Wrongful Death: The AIDS Trial

by Stephen Davis

  Chapter Forty-Five

  “Dr. Howard, please tell the court what you have been doing for the past year.”

  “Among other things, I have been the head of a research commission studying AIDS, which is why I was subpoenaed to testify today, I presume.”

  “Yes, sir, it is. So tell us, who's on this commission?”

  “There are twelve of us, one representative from each distinct field of medicine and medical research, from all over the world.”

  “For example?”

  “There is a pathologist, an oncologist, an internist, a pharmacologist, a virologist, a bacteriologist, a biologist, a toxicologist...”

  Baker doesn’t want the jury to get lost in all these titles, so he interrupts. “That's fine, Dr. Howard. Basically, you've got just about everything covered, it seems.”

  “As far as we can tell, yes.”

  “How was this group chosen, do you know?”

  “Yes, somewhat. At least I know that they are all fairly young men and women who have shown themselves to be leaders in their field, but are too young to have been involved in any of the AIDS debates in the ‘80’s and ‘90’s, and therefore have no preconceived ideas on the subject. In fact, one of the criteria was that none of us had actually treated an AIDS patient, or had a friend or relative die of AIDS, so there would be no emotional prejudice either. Essentially, it was the same way you chose this jury, to create a group of twelve of the most objective minds you could find.”

  “And who created and funded this commission?”

  “We don't know.”

  “Surely someone is paying you to do this, aren’t they?”

  “Of course. We just don't know who it is.”

  “Why not?”

  “Apparently they did not want us to be swayed in any way in our research because of their own position, whoever they are and whatever that position might be.”

  “So you have felt no pressure to arrive at any certain conclusions?”

  “To the contrary, we have been totally free to arrive at our own conclusions, based solely on our research.”

  “And you approached this work with total objectivity?”

  “I can't say that, actually. We've all been exposed to the media bombardment of the HIV-AIDS hypothesis that continues right up until today, which we couldn’t escape completely. But we tried very hard to be totally objective, in your words, yes.”

  “You compared your group to this jury a minute ago. They, of course, will have to reach a conclusion shortly. Has your commission reached its own conclusions?”

  “Yes, we have, and they are being published in a book that I believe will be released next month. But we had a tremendous advantage over this jury.”

  “What was that?”

  “We had more than just testimony from witnesses to rely on. We had literally hundreds of medical papers and published research and articles and books and other documentation to help us make our decision.”

  Baker turns to address Judge Watts. “Your Honor, Dr. Howard and his commission have been very kind to provide us with copies of all the medical papers and published research and articles and books and other documentation they used, as he said, to help them make their decision, and I would like to present them to the court at this time and offer them as plaintiffs’ exhibits, so that the jury does, in fact, have access to all the pertinent information available to make their own decision.”

  Without knowing exactly what she was getting into, Judge Watts agrees. “Very well, Mr. Baker.”

  Baker turns 180 degrees and nods to a guard at the back door of the courtroom, who then opens the door. Six men appear, wheeling utility dollies in front of them, each with four large white file cartons stacked one on top of another. As they proceed up the center aisle, through the gate at the rail and turn left toward the plaintiffs’ table, Judge Watts silences the murmur that had started in the courtroom at the sight of the volume of material.

  Baker directs traffic as they stack the twenty-four cartons up next to the table where the jury has a good view of them. As the men and their dollies make their way back out of the courtroom, Baker opens a carton and shows the Judge, the jury, and the witness the contents of reports and magazines.

  “Dr. Howard, is this what you and your commission had at your disposal – what you used to make your decision?”

  Howard looks at the Judge. “Your Honor, I’d like to inspect those boxes before I answer that question.”

  When Judge Watts nods her approval, Howard leaves the witness stand, goes over to the plaintiffs’ table, and thumbs through the box that Baker has opened. He then takes the top off another box and does the same thing. Finally, he looks at the remaining boxes, checking each one carefully but without opening them. Satisfied, he returns to the witness stand.

  “So, Dr. Howard?”

  “Yes, Mr. Baker, those look like the boxes I personally packed. I placed a special mark on them which I can clearly see.”

