Suppressed Inventions and Other Discoveries (13 page)

Frederick Cancer Research Center, Frederick, Maryland. DHEW Publication No. (NIH) 76-890, pp. 27;50-52.

26. Committee on Human Resources, United States Senate. Hearings before the Subcommittee on Health and Scientific Research, Biological Testing Involving Human Subjects by the Department of Defense, 1977: Examination of Serious Deficiencies in the Defense Departments Effort to Protect the Human Subjects of Drug Research. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, May 8 and May 23, 1977, pp. 80-100; for the Army's list of biological weapons contractors for 1959, see: Department of Defense Appropriations For 1970: Hearings Before a Subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations House of Representatives, Ninety-first Congress, First Session, H.B. 15090, Part 5, Research, Development, Test and Evaluation of Biological Weapons, Dept. of the Army. U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., 1969, p. 689.

27. Personal Research conversation

Center/NCI with administrator at Frederick Cancer who wished to remain anonymous.

301-846-1000.

28. Litton Industries, Inc., 360 North Crescent Drive, Beverly Hills, CA. 90210, 25th Annual Report Fiscal 1978. pg. 2; see also: Staff reporter. Litton, Saudis Agree on a system valued above $1.5 billion. Wall Street Journal, Monday Oct. 9, 1978, p. 16.

29. Staff reporter. Litton and Navy Settle dispute. Wall Street Journal, Wednesday, June 21, 1978, p. 4.

30. Staff reporter. Suit against Litton Industries involving Navy job dismissed. Wall Street Journal, Thursday, May 26, 1977, p. 15. 31. Staff reporter. Suit against Litton may be renewed says U.S. appeals court. Wall Street Journal, April 7, 1978, p. 12.

32. Staff reporter. Court lets stand an indictment of Litton unit Wall Street Journal, Tuesday, Oct. 3, 1978, p. 4.
33. Agee P and Wolf L. Dirty Work: The CIA in Western Europe. Secaucus, NJ: Lyle Stuart, Inc. 1977.

34. Kumar S. CIA and the Third World: A Study in Crypto-Diplomacy. New Delhi: Vikas Publishing House PVT LTD., 1981.

35. Agee P. Dirty Work-2: The CIA in Africa. Secaucus, NJ: Lyle Stewart, Inc., 1979.

36. Molteno R. Hidden sources of subversion. In: Dirty Work-2: The CIA in Africa. Secaucus, NJ: Lyle Stewart, Inc., 1979. pp. 100-101.

37. Woodward, B. VEIL: The Secret Wars of the CIA 1981-1987. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987, pg. 268. According to Woodward, "CIA ties with [Zaire's president] Mobutu dated back to 1960, the year the CIA had planned the assassination of the Congolese nationalist leader Patrice Lumumba."

38. Freemantle B. CIA. Briarcliff Manor, NY: Scarborough House/Stein and Day Publishers. 1983, pp. 184-185.

39. Kumar S. Op cit., p. 72;74-76;91-92.

40. Stockwell J. In Search of Enemies: A CIA Story. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1978, pp. 43-44;248.

41. Colby W. Honorable Men: My Life in the CIA. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1978, pp. 439-40.

42. Daily News, Dar es Salaam. Zaire: Mobutu assails government functionaries. In: Africa Diary, January 22-28, 1975, pg. 7287. 43. West Africa, London. Zaire: Mobutu and the Americans. In: Africa Diary, February 19-25, 1975, pg. 7322.

44. Preston R. The Hot Zone: A Terrifying True Story. New York: Random House, 1994, pp. 10;25-26;71;78;79;84.

45. Staff writer. Porton opened to the public. Nature 1968;220:426.

46. Times, London; West Africa, London; Le Monde, Paris; New York Times; Daily News, Dar es Salaam, Times of India, New Delhi. Zaire: Shaba rebellion Virtually Crushed. In: Africa Diary, June 18-24, 1977, pp. 8536-8538.

47. South African Digest, Pretoria. South Africa: Documents on NATO, S. African Co-operation. In: Africa Diary, June 25-July 1, 1975, pp. 7488-7489.

48. African Development, London. South Africa: W. Germany may become number one trading partner. In: Africa Diary, April 30-May 6, 1975, pp. 7418-7419.

49. Zaire Radio. Zaire: W. German financial aid. In: Africa Diary, July 23-29, 1978, pp. 9103-7419.

50. West Africa, London. Zaire: Accord on Bonn Aid. In: Africa Diary, July 9-15, 1974, pp. 7033-7034.

51. British Broadcasting Company, London. Zaire: Secret agreement with German rocket firm. In: Africa Diary, October 8-10, 1977, p. 8700.

