The Pridelets Files for October 24
On this day in 1985, from the desk of Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger comes the order to begin the largest AIDS test ever, all told a $20 million effort to "medically retire" officers thus "cleansing" the US military of the HIV+ and severly immune compromised.
BIRTHGAYS (and the occasional straights)
* 51 A.D. - Roman emperor Domitian (Titus Flavius Domitianus)
* 1796 - German poet August von Platen (AKA Karl August Georg Maximilian Graf von Platen-Hallermünde)
* 1904 - playwright and director Moss Hart
* 1939 - Native American poet, novelist and critic Paula Gunn Allen
* 1947 - Gay-for-pay "In & Out" actor Kevin Kline
* 1960 - Tony and Drama Desk Award winning actor and adoptive father B.D. (Bradley Darryl) Wong
* 1969 - Award-winning Irish writer Emma Donoghue
Q.UOTE
"Comedy is a very serious thing. In the kissing scene, Kevin Kline was a kind of Doris Day to Tom Selleck's Rock Hudson. It had to be a big kiss, and we had to cast two famous movie stars in it or it wouldn't have worked. It was filmed by a roadside, outside. These people drove by and threw on the brakes to see Tom Selleck and Kevin Kline. 'What the hell kind of movie is this?' they asked. Someone waved them on and, I hope, told them to buy a ticket.'' -- "In & Out" director Frank Oz
THE BEDSIDE TABLE
"Serious Adverse Events: An Uncensored History of AIDS" by Celia Farber
At an April 1984 press conference, government researchers announced that the cause of AIDS--the disease then terrifying the nation as if it were a Biblical scourge--was a "retrovirus" called HIV.
Many scientists, including two Nobel winners, said it wasn't possible. But they were quickly drowned out by the ecstatic response from activists, government-funded researchers, a relieved public and, especially, the pharmaceutical industry, which quickly offered a treatment for HIV--a drug called called AZT. Within four years, the entire first group of AZT test subjects was dead.
But the idea that HIV caused AIDS became so entrenched that international policy was being based on it, while big pharma raked in billions. Scientists who disagreed found themselves ostracized, their funding cut off. Journalist who raised questions were subject to vicious attacks from politicians and activists.
Celia Farber has covered the tumultuous story in all its facets for over 20 years, including: disastrous National Institutes of Health drug tests on mothers and children in Africa, Tennessee and New York City; extensive interviews with blacklisted researchers and scientific dissidents such as Berkeley's Peter Duseberg and NIH renegade Jonathan Fishbein; and reporting from South Africa on the influence of pharmaceutical companies on foreign aid and policy.
It is an astonishing and largely unknown story, and in Serious Adverse Events, Farber chronicles the entire history of AIDS, its triumphs and its failures, with astonishing research and mind-opening candor.
This work is copyright© 2006 Thomas Allen Heald, all rights reserved. Contact the author at tom@idontgetit.org and the latest column are always available at www.Pridelets.com.
BIRTHGAYS (and the occasional straights)
* 51 A.D. - Roman emperor Domitian (Titus Flavius Domitianus)
* 1796 - German poet August von Platen (AKA Karl August Georg Maximilian Graf von Platen-Hallermünde)
* 1904 - playwright and director Moss Hart
* 1939 - Native American poet, novelist and critic Paula Gunn Allen
* 1947 - Gay-for-pay "In & Out" actor Kevin Kline
* 1960 - Tony and Drama Desk Award winning actor and adoptive father B.D. (Bradley Darryl) Wong
* 1969 - Award-winning Irish writer Emma Donoghue
Q.UOTE
"Comedy is a very serious thing. In the kissing scene, Kevin Kline was a kind of Doris Day to Tom Selleck's Rock Hudson. It had to be a big kiss, and we had to cast two famous movie stars in it or it wouldn't have worked. It was filmed by a roadside, outside. These people drove by and threw on the brakes to see Tom Selleck and Kevin Kline. 'What the hell kind of movie is this?' they asked. Someone waved them on and, I hope, told them to buy a ticket.'' -- "In & Out" director Frank Oz
THE BEDSIDE TABLE
"Serious Adverse Events: An Uncensored History of AIDS" by Celia Farber
At an April 1984 press conference, government researchers announced that the cause of AIDS--the disease then terrifying the nation as if it were a Biblical scourge--was a "retrovirus" called HIV.
Many scientists, including two Nobel winners, said it wasn't possible. But they were quickly drowned out by the ecstatic response from activists, government-funded researchers, a relieved public and, especially, the pharmaceutical industry, which quickly offered a treatment for HIV--a drug called called AZT. Within four years, the entire first group of AZT test subjects was dead.
But the idea that HIV caused AIDS became so entrenched that international policy was being based on it, while big pharma raked in billions. Scientists who disagreed found themselves ostracized, their funding cut off. Journalist who raised questions were subject to vicious attacks from politicians and activists.
Celia Farber has covered the tumultuous story in all its facets for over 20 years, including: disastrous National Institutes of Health drug tests on mothers and children in Africa, Tennessee and New York City; extensive interviews with blacklisted researchers and scientific dissidents such as Berkeley's Peter Duseberg and NIH renegade Jonathan Fishbein; and reporting from South Africa on the influence of pharmaceutical companies on foreign aid and policy.
It is an astonishing and largely unknown story, and in Serious Adverse Events, Farber chronicles the entire history of AIDS, its triumphs and its failures, with astonishing research and mind-opening candor.
This work is copyright© 2006 Thomas Allen Heald, all rights reserved. Contact the author at tom@idontgetit.org and the latest column are always available at www.Pridelets.com.
posted by Thomas @ 3:10 PM
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