And Hypersonic Flight

phocytes, of which 2 million were T4lymphocytes) without evidence ofblood contamination. LAV was isolatedfrom the lymphocytes, but appropriatestaining and culture of the lavagefluid showed no evidence of pulmonaryinfection by P carinii, fungi orany virus other than LAV.Other workers have already reportedmarkedly increased lymphocytosisin the bronchoalveolar lavage fluidfrom patients with AIDS and ARC. 2Lymphoid interstitial pneumonitis hasbeen found in infants with AIDS 3 andin adults with ARC. 4 The chest X-raysof large numbers of patients in Zairewith ARC show diffuse reticulonodularinfiltrate characteristic of lymphoidinterstitial pneumonitis.On June 28, 1985, Centers for DiseaseControl (CDC) belatedly recognizedthese observations and redefinedAIDS to include histologicallyconfirmed chronic lymphoid interstitialpneumonitis with positive serologicaltests for LAV/HTLV III. 5 However,the new CDC definition only appliesto children under 13 years of age;the 30-year-old Haitian woman above,the thousands of her adult compatriotswith the same abnormalities inHaiti, and tens of thousands of similarlyaffected Zairians, still do not haveCDC-definedAIDS.AIDS and the SecurityOf the Western WorldThe following are excerpts from an interview with John Seale by JohnGrauerholz, MD, health policy director for the Fusion Energy Foundation."If my hypothesis is correct, and we wait perhaps 20 years before wetake drastic preventive action, halt the population of the Western worldwill be wiped out. Meanwhile, the communist countries, sheltering behindtheir closed frontiers, will watch capitalism collapse in a way neverpredicted by Marx. . . ."Once the AIDS virus gets into an intravenous drug-abusing community,it spreads even faster than among homosexuals. Long before evenhalf the NATO forces and their reservists were infected with the AIDSvirus, the West would be a pushover for the Soviets. Employing the AIDSvirus is much less messy and self-destructive than using nuclear weaponsor nerve gas. Its spread is easily prevented in a totalitarian state, unlikeincoming missiles containing nuclear or chemical warheads."The Soviets did not deliberately start the AIDS epidemic =>s a form ofbiological warfare, but only a moron or an idiot in the Kremlin could failto see its potential in the East-West power struggle, now that it is here.Gorbachov could easily contain the AIDS epidemic behind the Iron Curtainusing methods far less draconian than those employed by Stalin in the'20s and '30s. And if he makes sure that heroin and cocaine keep floodinginto the West, and the porno industry keeps pumping out propagandaglorifying ever more promiscuous and bizarre effects, he could be laughingall the way to world domination by about the year 2000. . . ."If this was smallpox, it would be so obvious that people were infectious.The only reason it is not clear to people how infectious this virus is undercertain circumstances is because of the enormously long incubation period.If, as with some viruses, people died after seven days instead of afterseven years, the effect the virus was having in the intravenous drug-abusingcommunity in New York would have shown up very obviously, becausethey would have been dying like flies. Whereas in fact only about a thousandor so have died, while about a hundred thousand are infected. Butthis does not mean that in 10 years time, all hundred thousand may notwell be dead."We are dealing with a virus that certainly is as lethal as smallpox, andpossibly much more lethal. Nobody in their right mind would do anythingother than restrict the activities of a person with smallpox."Pulmonary tuberculosis is often theinitial clinical manifestation of infectionwith LAV in Haiti 6 and Central Africa.7 Indeed, it was suggested lastmonth in the Lancet that infection withM tuberculosis hominis should be includedas a manifestation of lesser AIDSor ARC. 8 CDC remains silent on thisabsolutely fundamental issue. 5 A recentstudy by the head of the U.S. taskforce against AIDS and other workersfrom CDC and National Institutes ofHealth in Bethesda, Md., of patientswith active tuberculosis in a sanitariumin Kinshasha, the capital of Zaire,showed that 48 percent were infectedwith LAV 7 compared with only 4 percentof controls.Pulmonary infection with M tuberculosishominis is characteristicallytransmitted via respiratory aerosols. Ifopen, cavitating, pulmonary tuberculosiscoexists with chronic lymphoidinterstitial pneumonitis caused by LAV,it is inevitable that large numbers ofinfectious LAV virions, as well as tuberclebacilli, will be expelled in aerosolsduring coughing. LAV spread bythe respiratory route would affect menand women equally; spouses and childrenof index cases would be particularlyat risk, as has already been observedin Africa.'It is possible that respiratory transmissionof LAV may occur even withoutthe assistance of M tuberculosishominis. It is well known that LAV/HTLVIII is a retrovirus genetically very similarto the maedi-visna virus of sheep, 10and that both viruses cause progressiveencephalopathy in man 11 andsheep" respectively. It is less wellknown that maedi-visna virus alsocauses chronic progressive pneumoniain sheep, 13 which is histologically indistinguishablefrom chronic lymphoidinterstitial pneumonitis in mancaused by LAV/HTLV III.An epidemic of maedi-visna in Iceland,spread by respiratory aerosolsamong sheep crowded into shelters toprotect them from the long Arctic winters,followed the importation of oneinfected ram from Germany in 1933.The epidemic built up slowly and unnoticedover several years (just like theAIDS epidemic has in a thousand citiesacross the globe) but by 1950, morethan 100,000 sheep had died from theContinued on page 64January-February 1986 FUSION Special Report