Emerging Viruses-Aids & Ebola - By Leanard ... - preterhuman.net

Collusion at the TopJim Goedert was one of many AIDS researchers at the NIH whowas foundering for lack of staff and money. In April 1983, heapproached the NCI for assistance and was met with a responsefar less than was expected given. Gallo's widely recognized workwith reverse transcriptase. Shilts wrote:"[T]he NCI lab where he sent his blood samples. . . [allegedly]did not have the capabilities to look for reverse transcriptase, thesure marker of retroviral infection. The tests were never run. Lifeas an AIDS researcher at the National Cancer Institute, he laterremarked, meant "chronic frustration." " [16]Later:"On Capitol Hill, Representative Ted Weiss experienced similarfrustrations when he attempted to review unclassified NCI andCDC documents. Weiss, assigned by the House Subcommittee onFederal AIDS Funding to review CDC budget records, obtainedthrough less-than-formal channels a National Cancer Institutememo, ordering that before any interviews with congressionalinvestigators, NCI researchers should advise agency officials and"invite" a top administrator to attend."So much for an independent review, Weiss thought.Another memo, sent by CDC Director William Foege, instructedfederal agency chiefs that, "All material submitted to theCongress must evidence the Department's support of theadministration's stated policies." [17]Change of HeartDespite his "distaste for the whole subject of AIDS," by April1983, Gallo could see that "the stakes were being redefined." [4]The French were about to publish their findings as was MaxEssex at Harvard. "So on April 11, 1983, the NCI's DeputyDirector Peter Fishinger called a meeting for 4:30 P.M. in thedirector's conference room. This marked the first gathering of theNCI Task Force on AIDS." Here, Gallo forcefully acknowledgedhis concern about the French who had delivered a lymph node forhim to study. [4]"I believe a retrovirus is involved, and we're going to prove it ordisprove it within a year," declared Gallo. "We're going to spenda year and nail this down one way or another."Allegedly then, Fishinger promised Gallo that he could have thefull resources of the NCI's elite laboratory in Frederick (FortDetrick), Maryland. [4]