contracted something from CFS
patients, and given how much pigs are like humans immunologically, it seems
highly likely that pigs would also be susceptible. But we eat pigs and that
raises a lot of political and economic issues that are very disturbing. The
idea that the CFS agent is in the food supply is the most inconvenient idea of
all.
On Neenyah Ostrom
You published a book about Gilda Radner’s struggle with
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome?
Yes, I published What Really Happened to Gilda Radner?
Frontline Reports on the Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Epidemic by Neenyah
Ostrom. It consisted of the first reporting she did for my newspaper New York Native.
When did she start writing about Chronic Fatigue Syndrome?
In 1988 and she continued doing it
until we went out of business in 1997. We were the first publication to give
Chronic Fatigue syndrome serious and sustained coverage. Most people think New
York Native deserves a place in history for giving he first serious coverage to
the AIDS epidemic, but I think that the work we published on Chronic Fatigue
Syndrome is just as important. And a big part of that coverage involved HHV-6.
Gilda Radner died of cancer, didn’t she?
Yes, but that is often the tragic
outcome of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome because not only does HHV-6 cause
dysfunction in many elements of the immune system, but HHV-6 seems to also be
an oncogenic virus.
So, one could call HHV-6 a cancer virus?
Yes.
When was Gilda Radner diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue
Syndrome?
According to Ostrom, “in June 1996 .
. . approximately a year-and-a-half before she developed the ovarian cancer
that killed her in May 1989.” (Radner
p. 1)
Had the Centers for Disease Control been hearing about
cancer in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome patients?
Yes, but they ignored it. (Radner p.
2) Early on there was a decision made at the CDC not to take CFS seriously
which makes it look like a decision was made to cover up CFS practically from
the minute it began to surface in the general population. Probably because it
was too much like AIDS and it threatened the CDC’s AIDS paradigm.
Were there any studies by scientists outside of the CDC
showing that CFS patients were at an increased risk for cancer?
Yes, in her book, Ostrom reported
that Dr. Ronald Herberman studied an outbreak of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome in a
symphony orchestra and concluded that there is “a remarkably increased cancer
risk” in people with CFS. (Radner p. 2)
An outbreak in an orchestra? Does that mean Chronic Fatigue
Syndrome and HHV-6 are casually transmissible?
Unless the members of the orchestra
were having orgies after their performances.
So, you think the virus they were sharing was HHV-6?
One would have to be an idiot not to
at least say that it is the leading suspect.
Where was the first outbreak of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome?
Well, in retrospect it was probably
breaking out all over the county at the same time without doctors realizing
what they were looking at. The outbreak that most people are aware of happened
in Nevada. Ostrom wrote, “The first recognized outbreak of Chronic Fatigue
Syndrome began in autumn 1984 in Incline village, Nevada. Two general
practitioners, Dr. Paul Cheney and his partner Dr. Daniel Peterson . . .
noticed that their patients were sick with a flu that didn’t seem to go away.
The two physicians had worked in the community for several years; they
recognized that something new was affecting their usually stable population.
Their patients had ‘flu-like’ symptoms: recurrent fevers, malaise, headaches,
sore throats, painful lymph glands, joint pain, and muscle pain and weakness.
They also exhibited some disturbing neurological symptoms like dizziness,
photophobia (intolerance of light), an inability to concentrate well enough to
read or even watch television, and short-term memory loss. Most disturbing of
all, however, was that the symptoms showed no sign of disappearing over a
period of several weeks to months.” (Radner
p. 3)
Did the CDC go out there to investigate?
Yes, but it was clear that a
scientist was sent out there to basically not see anything. The fix was in from
the very beginning. The data that was collected did not reflect what was going
on there. The CDC just didn’t want to admit what was going on. It was weird and
has never made sense unless something major had to be covered up.
Back in the 80s, what was the prevalence of Chronic Fatigue
Syndrome?
Ostrom reported, “In 1987, Dr.
Anthony Komaroff, at the prestigious Brigham and Women’s Hospital I Boston
(affiliated with the Harvard Medical School), conducted a survey of 500
patients seeking treatment in a general clinic. To his surprise, Kamaroff found
that a staggering 21 percent of patients attending the clinic for other reasons
reported experiencing symptoms of the new syndrome. Komaroff published this
astonishing discovery; nothing happened.” (Radner
p. 5)
Nothing happened?
Once you grasp the lay of the land
in terms of the CDC’s cover-up of all this, nothing surprises.
Is it true that Japanese researchers may have had a good
grasp of what was going on with CFS back in the 80s?
Yes. They published a paper in which
it was called “Low Natural Kiler Syndrome.” (Radner p. 5) And they came up with an effective treatment.
What was it?
According to Ostrom, it was
“intravenously-administered lentinan, an extract of shiitake mushrooms that had
been investigated as an anti-tumor, anti-viral, and immune system-stimulating
compound since 1969.” (Radner p. 5)
Why didn’t the Centers for Disease control adopt that
definition and suggest that all patients be given lentinan?