  “Then, Dr. Howard, would you please tell the court what decision your commission reached after studying all these materials.”

  “There are actually a number of different conclusions. The first is that this virus being called HIV does not – rather, can not cause the disease known as AIDS.”

  “Can not?”

  “No sir. HIV simply cannot be the cause of AIDS, period. For a number of reasons, not just the fact that it doesn't meet all of Koch's Postulates, or Farr’s Law, or the required cluster pattern, or so on. Only one of those facts would be necessary for us to come to our conclusion, that there are thousands of cases of AIDS where there is no HIV present in any form – active or as an antibody. Imagine, having an infectious disease but not having what supposedly causes it! You simply cannot have no HIV at all and still claim HIV as the cause of the disease. It violates good common sense, much less all of our accepted scientific practices. In short, our commission decided that Koch’s Postulates are as valid today as they were one hundred years ago, and HIV violates at least three of them and therefore cannot be called the cause of AIDS.”

  “So what does the virus called HIV do in a human body?”

  “We don't have any idea. There is no independent research to demonstrate what it does. It might not be involved in the disease called AIDS in any way, shape, or form. We don't know. One of our recommendations as a commission is that extensive research be done to find out what the virus called HIV actually does in our bodies, and then give it a new name to reflect its actual role when we find out. At the present time, being HIV-positive means absolutely nothing in reality, except that you will wrongly be made to think you have AIDS or could get AIDS and be pressured to take drugs to prevent it.”

  “But this disease called AIDS does exist, does it not?”

  “Definitely. But AIDS – Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome – didn't just start in 1981. There were cases – not thousands, mind you – but cases we have record of in the ‘70’s that simply didn't get diagnosed as AIDS because the disease was not recognized or defined until the early ‘80’s.”

  “So what is AIDS?”

  “AIDS, in simple terms, and as it was originally defined by the CDC – and as it should still be defined today, by the way – is a syndrome, a condition where the immune system of a victim has been compromised by some outside interference, and then one of a number of specific diseases have taken that opportunity to infect the body, which in most cases leads to death from the inability to fight off the disease.”

  “And what did you decide causes AIDS, if HIV does not?”

  “Well, here’s where our commission felt we had to start making a clear distinction. Just like was done with the disease Kaposi's Sarcoma, we had to separate AIDS into three – actually four distinct categories.”

  “Four?”

  “Yes. The first is the disease that began in the 1970’s and became public in the early 1980’s – what we call the Classic AIDS case of the gay man who loses his immune function and then develops an op
portunistic disease and dies. There were thousands of them whose immune system had finally deteriorated so badly that medical science could not save them, no matter what. And we still see some of that kind of AIDS today.”

  “And did you decide what was causing this Classic AIDS, as you called it?”

  “Yes, we did. After looking at all the evidence, we believe there could have been a number of lifestyle factors involved, including malnutrition and sleep deprivation; and a number of drugs involved, including recreational drugs, antibiotics, and steroids. But we are certain that one of the main culprits was nitrite inhalants – poppers – although there is a tremendous need for grant money to do the research required to support our findings.”

  “Give us a few reasons why you came to this conclusion.”

  “Well, you've had a lot of testimony about this, but I would sum it all up to say that there is overwhelming evidence that nitrites are highly toxic to the human body, that initially the immune system will activate and try to fight this invasive chemical, producing, among other things, the KS lesions that were originally the hallmark of AIDS. If there is continued use of the nitrites, they will so imbalance and destroy the normal functioning of the immune system that one of several deadly opportunistic diseases can manifest. In addition, the appearance of poppers on the gay scene coincides perfectly, in terms of timing, with the appearance of AIDS. And one other thing, which I don't think you've heard about in this trial: nitrites turn most classes of antibiotics into carcinogens. The gay community used a lot of antibiotics for various reasons, and when they were combined with the poppers, it was deadly. So when it was all said and done, there just wasn't any question in our minds. It was a unanimous decision.”

  “If this is true, how should we have treated a case of this Classic AIDS?”

