----- Original Message -----

From: Martin Delaney

To: 'antiun@earthlink.net'

Cc: INFO ; LINDA GRINBERG (E-mail) ; John Moore (E-mail) ; Mark Wainberg (E-mail)

Sent: Monday, June 18, 2001 1:11 PM

Subject: RE: AIDS Vaccine


I'd like to respond to this. I'm getting sick of "Nader's Raiders" and others sticking their nose into AIDS issues they don't understand to exploit for their own often unspoken political objectives.

 

No one is proposing a mandatory AIDS vaccine, anywhere in the world, so what does this speaker think he is talking about? Nor is any AIDS vaccine remotely close to being ready for widescale human use. The one farthest along in studies, AIDSVax, is considered very unlikely to succeed by most vaccine researchers. There will be heated opposition to its approval. Beyond that, even if a perfect vaccine were to be found in a lab today, it would be at least another 5 to 10 years before it could be proven and approved. So this whole fear-mongering talk is little more than a scam itself, cheap sensationalism, perhaps designed to sell some future book or at least get the speakers on the talk show circuit for a while. Even if there were plans to make a hypothetical vaccine mandatory, how could he possibly conclude that it is a "threat to human health?"  What data, rather than opinion, warrants such a radical charge?

 

If an when a useful AIDS vaccine becomes available, there will be plenty of time and opportunity debate who should take it and why.

 

I don't know if this person is still associated with Nader. It seems odd. Nader and his people consider themselves the left-most edge of mainstream American politics. But this whole "anti-vaccine" movement, of which this is a part, is deeply rooted in right wing politics. Just what side if any is this character on?

 

Regarding the other speaker, Walter Kyle, who wants to get rid of Ruth Kirchstein because of some purported role in a polio vaccine/AIDS contamination scandal. More bullcrap!!. Assuming this is the story written about in the book "The River," claiming AIDS was spread by a polio vaccine contaminated with a monkey virus, then this is ludicrous. There have been a number of scientific conferences addressing these charges and most recently, three independent labs tested a block of stored samples of the vaccine in question. All three found no evidence of the AIDS virus or any monkey virus. Even some of the people who once believed in the premise of The River have now dropped their accusations. This matter is about as conclusively resolved as possible, and it shows the charges to be false.

 

So Mr... Kyle wants to get rid of Ruth Kirchstein because he still believes in a phony story about monkey viruses in the polio vaccine? Maybe someone should try getting rid of Mr... Kyle.

 

Many of us have grown weary of hearing scientifically untrained lawyers pontificate on their scientific views. Perhaps he should stick to law instead. If he has a legitimate complaint against Dr. Kirchstein, that would be fine - I have a few concerns myself. But if his view is based on this sensational bit of pseudo science, he would do the world a great favor by just shutting up because this issue has already been resolved by people with the skills and knowledge to understand it. The proof and the data are in and they do not support his views.

 

And, by the way, Dr. Urnovitz is widely viewed as "highly eccentric" to put it mildly, within the scientific community. I have heard his claims before and find them ludicrous.

 

In the future, please don't waste the energy it takes to alert us to such nonsense. If any of our people are interested, they can hear these subjects discussed breathlessly at "Conspiracy Theory" weekend workshops that feature a lot of these same speakers. It's bad enough that we have to deal with denialists, like Duesberg. The last thing we need is another conspiracy faction pounding on our door.

-----Original Message-----
From: INFO
Sent: Monday, June 18, 2001 9:24 AM
To: Brenda Lein; Angela Garcia; Anne Donnelly; Martin Delaney
Subject: FW: AIDS Vaccine

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Cliff Kincaid [mailto:antiun@earthlink.net]
Sent: Friday, June 15, 2001 7:33 PM
To: info@projectinform.org
Subject: AIDS Vaccine

 

 

AIDS Vaccine Conference in D.C on Wednesday, June 20 at 1:00 p.m..

·             Nader Raider to Blast HIV/AIDS Vaccine Project as Threat to Human Health

 

·             Attorney to Urge Ouster of Ruth Kirschstein at National Institutes of Health for Cover-up of Vaccine Scandal Linked to AIDS

Contact: Cliff Kincaid, 301-855-2679

NOTE: Washington attorney and consumer advocate Jim Turner, one of the early Nader Raiders, will be one of the featured speakers at a  June 20 conference in Washington, D.C. to attack development of a mandatory HIV/AIDS vaccine. Another speaker, attorney Walter Kyle, who will urge dismissal of National Institutes of Health acting director Ruth Kirschstein, wrote the famous article in the medical journal The Lancet citing a link between contaminated polio vaccines and AIDS. He will explain Kirschstein’s role in the scandal.

The Committee to Protect Medical Freedom is holding the conference on Wednesday June 20 at the National Press Club, Holeman Lounge, 14th and F Streets NW, at 1:00 p.m.

 

Other speakers are Dr. Howard Urnovitz, a prominent member of a group of scientists calling for an HIV/AIDS vaccine moratorium; Cliff Kincaid, director of the Committee to Protect Medical Freedom; Barbara Loe Fisher, co-founder and president of the National Vaccine Information Center; and Redmond Handy, a leading opponent of the military’s mandatory anthrax vaccination program.

 

                        www.protectmedicalfreedom.com