52. West Africa, London. Zaire: New light on missile testing report. In: Africa Diary, June 4-10, 1978, p. 9033.

53. West Africa, London. Zaire: W. German rocket project to be halted. In: Africa Diary, July 9-15, 1979, p. 9592.

54. Staff writer. Germans go rocketing on the cheap. New Scientist 1977; 74:535.

55. Hussain F. Volksraketen for the Third World. New Scientist 1978; 77:802-803.

56. Informationsdienst Sudliches Africa. OTRAG: Missiles against liberation in Africa. In: Dirty Work-2: The CIA in Africa. Ray E, Schaap W, Van Meter K and Wolf L, eds. Secaucus, NJ: Lyle Stewart, Inc., 1979, pp. 215-219; Additional references cited: Gesellschaft fur Unternehmendberatung, Hamburg, 1976, Diagnosebericht OTRAG, p. 12; Der Speigel, August 4, 1978; The Evening Standard, February 13, 1978; Deutcher Bundestag, 8th Session, 98th Sitting, June 15, 19778; Aviation Week and Space Technology, September 12, 1975.

57. African Development, London. Africa General: U.S. sends more intelligence personnel to Africa. In: Africa Diary, February 5-11, 1977, p. 8335. Reference notes Mr. William H. Crosson, chief of two branches of counter-intelligence in Vietnam according to the Pentagon was appointed in 1977 to be the Director of US Peace Corps activity in Zaire.

58. Covert NM. Cutting Edge: A 1943-1993. Fort Detrick, MD: 1993, p. 54.
history of Fort Detrick, Headquarters, U.S. Army Maryland,

Garrison, 59. Moscow World Service in English. Belitskiy on How, Where AIDS Virus Originated. March 11, 1988. Published in International Affairs. Soviet FBIS-SOV-88-049, March 14, 1988, p. 24.

60. Havana International Service in Spanish. German claims AIDS virus created by Pentagon. January 25, 1991. Published in International Affairs: Caribbean FBIS-LAT-91-017, March 14, 1988.

61. Staff reporter. Litton Industries Unit Gets Job. Wall Street Journal. September 15, 1977, p. 4, Column 1.

62. Staff reporter. Litton Systems Inc. awarded $19.8 million Army contract for missile fire-control equipment. Wall Street Journal, December 19, 1977, p. 21, Column 1.

63. Staff reporter. Litton Systems Inc. was given a $32.9 million Air Force contract for electronic reconnaissance sensor equipment. Wall Street Journal, Friday, December 30, 1977, p. 6, Column 1.

64. Staff reporter. Litton Industries Gets Order. Wall Street Journal, Tuesday, February 14, 1978, p. 33, Column 2.

65. Brumter C. The North Atlantic Assembly. Cordrecht/Boston/ Lancaster: Marinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1986, p. 183.

66. Ibid., p. 139-140;195.

67. United States Senate. Intelligence Activities, Senate Resolution 21: Hearings before the Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities of the U.S. Senate, Ninety-Fourth Congress, First Session. Volume 1, Unauthorized Storage of Toxic gents, September 16, 17, and 18,1975. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1975, pp. 2;5;6;20;35;40-41; 7_;81;119-120;254-255 (inventory list).

68. Ibid., pp. 22-23.
69. Ibid., p. 61
70. Ibid., p. 82;98.

71. Committee on Human Resources, United States Senate, Ob. cit., pp. 5;91.

72. Szmuness W, Stevens CE, Harley EJ, Zang EA, 01eszk__ WR, William DC, Sadovsky R, Morrison JM and Kellnes___ . Hepatitis B vaccine: Demonstration of efficacy in a controlled clinical trial in a high-risk population in the United States. New England Journal of Medicine 1980;303;15:833-841.

73. Figure on display at The U.S. Holocaust Museum, Washington, D.C. 74. Powers RG. Secrecy and Power: The Life of J. Edgar Hoover. New York: The Free Press, 1987.

75. Goldstein RJ. Political Repression in Modern America. Cambridge, MA: Schenckmann/Two Continents, 1978.

76. Von Hoffman N. Citizen Cohn: The Life and Times of _____ Cohn. New York: Doubleday, 1988.

77. D'Emilio J. Sexual Politics, Sexual Communities: The Making of a Homosexual Minority in the United States, 1940-1970. Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1983.

78. West African Pilot, Lagos and West Africa, London. U.S. leader's death abruptly ends African-American relations meeting. In Africa Diary, April 16-22, 1971, pp. 5428-5429.

79. Falk R, Kim SS and Mendlovitz SH. The perversion of science and technology: An Indictment. In: Studies on a Just World Order, Volume 1, Toward a just world order. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, pp. 359-363.

