Deane Collie, executive director, International Coalition for Medical Justice, Arlington, VA
Written in Blood Please don't pay any attention to Celia Farber and Nicholas Regush. My friends and family who died before 1995 would probably still be alive if they had had access to protease inhibitors. It is dangerous to publish such trash.
Tracy Swan, Manhattan
HIVethink Applause, applause, applause. Thank God a newspaper with a high circulation has the courage to write the truth about AIDS?unlike the Village Voice, which only continues to write about how in fear we should all be, those stupid fucks.
I am a huge fan of Celia Farber and I admire her courage in speaking out against the bogus party line that HIV = AIDS?a theory that has never been proven.
I will be holding on to your 3/8 issue for a very long time. Perhaps one day my friends will be open enough to change their minds. I'm hoping your excellent article will help.
My last thought to you about AIDS: Money is the root of all evil.
Name Withheld, New York City
Fit to Print As a fellow editor who has written articles on AIDS heretics (primarily Peter Duesberg, a UC Berkeley professor), allow me to congratulate you on John Strausbaugh's excellent interview with Farber, Ortleb and Regush. It's very encouraging?not to say surprising?to see an editor and a newspaper doing what editors and newspapers should be doing: covering the news.
Russell Schoch, editor, California Monthly, Alumni House, Berkeley, CA
One Heart at A Time John Strausbaugh: Thank you so much for your wonderful 3/8 "AIDS Heretics" piece last week. It's good to see some more people opening up to reason and thought. Hopefully it will encourage others to follow.
Charlie and Stephanie Hardwick, Houston
It's a Viral Load Once again New York Press has dared to go where its onetime competitor the Village Voice fears to tread. The "AIDS heretics" interviewed by John Strausbaugh are among thousands worldwide, a growing movement that includes two Nobel Prize winners, Kary Mullis and Walter Gilbert. Mullis received the prize for inventing PCR, the technique used to measure "viral load," supposedly an indication of the quantity of HIV in a person's blood. He has written: "We have not been able to discover any good reasons why most of the people on earth believe that AIDS is a disease caused by a virus called HIV. There is simply no scientific evidence demonstrating that this is true." While the Voice's AIDS reporters seem to uncover little more than pharmaceutical company press releases, the Press has again done what the Voice once prided itself on?it has published a journalist who ventures to call into question a "truth" agreed upon by the Earth's largest corporations and Washington's largest bureaucracies. Bravo!
Frank Lusardi, Manhattan
Dear John Letter John Strausbaugh: I've loved you ever since you wrote a great one-paragraph description of the failure of Vatican Council II. You described how the incense-burning, Latin-chanting rituals were replaced by Earth-Shoe-wearing, kumbaya-singing rituals; the traditionalists were annoyed, no real reforms were made, which annoyed some of the reformers and no one was happy at all. To someone who, like me, lost the Latin Mass at age seven and still misses it, this paragraph was pure genius. I actually saved the article and still have it somewhere.
I just read your interview with the AIDS heretics and wanted to write to commend you on always being truthful, on never going with the "popular" view. My brother died of AIDS, and your article really makes me wonder. I have always had a lot of problems with the "AIDS establishment." I've wondered if "partner tracking" mightn't have saved my brother's life. I've wondered why "the gay community" or "the AIDS establishment" or any sensible person would object to an infant's mother being advised of a child's HIV status. Is this because no one but the (presumably positive) mother will ever change the baby's diaper?
Your article has me wondering how far off people are when it comes to the whole disease. I've printed your piece out and intend to look further into these issues. Thanks for all your wonderful work, past, present and future.
Jessica O'Connor, Bayonne, NJ
B. John Coming At Ya! Re: Your long 3/8 interview with the HIV-is-not-the-cause-of-AIDS-and no-proof-will-ever-be-good-enough crowd: Charles Ortleb, Celia Farber and Nicholas Regush.
It seems New York Press' publisher has reinvented himself in the image of Mr. Ortleb. The (now defunct) New York Native and its publisher, Charles Ortleb, weren't just hounded out of business as claimed. The New York Native was driven out of business by Mr. Ortleb, by his lack of care for the community and by his brand of twisted journalism. The Native published the same crap that you have just published. The community has fought dangerous publishers and journalists like Mr. Ortleb and his crew with the truth. Armed with th