standardizing authority of the world's experimental pharmaceuticals. In the field of virology, the United States Public Health Service (USPHS) and National Institutes of Health (NIH) directed the National Cancer Institute (NCI) to become, along with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) the WHO's chief distributor of viruses and antiviral vaccines. The WHO Chronicle noted by 1968—ten years into the WHO's viral research program—"WHO virus reference centres" had served as authorized technical advisors and suppliers of "prototype virus strains, diagnostic and reference reagents (e.g., antibodies), antigens, and cell cultures" for more than "120 laboratories in 35 different countries." Within a year of this announcement, this number increased to "592 virus laboratories . . . [and] only 137 were outside Europe and North America." Over these 12 months, the NCI and CDC helped the WHO distribute 2,514 strains of viruses, 1,888 ampoules of antisera mainly for reference purposes, 1,274 ampoules of antigens, and about 100 samples of cell cultures. More than 70,000 individual reports of virus isolations or related serological tests had been transmitted through the WHO-NCI network. 12
At the NCI in Bethesda, Maryland, from the late 1960s to the present, the chief retrovirus research laboratory was associated with the Department of Cell Tumor Biology, and chaired by Dr. Robert Gallo—an esteemed member of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) who was hailed by the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Margaret Heckler in 1984 as the discoverer of the AIDS virus, HTLV-III. LAV, identical to HTLV-III had been isolated by Montagnier's French team and allegedly forwarded to Gallo in 1983. 3
MILITARY ORDERS FOR AIDS-LIKE VIRUSES: THE BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS CONTRACTORS
As early as 1970, the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) appropriated at least $10 million to "initiate an adequate program through the National Academy of Sciences-National Research Council (NAS-NRC)" to make a new infective microorganism which could differ in certain important aspects from any known disease-causing organisms. Most important of these [aspects] is that it might be refractory to the immunological and therapeutic processes upon which we depend to maintain our relative freedom from infectious disease. Members of the NAS-NRC had instructed scientific leaders in the DOD this work might be accomplished "within 5 years." 4 This research was then carried out by American defense contractors despite the authorization and signing of the Geneva accord by Dr. Henry Kissinger and President Nixon outlawing the production and testing of such biological weapons. 5
Also in 1970 Gallo and his co-workers presented research describing the experimental entry of bacterial ribonucleic acid (RNA) into human white blood cells (WBCs) before a special symposium sponsored by NATO. 6 The paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences discussed several possible mechanisms prompting the "entry of foreign nucleic acids" into lymphocytes—the cells principally attacked by HIV. Prior to this, Gallo et al. had published studies identifying:
1. mechanisms responsible for reduced amino acid and protein synthesis by T-lymphocytes required for immunosuppression; 7
2. specific enzymes required to produce such effects along with a "base pair switch mutation" in the genes of WBCs to create immune system dysfunction; 8 and
3. methods by which WBC "DNA degradation" and immune system decay may be prompted by the "pooling" of purine bases and/or the addition of specific reagents. 9
Subsequent studies published in 1970 by Gallo and co-workers identified "RNA dependent DNA polymerase" (i.e., the unique AIDS-linked enzyme, reverse transcriptase) responsible for "gene amplification . . . biochemical cytodifferentiation," (i.e., the development of unique WBC characteristics including cancer cell production) and "leukaemogenesis"; 10 and identified L-Asparaginase
At the NCI in Bethesda, Maryland, from the late 1960s to the present, the chief retrovirus research laboratory was associated with the Department of Cell Tumor Biology, and chaired by Dr. Robert Gallo—an esteemed member of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) who was hailed by the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Margaret Heckler in 1984 as the discoverer of the AIDS virus, HTLV-III. LAV, identical to HTLV-III had been isolated by Montagnier's French team and allegedly forwarded to Gallo in 1983. 3
MILITARY ORDERS FOR AIDS-LIKE VIRUSES: THE BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS CONTRACTORS
As early as 1970, the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) appropriated at least $10 million to "initiate an adequate program through the National Academy of Sciences-National Research Council (NAS-NRC)" to make a new infective microorganism which could differ in certain important aspects from any known disease-causing organisms. Most important of these [aspects] is that it might be refractory to the immunological and therapeutic processes upon which we depend to maintain our relative freedom from infectious disease. Members of the NAS-NRC had instructed scientific leaders in the DOD this work might be accomplished "within 5 years." 4 This research was then carried out by American defense contractors despite the authorization and signing of the Geneva accord by Dr. Henry Kissinger and President Nixon outlawing the production and testing of such biological weapons. 5
Also in 1970 Gallo and his co-workers presented research describing the experimental entry of bacterial ribonucleic acid (RNA) into human white blood cells (WBCs) before a special symposium sponsored by NATO. 6 The paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences discussed several possible mechanisms prompting the "entry of foreign nucleic acids" into lymphocytes—the cells principally attacked by HIV. Prior to this, Gallo et al. had published studies identifying:
1. mechanisms responsible for reduced amino acid and protein synthesis by T-lymphocytes required for immunosuppression; 7
2. specific enzymes required to produce such effects along with a "base pair switch mutation" in the genes of WBCs to create immune system dysfunction; 8 and
3. methods by which WBC "DNA degradation" and immune system decay may be prompted by the "pooling" of purine bases and/or the addition of specific reagents. 9
Subsequent studies published in 1970 by Gallo and co-workers identified "RNA dependent DNA polymerase" (i.e., the unique AIDS-linked enzyme, reverse transcriptase) responsible for "gene amplification . . . biochemical cytodifferentiation," (i.e., the development of unique WBC characteristics including cancer cell production) and "leukaemogenesis"; 10 and identified L-Asparaginase
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