INFECTIOUS DISEASES - Blackherbals.com

Continued from page 4 – The Virus Cancer ProgramAustria, when dermatologist Moriz Kaposi describedfive patients with red-purple skin tumors. Before theAIDS outbreak, KS was a very rare disease affectingmainly elderly Jewish and Italian men. It was neverconsidered a contagious or sexually-transmitteddisease.In the 1960s, it was discovered that KS was a commonskin cancer tumor in blacks in Central Africa, but thedisease was never associated with the severeimmunodeficiency characteristic of AIDS, nor wasthere any evidence that KS in Africa was sexuallytransmissible. KS was rarely, if ever, seen in African-Americans. As a dermatologist for over 30 years Inever saw a KS case in a female; and KS in young menof any race or sexual persuasion was as rare as hen'steeth before the "introduction" of HIV.KS is a medical enigma. How did a previously raredisease like KS in America become a transmissibledisease primarily affecting gay men? How did thisherpes KS virus escape detection during the first 15years of the AIDS epidemic? Why did the KS virus andHIV suddenly appear together in young gay men in1979?Further complicating this picture is the discovery ofsmall bacterial forms known as "mycoplasma", and theeven more recent discovery of extremely tiny virus-likeforms of bacteria called "nanobacteria", as well as mypublished reports of "cancer bacteria" as importantetiologic agents in AIDS and KS. (For details, Google:"alan cantwell" + cancer bacteria.) All these newerbacterial agents are generally ignored by AIDSresearchers, who focus exclusively on viruses.I believe some of the answers to questions surroundingthe origin of HIV/AIDS can be found in the annual"Progress Reports" reports of the Virus CancerProgram and the Program's relationship to animalcancer research, genetic engineering of viruses, cancervaccine research, and to covert biological warfareresearch. These hard-to-find annual Reports werepublished by the National Institutes of Health, PublicHealth Service, U.S. Department of Health, Education,and Welfare, Bethesda, Maryland.The Virus Cancer Program (1968-1980)The Virus Cancer Program had it roots in 1964 whenCongress provided funds to the National Institutes ofHealth (NIH) for intensive research into the possiblerole of viruses in leukemia. In 1968 the Program, thentitled the Special Virus-Cancer Program, was enlargedto encompass all types of cancer. On July 1, 1973 theSpecial Virus Cancer Program was renamed The Virus-Cancer Program (VCP) "to integrate the Program'sresearch activities into the framework of the newNational Cancer Plan."The Program combined the talents of many of thenation's finest virologists, biochemists, immunologists,molecular biologists, epidemiologists, and physicians,in an attempt to uncover the viral cause of cancer. Twoclasses of cancer-causing viruses were studiedextensively: the RNA-type tumor "retroviruses" (likeHIV) and the DNA herpes-type viruses (like the KSvirus).The main goals were to collect various forms of cancertissue and test them in animals; to identify animal andhuman cancer-causing viruses; to grow large amountsof "candidate human viruses" for testing purposes; andto develop vaccines against these cancer viruses. Inessence, the scientists wanted to learn how to useviruses to make cancer - and to force "normal" cells tobecome cancerous by subjecting to viruses.I have studied the annual Virus Cancer Reports (VCP)covering the years 1971-1974 and 1976-1978. Eachreport is 300-400 pages, and the cumulative volumesrefer to thousands of animal cancer virus and geneticengineering experiments.Biological warfare research, monkey research, andthe VCPThe annual VCP Reports must be studied with anawareness that the Program became wedded to secretmilitary biological warfare research in the early 1970s.On October 18, 1971, as part of Richard Nixon's Waron Cancer, the army's biowarfare research laboratoryat Fort Detrick, Maryland, was permanently joinedwith the National Cancer Institute; and was re-titled .the Frederick Cancer Research Center. LittonBionetics was named as the military's primecontractor.The primary task of the new Center was "the largescale production of oncogenic (cancer-causing) virusesand suspected oncogenic viruses to meet researchneeds on a continuing basis." Special attention wasgiven to primate viruses (the alleged African source ofHIV and the new KS virus)- and to the successfulpropagation of significant amounts of "humancandidate viruses." Candidate viruses were defined asanimal or human viruses that might cause humancancers. Later, the objective was to determine if suchviruses could induce (either alone or with other cocarcinogens)human cancers (1977;58). Biowarfarescientists also had a keen interest in the role of humanand non-human primate viruses as "helper viruses" inthe production of cancer (1978;54).Continued on page 11-5- Traditional African Clinic December 2006