  “Well, first and foremost, we should have announced what was really causing the disease, but only after appropriate peer review. Instead of a premature press conference blaming the virus called HIV, we should have told the world about the severe dangers of the nitrites. Secondly, although it is true that criminalizing a drug doesn't guarantee that it will go away, I certainly think the FDA should have stepped in and banned the sale of all nitrites, period. Heart patients no longer need amyl nitrite for treatment. In fact, there really is no legitimate use or medical necessity for any of the nitrites today. 99% of the sale of nitrites is for recreational use by the gay community. The FDA could have simply said they were outlawed, period, and that would have significantly cut down on their availability and abuse. Thirdly, the only treatment any of these cases of Classic AIDS should have gotten was anything specific that would help fight the particular opportunistic disease they had and then help rebuild their immune systems, if it wasn't already too late.”

  “You would not have prescribed anti-cancer chemotherapy or drugs, for example?”

  “No. They would be totally contra-indicated in these cases.”

  “Would that have saved many lives?”

  “It's hard to say exactly how many. We would have lost some patients, regardless. But to publicly expose the nitrites as the cause and severely curtail their use in the gay community could have resulted in a substantial drop in new cases of AIDS, effectively stopping the epidemic years earlier.”

  Baker takes a few minutes to pause and let the jury consider what they’ve just heard. He walks from the lectern to his table, picks up something of no significance, and then walks back again to the lectern. It’s not very far and doesn’t take very long. He reads a few notes on his pad, one of which probably said, give ‘em ten more seconds. When he’s finished counting to ten in his mind, he continues with his questions.

  “And what is the second kind of AIDS, Dr. Howard?”

  “We call it Iatrogenic AIDS – AIDS caused by doctors and hospitals and drugs. And, interestingly, in this case, the media also has to take a lot of the blame, because they played a big role in limiting the dissemination of any opinions or information that contradicted the HIV hypothesis.”

  “You said that there were…” consulting his notes, “’thousands’ of men who died from the first kind of AIDS – Classic AIDS, as you call it. How many died as a result of this second kind, of Iatrogenic AIDS?”

  “Hundreds of thousands – many times the number who died from Classic AIDS.”

  “Can you give us a percentage, for example?”

  “I would say, conservatively, that more than half of all deaths from AIDS in the last twenty-five years were iatrogenic, although you could actually make a case to say it was closer to 100%, since we’ve had the wrong cause the whole time.”

  “And how about just for the ten years from 1987 to 1997?”

  “For those years it’s closer to 90% of all AIDS’ deaths that were iatrogenic, even ignoring the ‘wrong cause’ argument.”

  “And what did you decide caused this overwhelming number of iatrogenic cases?”

  “It started with Dr. Gallo's totally incorrect and medically incompetent pronouncement that the virus called HIV causes AIDS. That put almost everyone on the wrong track to begin with. It then went to the FDA, who short-circuited their normal procedures, looked the other way, and approved the anti-cancer drug AZT as a treatment for AIDS. And if it had stopped there, we still would have been better off. We would have lost a few thousand more victims than necessary, but we would have given AZT to only those patients who had active symptoms – in other words, who were sick. But Burroughs Wellcome then convinced the medical profession to start giving AZT as a prophylactic to hundreds of thousands of HIV-positives who had no symptoms, supposedly to treat the inactive HIV and prevent the development of AIDS. AZT, however, destroyed the immune system of whoever took it long enough – on average, about two years – and they developed AIDS and died. In fact, since you’re so interested in statistics, Mr. Baker, over 95% of all AIDS deaths in the US occurred after AZT was approved by the FDA in 1987.”

  “So you're saying that from 1987 to 1997, the vast majority – 90% in your estimation...”

  “...died from the incorrect assignment of HIV as the cause and the subsequent incorrect prescription of the drug AZT as the treatment. But I want to emphasize that the real crime is that we gave AZT to people who were not even sick, simply because they were HIV-positive. Again, according to the CDC statistics, there were more than 500,000 AIDS cases through the year 1997. Over half of those were the result of giving AZT to non-symptomatic, HIV-positive patients.”

  “You almost make it sound like it was intentional.”

  “I doubt there are very many doctors who set out to intentionally kill their patients. At least, I hope not. But the term ‘iatrogenic’ doesn't differentiate between intentional malpractice and an honest mistake.”

