Correspondence
nearly halving the present top rate and dropping the only other rate to 15 per-cent. The Senate passed a $1 trillion budget resolution. Miss Valerie Terrigno, the first professed lesbian mayor of...
...In the case in England, the woman who caught AIDS gave similar care to a Ghanian man whom she denied having any sexual contact with...
...Given the long latency of the disease, even if all those who were found to be immunopositive for AIDS (again, not necessarily having AIDS) were isolated from those who gave a negative ELISA test, you could never completely eliminate the disease...
...Hopefully this will be the last time we see LaRouchian doctrine in the pages of The American Spectator, except, perhaps, in the "Current Wisdom" section...
...The viruses causing venereal herpes can be transmitted in many ways, including kissing and possibly sneezing, just like the chicken-pox virus...
...At the same time, however, it seems that an even more contagious disease in our society is one whose symptoms arise whenever AIDS is discussed, and it mimics hyperthyroidism rather closely...
...In particular, they do not include death due to brain damage caused directly by the virus...
...The more we know about the Aids virus, the more useful the comparison has become...
...Cunniff agrees here with both us and Mr...
...The authors are also guilty of equating exposure to the virus and productive infection (i.e., actually having a case of AIDS...
...In this attempt, they cite the apparent transmission of AIDS to members of households in England and Italy...
...In the U.S...
...Now that it is known that the proteins are translated from nucleic acids found in all host cells, not just in those infected with Kuru or the other diseases, most people doing research in this field would say, as does the discoverer of Kuru, that "prions .. . should be replaced by a term that .. . avoid[s] the increasingly unlikely contention that the protein itself is infectious" (New England Journal of Medicine, February 27, 1986, page 550...
...In 1964 the government spent $35 billion...
...what we do not know is how many particles are usually needed for infection by each possible route...
...in particular all the ways in which the Aids virus is known to be transmitted have been found in the other lentiviruses, which makes it only prudent to be alert for transmission in ways known for lentiviruses in general, but not for the Aids virus in particular...
...John J. Cunniff Microbiology Program Indiana University Bloomington, Indiana James F Grutsch, Jr...
...Aids Science In their article on AIDS ("The Coming of AIDS," TAS, March 1986) James F. Grutsch, Jr...
...At the very least, Grutsch and Robertson overstate their case in comparing other lentiviruses to HTLV III/LAV (the AIDS virus...
...That will be added to the $476 billion that the federal government now spends on "human resources...
...We do not understand Mr...
...Robertson complain of confusion concerning AIDS being "compounded by ill-informed reporting in which laymen, often from special-interest groups with their own furrows to plow, express opinions about scientific matters...
...Robert-son reply: Kuru and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (C-J) are generally referred to as slow viral diseases because they show an etiology of infection by a filterable particle but a symptom-free period of many years...
...To call this hypothesis ludicrous would be an understatement...
...Cunniff agrees, we know it is—contagion by frequent contact becomes likely...
...It seems, however, that this was not satisfactory for them and they set out to make the spread of AIDS to the entire population seem even more likely...
...In the oldest cohorts studied the attack rate of AIDS itself has been found to reach 40 percent, without any sign of diminution...
...LaRouche...
...The crisis goes on and this time stupidity has been enthroned...
...This is not the fault of the epidemiology, but of the fact that too few people have been infected long enough to reveal effects of this kind...
...Research on these diseases has resulted in most scientists calling the agents of these infections "prions" (protein infectious particles...
...RET...
...The highest AIDS incidences found so far are approximately 11 percent per year within three to four years of infection...
...In short, it is clear that AIDS is a very serious threat...
...THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR JULY 1986 9...
...Finally, as far as we can discover (from the denizens of a booth at Logan Airport), the views of Mr...
...She recalled having small cuts on her hands in addition to chronic eczema...
...While it may be entirely appropriate to isolate those who develop secondary diseases that can be transmitted by casual contact, quarantine of all AIDS patients would be unwarranted (since AIDS cannot be transmitted through casual contact) and would ultimately fail to stop the spread of AIDS...
...The substandard scientific descriptions that are present throughout the article begin with Kuru and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease being called "slow viruses" by the authors...
...Grutsch and Robertson correctly state that LAV can be transmitted through heterosexual as well as homosexual inter-course...
...As more in the heterosexual population become infected, more heterosexual transmission will occur...
...these figures, of course, do not include those for morbidity and mortality not included in the surveillance definition of AIDS...
...Cunniff's statements "Grutsch and Robertson overstate their case in comparing other lentiviruses to the . . . Aids virus" and "it is true that the Aids virus is a lentivirus," which seem to us mutually contradictory...
...C-J in fact is spread not only in preparations of human growth hormone, but also by surgical instruments, the stereotaxic equipment used in neurosurgery, and tissue used in grafts...
...The Aids virus, we know, is spread in protein preparations (Factor VIII), by needles, possibly in general surgery, and definitely in organ transplants, so the parallel is instructive rather than far-fetched...
...In fact, no virus particles have ever been isolated from tissues infected • by these diseases...
...Similar hypotheses were entertained about other viruses before their nucleic acids were isolated...
...CORRESPONDENCE...