Good question. The best answer,
again, is that something big had to be covered up. And it had something to do
with AIDS and the virus HHV-6. They just didn’t want to tell the public that
there was a huge epidemic of immune dysfunction connected to AIDS and a virus
that they pretended was of no importance.
Didn’t scientists originally think that CFS was caused by
Epstein-Barr Virus?
Yes, and interestingly, that was
also originally thought by some scientists to possibly be the cause of AIDS.
But in AIDS and CFs, it was soon clear that EBV was a secondary factor, a
sentinel of the immune system indicated that something major had gone awry.
Wasn’t CFS jokingly called “Yuppie flu”?
Yes. Ostrom reported it was called
that “because only documented cases were in people who had the education,
confidence, and financial resources to pursue medical care.” (Radner p. 13)
Why all the jokes about CFS?
I think it stems from The CDC’s
unconscious fear that they had gotten AIDS wrong and this new ailment had many
inconvenient similarities to AIDS. It needed to be joked away. It was like
whistling pass the graveyard. And while the CDC played games with CFS, HHV-6
spread throughout the world. And, with AIDS, CFS was just the tip of the
iceberg.
Do scientists tell jokes about HHV-6?
They don’t dare. That would open up
a Pandora’s Box that would cause a debate about whether HIV is the biggest
scientific mistake I history and whether it has been used to cover up the HHV-6
pandemic.
Are children affected by Chronic Fatigue Syndrome?
Absolutely. Ostrom wrote about a
doctor who was seeing CFS in children in Lyndenville, New York. She reprted,
“Dr. David S. Bell is following a population of 60 children with [CFS]. Bell
considers [CFS] to be identical in children and adults, although the
progression and presentation of symptoms appaear to vary with age.” (Radner p. 15)
Does CFS cause learning problems in children?
Yes. Ostrom reported, that
“neurological dysfunction in a child is often perceived as a learning problem.
One-third of the children in Bell’s group have developed severe academic
difficulties and failures.” (Radner p.16.)
If HHV-6 is causing these neurological problems, could it
also be behind the autism epidemic?
Absolutely, and there is evidence
supporting that notion.
Do children with CFS get better?
According to Bell, if children or
adults have CFS for more than two years, they will probably never regain full
health. (Radner p. 17)
Is that because they are dealing with HHV-6 for the rest of
their lives after they become infected?
Most likely.
Does it affect a person’s ability to earn a living?
Ostrom summed it up when she wrote,
“Confusion, forgetfulness, and inability to concentrate cause interruption of
careers and, sometimes, loss of income.” (Radner
p. 17)
Did Ostrom write about the discovery of HHV-6?
Yes. Originally it was called “human
B-lyphotropic virus.” She wrote, “HBLV was first isolated in 1985 from ‘AIDS’
patients by Drs. Dharam V. Ablashi and S. Zaki Salahuddin and associates,
working in the laboratory of Dr. Robert C. Gallo at the National Institutes of
Health.” Ostrom also wrote that the virus “is an extremely efficient killer of
immune cells.” According to her report Ablashi stated, “The virus has the
capability of growing in, and killing the cells of the T-cell and megakaryocyte
lines; these are the hemopoietic [blood cell generating] cells. Plus, it has a
degenerating effect on the glial blastoma cells [a nervous system cell line].”
Was Chronic Fatigue Syndrome thought to be a new entity?
According to Ostrom’s reporting,
Cheney did. Cheney himself wrote, “Outbreaks of this syndrome have been
reported and strongly suggest that a novel agent or set of factors is at play
in a virgin population. Indeed, the best candidate as a novel cause of CFS may
be the newly discovered Human Herpes Virus-6 or HHV-6. The apparent laboratory
behavior of HHV-6 could, if present in this condition, allow it to eclipse EBV
as an associated if not causal factor in CFS.”[1]
Did Gallo think HHV-6 was involved in AIDS?
Ostrom reported that, on May 11,
1998, in the Miami Herald, he said he thought it might be “a factor in the
development of AIDS because of its extreme efficiency in killing the cells of
the immune system.” (Radner p.20) His associate, Dharam Ablashi, told the Miami
Herald “Because it [HHV-6] can infect the same target cell as HIV, it may enhance
some effects in the AIDS patient by killing the target cell and suppressing the
immune system.”[2]
Why didn’t he think it might be the real AIDS virus?
Because he had put all his chips on
the HIV theory. And he had helped the government build a public health empire
around HIV. They couldn’t admit they got it wrong. It would have undermined the
credibility of American science and medicine. So instead they tried to say it
was involved in order to hedge their bets. If the truth ever came out that
HHV-6 was the real cause of AIDS, Gallo and his folks could always say we never
said it wasn’t involved. They were
covering their asses.
[1]
Cheney, Paul R.; “CFIDS:A Real Clinical Entity (and Possible Pandemic?); CFIDS
Chroniccle, November/December 1988. P.7.
[2]
Goudreau, Rosemary; “Highly Contagious Herpes Virus Linked to Cancer, AIDS”; Miami
Herald, May 11, 1988, p. 1.
