Beginning in the mid-1970s, government scientists became interested in the health of gay men, particularly in the realm of sexually-transmitted diseases, and specifically in the sexual transmission of the hepatitis B virus. The early 1970s was a time when large numbers of gays come out of the closet and identified themselves as homosexuals at government-sponsored health clinics. Organizations such as the Gay Men’s Health Project were formed at this time. Promiscuous gays were avidly sought as volunteers to test the efficacy of a newly-developed hepatitis B vaccine manufactured by Merck and the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
By 1977 over 13,000 Manhattan gays were screened to secure the final 1083 men who would serve as guinea pigs to test the hepatitis B vaccine. The vaccine was manufactured from the combined plasma of 30 highly selected gay men who carried the hepatitis B virus in their blood. Developed over a period of 65 weeks during 1977-1978 and tested for six months in chimpanzees (the primate in which HIV is thought to have originated), the first group of gay men were inoculated at the New York Blood Center in November 1978.
That same year a final cohort of 6875 homosexual men at the San Francisco City Clinic was assembled to study hepatitis B virus sexual transmission in that city. By the end of the decade gays in clinics in Los Angeles, Denver, Chicago, and St. Louis, also came under surveillance by the Centers for Disease Control. An additional 1402 volunteers were finally selected to participate in similar vaccine experiments in those cities beginning in March 1980.
Before 1978 there was no stored blood anywhere in the U.S. that tested positive for HIV or the KS virus. There were no cases of AIDS and no cases of "gay cancer" in young men.
The first cases of AIDS appeared shortly after the experiment began in Manhattan. In June 1981 the epidemic became official and was quickly labelled the "gay related immune deficiency syndrome", later known as AIDS.
The gay community was the most hated minority in America. After the experiments ended, the gay community was decimated by the "gay plague." In the first years of AIDS, the epidemic was largely ignored by the government (see Randy Shilt’s best-seller, And the Band Played On) and the disease was blamed on gay anal sex, drugs, and promiscuity. Gays were immediately labelled "high risk."
In my view, what made gay men "high risk" was the fact that they were the exclusive volunteers for government medical experiments that undoubtedly put them at "high risk." The evidence for this conclusion is outlined in this report. Further evidence can be obtained from abstracts of scientific reports available on the Internet at the PubMed website of the National Library of Medicine.
By 1977 over 13,000 Manhattan gays were screened to secure the final 1083 men who would serve as guinea pigs to test the hepatitis B vaccine. The vaccine was manufactured from the combined plasma of 30 highly selected gay men who carried the hepatitis B virus in their blood. Developed over a period of 65 weeks during 1977-1978 and tested for six months in chimpanzees (the primate in which HIV is thought to have originated), the first group of gay men were inoculated at the New York Blood Center in November 1978.
That same year a final cohort of 6875 homosexual men at the San Francisco City Clinic was assembled to study hepatitis B virus sexual transmission in that city. By the end of the decade gays in clinics in Los Angeles, Denver, Chicago, and St. Louis, also came under surveillance by the Centers for Disease Control. An additional 1402 volunteers were finally selected to participate in similar vaccine experiments in those cities beginning in March 1980.
Before 1978 there was no stored blood anywhere in the U.S. that tested positive for HIV or the KS virus. There were no cases of AIDS and no cases of "gay cancer" in young men.
The first cases of AIDS appeared shortly after the experiment began in Manhattan. In June 1981 the epidemic became official and was quickly labelled the "gay related immune deficiency syndrome", later known as AIDS.
The gay community was the most hated minority in America. After the experiments ended, the gay community was decimated by the "gay plague." In the first years of AIDS, the epidemic was largely ignored by the government (see Randy Shilt’s best-seller, And the Band Played On) and the disease was blamed on gay anal sex, drugs, and promiscuity. Gays were immediately labelled "high risk."
In my view, what made gay men "high risk" was the fact that they were the exclusive volunteers for government medical experiments that undoubtedly put them at "high risk." The evidence for this conclusion is outlined in this report. Further evidence can be obtained from abstracts of scientific reports available on the Internet at the PubMed website of the National Library of Medicine.
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