Polio Vaccines
and the Origin of AIDS;
The Career of
a Threatening Idea

Brian Martin, Ph.D.

When a virus from one species is able to survive in a different species, at first it is often quite virulent in the new species. For example, the myxoma virus causes little problem in the South American forest rabbit, its longstanding host, but it was devastating when introduced among European rabbits in Australia. As the virus rampages through the new species, susceptible individuals are killed, whereas the resistant ones survive and reproduce, and eventually virulence declines, as in the case of myxomatosis in Australia.
¹

Thus, when a new viral disease springs unannounced on humans, one possible suspect is animal viruses. In the case of AIDS, this soon became the most favored explanation among scientists. In 1983, Luc Montagnier and his colleagues reported isolation of a virus, later called human immunodeficiency virus or HIV, linked to AIDS. Two years later, a type of virus very similar to HIV was found in African monkeys. It was called simian immunodeficiency virus or SIV. Many SIVs cause no obvious disease in their host species, though they can be virulent if transmitted to a different, unaffected monkey species. The obvious explanation for AIDS was that SIV somehow was transmitted to humans, where it became or evolved into HIV.

The next question was how the SIV might have been transmitted from simians to humans. Before looking at the possible explanations, it is worth mentioning some other evidence. First, there are two major types of HIV, called HIV-1 and HIV-2. HIV-1 is the type found throughout most of the world; HIV-2 is found mostly in western Africa.

BrianMartinisaprofessorattheUniversityofWollongong,NSW,Australia. 73

There are also different SIVs, and in fact new ones continue to be discovered. There is one known SIV that is very similar to HIV-2, but none yet proven to be highly similar to HIV-1.

HIV, like any virus, has a genetic structure. Even within one type of HIV, such as HIV-1, there are many variations. In other words, the genetic structure is pretty much the same, but there are slight variations. The variations are due to mutations and selection as the virus spreads. By examining the spread of variants and working backwards, it is possible to estimate when HIV-l first entered the human species. The usual estimate is just before 1960.

The other relevant information is evidence of AIDS in humans. One of the earliest known cases has been traced to Kinshasa in Africa in the late 1950s. The implication is that SIV entered humans in central Africa in or by the late 1950s and thereafter spread to other parts of the world.

But how did SIV enter humans? This is of more than intellectual interest. Knowing the process may help to prevent recurrences and to provide clues for developing a cure.

It is known that HIV does not survive easily outside the body and that the most effective means of transmission are via blood or mucosa. One explanation is that a hunter, in butchering a monkey, allowed monkey blood to enter a cut. Others are that a human ate some undercooked monkey meat, that monkey blood was injected into humans as part of certain sexual customs, and that a monkey bit a human.

An explanation along these lines is the standard view on the origin of AIDS. But there is one obvious question. Why did AIDS develop in the 1950s? A cut hunter or monkey bite could have occurred any time in the past thousands of years. The usual explanation is that urbanization and travel led to the wider spread of AIDS beginning in the 1950s.

There is, though, another theory available, that explains both the transmission and the timing: polio vaccination campaigns in central Africa in the late 1950s. This theory is simple and obvious. Polio vaccines are cultured on monkey kidneys. Many of the monkeys would have been carrying SIVs, and many of them would have shown no symptoms and thus not been rejected as ill. Thus it would not be too difficult for some batches of vaccine to be contaminated with SIVs. Since the SIVs were not discovered until 1985, there was no way to screen for them in the 1950s.

There is even a precedent for monkey-human viral transmission. In the early 1960s, some polio vaccines were found to be contaminated with a simian virus named SV40. This caused great concern at the time, since SV40 had been given to tens of millions of people in the United States and elsewhere. Henceforth, steps were taken to screen all vaccines for SV40 and other such viruses. (The health consequences of SV40 in humans is a separate issue that deserves study.)

So here was a theory waiting to be developed and tested. Polio vaccines were already known to have led to the spread of simian viruses to humans. Monkeys with SIVs were almost certainly used in polio vaccine preparation, and there was no screening for the SIVs. Finally, some of the earliest known cases of AIDS were near to the time and location of major polio vaccination campaigns in Africa in the late 1950s.

But this theory was not investigated by the medical research establishment. There is one obvious reason for this: the theory, if accepted as true, would be extremely damaging to the image of medical science. The theory might have been talked about but not seriously studied, as indicated by a report early in 1992 "A senior AIDS researcher said it has been an open secret to many AIDS researchers for at least four years that polio vaccines might have been contaminated by HIV or a related retrovirus," but no testing of vaccine stocks had occurred because, according to this researcher, "Everybody was afraid there would be a public panic or a scandal."
²