  “So what if all of this were just an honest mistake on the part of Dr. Gallo, the FDA, and the drug company, Burroughs Wellcome?”

  “Normally, when we make an honest mistake, we admit it and move on. That hasn't happened in thirty years. In fact, as recently as the year 2000, in what was called the Durban Declaration, there was a large group still claiming that HIV caused AIDS, despite the fact that my commission could not find a shred of evidence to support that in all of those documents,” and he points to the stack of boxes next to the plaintiffs’ table.

  “There must be a lot of new evidence, recent research, and studies in those boxes that allowed your commission to reach a different conclusion than the rest of the world after all these years.”

  “No, Mr. Baker, 98% of the material in those boxes is not new at all, meaning in the last couple of years. The information was available ten years ago, even 15 years ago. Or in the case of experts such as Dr. Duesberg, some of this was being said twenty years ago, but nobody was listening.”

  “But Dr. Howard, if Burroughs Wellcome knew all along that AZT destroyed the immune system – that AZT essentially caused AIDS – why would they continue to market it as a treatment for AIDS?”

  “Objection.” Crawley didn’
t even bother to get up.

  Baker holds up his hand to stop Judge Watts before she could say anything. “I'll rephrase, Your Honor.”

  “Dr. Howard, in your research as a commission, did you find any reason why Burroughs Wellcome would want to continue selling AZT regardless of its effects on a human body?”

  “Well, in 1992, at the peak of U.S. AZT sales, Burroughs Wellcome, later known as Glaxo Wellcome and then GlaxoSmithKline, sold almost 400 million dollars of AZT – that was in one year alone. AZT brought in, well, almost three billion dollars to Burroughs Wellcome in the U.S. through 1996. That's hard to walk away from, I guess. But as far as I'm concerned, when big business takes over the medical profession, we're in big trouble.”

  “Are there other examples of ‘big business,’ as you put it, continuing to sell a profitable drug when they knew it was harmful?”

  “Unfortunately, there are a few. Most recently it was the Bayer Corporation, who kept selling a drug called Baycol to lower cholesterol, long after they knew that patients on Baycol were falling ill or dying from a rare muscle condition.”

  “Just out of curiosity, do you know whether Bayer may have had a business partner in the sale of Baycol?”

  “Yes, they did. It was GlaxoSmithKline, formerly known as Burroughs Wellcome.”

  Both Baker and Howard look at Mr. Gladstone, the attorney for GlaxoSmithKline, seated at the defense table, and all twelve jurors follow their lead and look as well, as if he were going to try to defend himself at this point.

  “Dr. Howard, are the number of AIDS deaths from AZT still increasing today?”

  “No. And that was the other proof to us that AZT was the main cause of Iatrogenic AIDS. As a result of a lot of pressure, Glaxo Wellcome had to lower the dose of AZT being given to HIV-positives by sixty percent in the mid-1990’s. Coincidentally, deaths from AIDS decreased by almost sixty percent from 1995 to 1997; and then decreased another sixty percent from 1997 to 2001 as different drug companies received FDA approval for about a dozen other drugs that didn’t contain AZT, which began taking larger and larger shares of the market from Glaxo Wellcome.”

  Baker wants to give the jury more time to think about Iatrogenic AIDS, but he feels he’s being a little too obvious walking back and forth to the lectern. Instead, he just flips one page of his notes, takes a deep breath and begins again.

  “Alright. Let’s move on to the third kind of AIDS.”

  Howard doesn’t wait for a question. “Okay. The CDC has changed the definition of AIDS a number of times, for reasons I can only guess at. But every couple years or so, the CDC will add the names of diseases that qualify as AIDS as long as the patient is HIV-positive as well. They even added cervical cancer at one point. These days, when a woman has cervical cancer, if she is HIV-positive, she has AIDS. If she is HIV-negative, she has cervical cancer….”

  “Hold it there, Dr. Howard, if you would. Let me see if I understand what you’re saying, and let me make my analogy ridiculously simple. If I showed up in your office with a cold, and I was HIV-negative, I would be diagnosed with a cold. But if I showed up in your office with a cold, and I was HIV-positive, I would be diagnosed with AIDS? Is that what you’re saying?”

