On this day in 1984, "HIV" was proclaimed to be the probable cause of "AIDS" at a press conference.

It all "started" with a handful of sick gay men in Los Angeles circa 1980. So, the fable begins. A surveillance category was created called "GRID" (gay-related immune deficiency). "GRID" should have stayed in the gay community. GRID described two illnesses that were occurring in a small minority of gay men at the time...Kaposi's Sarcoma and PCP (an uncommon form of pneumonia). At the time, "lifestyle factors" were the main consideration behind this phenomenon. "Poppers" use was highly suspect, as were other recreational drugs, repeated std exposure and antibiotic use. These factors were openly discussed, but they were politically volatile within the greater gay community.

Forces were quickly at work, looking for a viral, or specifically a retroviral cause for this new "disease". It wasn't the first time a retrovirus was considered as a cause of disease. Nixon's "war on cancer" was an expensive failure as government scientists were attempting to find a retroviral cause of cancer. Retroviruses don't kill cells. The rationale at least, was that since they didn't kill cells, they may cause cells to multiply (cancer). Millions of taxpayer dollars were spent, and did we find out that retroviruses cause cancer?

How to save face after such a colossal failure? A few gay men in LA would "do the trick", it seems.

GRID would have been very useful for the gay community at the time. Had gay men seriously questioned the "lifestyle factors" that were discussed, "AIDS" may have never gotten off the ground. Unfortunately, the words "lifestyle factors" were more than a sore spot. The "gay lifestyle" was a source of negative headlines, which made discussing those factors a very sensitive issue.

Gay leaders were keen to keep gay men from being singled out for whatever was going on. "AIDS" may have come into being partly through political means, as it certainly didn't make sense from a medical standpoint. It would also greatly expand the surveillance category (the category of WHAT, though?). Only gay men could have "GRID", but anybody could have "AIDS". This was a pivotal change.

It would be two years from virus-less "AIDS" to retroviral "AIDS". During that time, with the expansion of the definition, came the inclusion of Haitians, hemophiliacs and IV drug users, and more diseases would be added as well. Why? Why not? GRID got turned into something called AIDS. These two categories with their corresponding diseases were night and day. What was the medical reasoning that turned GRID into AIDS, especially since "HIV" hadn't been "discovered" yet?

Hysteria accompanied the creation of "AIDS". Since anybody in theory could have "AIDS", it became a frightening proposition, especially without knowing the "cause". With the change of definition, the very idea that the "gay lifestyle" as the cause could readily be abandoned. How could the "gay lifestyle" explain the IV drug users, Haitians and hemophiliacs? The change in definition itself seemed to beg for a single cause. But with the other diseases and groups of people added, was there anything "new" going on? IV drug users were already known to suffer from compromised immunity, as well as hemophiliacs--the need for multiple blood transfusions during the course of one's life with the hodge-podge of foreign proteins is known to be immunosuppressive. Was it necessary to create this new surveillance category to include these diverse groups of people and the varied diseases they may encounter?

Not too long after "HIV" was "discovered" came the antibody test. In theory, "HIV" binds this whole thing together. The antibody tests tell a much different story. HIV antibody tests are neither standardized nor specific to "HIV". Different countries have different criteria for determing a positive HIV Western Blot. In the US, several differing sets of criteria are utilized. Why the discrepancy? Why isn't there just one, a standard? With these differing criteria, a person could be "positive" on ONE of them, but be "negative" on another. Where the Western Blot is used in Africa, one could test positive, but be negative using Australia's criteria. We don't have a standard. So where is the "HIV"?

The Western Blot and ELISA also cross-react. There are over 60 documented conditions that can cause a false-positive between the two tests. Many of these include "AIDS indicator diseases" such as malaria and tuberculosis. If these two diseases have been documented to cross-react, then how does one know they've been "infected" with "HIV", and not just have malaria or tuberculosis? How can the purported "HIV" proteins be specific to "HIV" if there are so many potential cross-reactions?

So how can these various groups of people be lumped together with their varied maladies? With "HIV", via antibody tests that are neither standardized, nor specific to this pathogen, claimed to be the root cause of so many diseases (or NO test in sub-Saharan Africa where symptoms indicative of dozens of illnesses constitute an "AIDS" diagnosis, with "HIV" presumed to be the culprit).

The "AIDS" paradigm has proven to be deadly for many, and very profitable for others. Pharmaceutical companies make millions off of their "AIDS drugs" and "HIV tests". The profit machine is in full swing. Now "AIDS" is viewed as a chronic, manageable condition as long as one takes expensive "AIDS drugs" for the rest of their life.

It's been twenty-two years of "HIV/AIDS", with no end in sight. Is there really something so unique occurring? Is there really ANY retrovirus ("HIV" is considered to be an ordinary retrovirus) that can do all the harm attributed to "HIV"? Is the "AIDS pandemic" really just a pandemic in our minds? After so many years, billions of dollars spent on research and thousands of scientists and researchers worldwide working around the clock on this problem; either "HIV" is the smartest microbe in history, or we're barking up the wrong tree.