...Because preparations containing these proteins are infectious it has been suggested that a new kind of disease carried by Prions—protein infectious particles—might exist...
...We mentioned them to illustrate the points that there are already recognized diseases, with long latencies, causing neural damage leading to death in people, and that they may be spread by unusual behavior and by medical technology...
...All that giving a positive immunological result shows is that one has been exposed to the disease (or in some cases, has been immunized against it...
...The purpose of our article was to stimulate public debate before we reach the stage at which so many people are infected with the Aids virus that, if it is possible at all—and, as Mr...
...I find it extremely difficult to understand why the authors failed to make this crucial distinction...
...As to the overall fatality rate, this of course is not yet known...
...After all, neither syphilis nor leprosy is passed by casual contact, and both are generally curable, yet we do not hesitate to restrict the freedoms of those infected with either...
...The Aids virus cannot be compared to the bacillus which causes tuberculosis...
...What we know about the transmission of the Aids virus reflects the commonest methods...
...As an example, consider the genus of viruses called Alphaherpes viruses...
...one that produces a permanently infectious carrier state should not be allowed to spread under any circumstances, even if it cannot be passed by casual contact, whatever that is...
...For ex-ample, it might be almost impossible to be infected by being in a room with one AIDS victim coughing, but quite likely with twenty—we simply do not know...
...Miss Valerie Terrigno, the first professed lesbian mayor of an American city, was sentenced to sixty days in custody and ordered to repay nearly $7,000 in embezzled poverty funds...
...All the evidence to date is that infection with it is permanent and that production of antibodies implies infection, not merely exposure...
...It seems that seeing their names in print was too much of a temptation for the authors to resist, and they capitalized on the fear of the unknown on the part of the public in order to attain this goal...
...and A.D.J...
...Grutsch and Robertson fail to mention these important facts in an apparent attempt to lend credibility to their completely unsubstantiated claim that it is possible for AIDS to be spread by coughing, insect vectors, and even through cow's milk...
...and A.D.J...
...Even though two viruses can be classified together in the same subfamily or genus, their modes of transmission can be drastically different...
...Since the virus is found in respiratory secretions we know that infection in this way is theoretically possible...
...The confusion here perhaps lies inthe concept of transmission...
...While it is true that LAV is a lentivirus and that correlations on its behavior can be made from other lentiviruses, certain distinctions must also be made...
...After reading their article it seems that they are guilty either of what they accuse others, or of a more serious offense: deliberately deceptive reporting in order to further their own self-interests at the expense of the reputation of The American Spectator...
...What each of these cases has in common is the fact that AIDS was transmitted by close and prolonged contact with body secretions and excretions during intensive nursing care without so much as the use of gloves...
...While the authors may not be laymen, neither are they virologists...
...We know from experiments that one virus particle can infect a cell...
...Similar fibrils are found in other diseases, including scrapie and the other infections producing "spongiform encephalopathies" in mammals including man...
...While they are correct in stating that the fatality rates are too conservative, the evidence hardly indicates that the fatality rate will come anywhere near 100 percent...
...case, the woman who caught the virus from her child often failed to wash her hands after giving such care...
...this was true, for example, of Tobacco Mosaic Virus, which is quite large, but has a very tough protein coat...
...Furthermore, the authors' statement that the overall fatality rate may approach 100 percent is also completely unsubstantiated...
...homosexual men usually transmit the virus by sodomy because they indulge in it, just as surgeons have transmitted it by organ transplant...
...To take an example from another disease again, does an individual who gives a positive skin test for tuberculosis actually have the disease...
...clearly Mr...
...This possibility flies in the face of our understanding of molecular biology...
...Yes, its modes of transmission make an excellent case for monogamy...
...we just don't know, yet, how likely it is and no epidemiological study to date is sufficiently sensitive to tell us...
...It is true that no virus has been isolated from the tissue of Kuru or C-J victims and the protein fibrils are found in characteristic patterns in the brains of those infected...
...Yet the authors lead the reader to believe that this could be the case with AIDS and other lentiviruses...
...Any lethal venereal disease is bad enough in itself...
...An additional case has been recently cited here in the United States...
...The inclusion of these diseases in a discussion concerning AIDS (which is known to be caused by a virus) is questionable...
...LaRouche coincide with ours to the extent that we all think it sensible to stop the spread of infection with the Aids virus...
...In their venereal manifestation they are usually (not always) transmitted in the ways we call venereal, but venereal herpes is not a separate disease...
...The most de-tailed studies show unequivocally that over 90 percent of those infected have a measurable immune dysfunction and over 50 per-cent have at least one serious symptom...
...for this reason its author himself advised great skepticism...
...No, he may or may not have it...
...Within this genus are the viruses that cause both chicken pox and venereal herpes, but no serious scientist would claim that venereal herpes is transmitted in the same way that chicken pox is transmitted...
...And on May 26 approximately 4,924,000 Americans held hands along a 4,125-mile route from sea to shining sea to raise $50 million to "assault hunger and homelessness...
...Finally, Grutsch and Robertson make an appeal for quarantine of all AIDS patients...
Vol. 19 • July 1986 • No. 7
