Michael Ellner to Gene Semon and others

7 December 2011

As you know, Tom D. and I tried very hard to add a psycho-emotional/psychogenic piece to the Risk-AIDS Model from the moment "The Group" started promoting it. It was like talking to a wall. I am sick of virologists, doctors and journalists who function as politicians instead of scientists, doctors and journalists. In my opinion, they are part of the problem, which is why I want nothing to do with Rethinking AIDS.

For those who don't know me: I was questioning and challenging AIDS and AIDS-related treatments before there was a dissident movement. I helped Duesberg and friends build the movement from day one. In my opinion, the dissident movement failed to take advantage of the worldwide momentum that we were building by the mid-1990s. The so-called "RETHINKERS" were unable to comprehend that most subsequent AIDS cases did not meet the standard Risk-AIDS model. So they naturally rejected our offerings outright. Sort of like you said, "people will be brainwashed in the way they want to be brainwashed" (scientists are people too).

Perhaps this is a good time to reconsider the unacknowledged psycho-emotional/psychogenic risks for buying into HIV/AIDS. I believe shame, guilt and other intimacy-related issues explain why gay men were/are the most susceptible risk group for this murderous fraud. In the early 1980s, I repeatedly heard gay men say something along the lines that the most threatening thing about AIDS was that it would drag them out of the closet. I repeatedly heard gay man open up about a lifetime of guilt and shame related to being gay; guilt and shame related to being a bottom; guilt and shame related to living a secret life; etc. I said it then and I say it now. Shame, guilt, isolation and intense negative stress are missing pieces of the "risk-AIDS" model.

Sorry for the rant-

Michael E.

 

Here's a news brief about the "worried well"

"AIDS Spawns New Hypochondriacs"

Associated Press (08/14/88)

“… Miami psychologist Larry Harmon says a new kind of hypochondriac has been spawned by AIDS: people who are convinced they have the AIDS virus despite medical evidence to the contrary. This problem is known as 'AFRAIDS,' which stands for acute fear regarding AIDS. Symptoms of anxiety and depression, such as weight loss, fatigue, or reduced resistance to disease, are interpreted by AFRAIDS afflicted people as signs of AIDS. Even monthly blood tests for as long as a year have failed to ease the fear in some of these people, who are so terrified they often avoid sex with their spouses and lose concentration at work. Harmon reports that the problem often is rooted in guilt over an extramarital affair, a visit to a prostitute, or a homosexual experience…"