  “That’s what I’m saying, Mr. Baker. So when the CDC added cervical cancer to the definition, all of a sudden more women were getting AIDS, and AIDS was now threatening both genders, which made it look better in terms of the first epidemiological law of viral and microbial diseases. It even made it appear that AIDS was expanding beyond the homosexual community, not because of some new infection occurring, but simply by changing the diseases included in the definition. So this third type of AIDS is caused ‘By Definition,’ and frankly, it is very deceiving.”

  “You said you could ‘only guess’ at the reasons for this. Please share that guess with the court.”

  “Well, it may have to do with trying to prove that there is some association between HIV and AIDS, which I've said is very hard to do. It might also have something to do with the amount of money the CDC gets for AIDS research as long as AIDS is still a threat to society – about $600 million dollars a year. After the use of AZT was limited in the U.S. in 1996, the number of AIDS cases and deaths dropped significantly – by more than half, as I said. That, of course, made it look like the AIDS epidemic might be ending and threatened the funding for further AIDS research. In order not to lose $600 million a year, or even part of it, the CDC had to make sure the AIDS statistics stayed up in an epidemic range, and the easiest way to do that, if the actual cases were going down, was to considerably enlarge the number of diseases that could be called AIDS, which they did in 1999.”

  “Dr. Howard, if we go back and use the original definition of AIDS issued by the CDC in the early 1980’s, before Dr. Gallo led the world astray, and eliminated Iatrogenic AIDS – got rid of AZT, for example – what would we have left?”

  “Today? If you went back and just counted deaths from Classic AIDS based on the original and correct definition?”

  “Yes.”

  “Probably hundreds of victims a year, rather than thousands – basically those in the gay community who still use poppers.”

  “In this country….”

  “That goes without saying. Everything I have said applies to the U.S. AIDS in Africa is an entirely different story – actually we consider it to be the fourth kind of AIDS. Well, maybe.”

  “What do you mean, ‘maybe’?”

  “I'm not an expert in African AIDS, but I do think it is interesting that when Glaxo Wellcome lost sixty percent of its AZT business in the American market, they started focusing on the African market. And the incidence of AIDS in Africa has skyrocketed anywhere in Africa that AZT has appeared – basically everywhere except South Africa, whose President, until recently, refused to let AZT into his country. So the vast majority of African AIDS probably also falls in the Iatrogenic category. Plus, African AIDS is based on an entirely different definition, so it would also fall in the AIDS By Definition category as well.”

  “Dr. Howard, I actually have another witness I want to ask about African AIDS. But maybe you can tell us something about a group that had a large influence on your commission…”

  “You mean the Group for the Scientific Reappraisal of the HIV-AIDS Hypothesis.”

  “Yes. I mean, you would assume from the media coverage that, starting with Dr. Peter Duesberg, the people who have disagreed with the idea that HIV causes AIDS are a bunch of wacko extremists, a scientific fringe element who don’t know what they’re talking about. From your own experience, is that true?”

  “Hardly. The Group for the Scientific Reappraisal of the HIV-AIDS Hypothesis is a loose-knit organization of more than 2,300 highly respected scientists, researchers, medical doctors, Ph.D.’s, and other professionals – including Nobel Prize winners in medicine and chemistry, and members of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. They all have one thing in common: like my commission, they are convinced that the virus we have called HIV cannot be the cause of AIDS.”

  “So we’re not talking about a bunch of quacks who oppose Dr. Gallo’s hypothesis…”

  “No, sir. We’re talking about the finest scientific minds in the world. If anything, it would be Dr. Gallo and his cronies who continue to claim HIV as the cause of AIDS that are in the minority, even though they get all the press coverage.”

  “Thank you, Dr. Howard. I have no more questions.”

  The Judge looks at Crawley without saying anything, raising her eyebrows, wanting a response. Crawley's co-counsel are motioning for him to cross-examine. Crawley, looking like he's now convinced of the plaintiffs’ case himself, doesn’t move a muscle.