Is There Proof of
West Nile Virus in NYC?
by Robert
Lederman
(718) 743-3722
artistpres@aol.com
August 16, 2000
Are you convinced that there
is a West Nile Virus crisis in NYC? Has it been proven to you? Are you so
sure that the insecticides being used are safe you will let the Mayor spray
you, your home and your family with toxic nerve gas?
Webster's Dictionary
defines proof:
·
1. Evidence
that compels acceptance by the mind of a truth or a fact.
·
2. Something
that induces certainty or establishes the validity of an assertion or charge.
The
standard of proof required in various professions is quite different.
Scientists seek absolute pproof that can be
recreated at any time, by any qualified scientist in any laboratory. At the oppositopposite extreme, a messenger just needs a receipt
to prove something was delivered. In NYC we are being asked to take the
Mayor's word as the proof of the existence of WNV and the safety of the
spray.
Scientifically
acceptable proof of there being a West Nile crisis in NYC is non-existent;
the names, blood samples and tissue samples of the alleged victims are not available
to a single independent scientist for peer review, confirmation or testing.
Neither are the blood or tissue samples of a single allegedly-infected bird
or mosquito. There is not a scientific panel or professional journal in the
world that would consider presenting such un-confirmable evidence.
That
the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) admits it changed its report
on the carcinogenicity of Malathion at the last
minute directly and solely as a result of lobbying by Cheminova,
the manufacturer of Malathion, or that the EPA
bases its evaluations of the toxicity of pesticides solely on studies done by
the chemical manufacturers themselves or that many EPA officials are either
current, former or future pesticide manufacturing executives should discredit
virtually anything the EPA says in support of the safety claims of
pesticides.
That
most people will not keel over in convulsions and die after a whiff of Anvil
is not proof of it being safe. Even a chemical like Zyklon-B-the
insecticide used in the Nazi death camps-had to be applied in a sealed room
to be effective. Presumably, the EPA might even declare Zyklon-B
as "safe" if used in an open area.
The
long term effects on humans exposed to these chemicals may surface years later causing birth defects, cancer, cognitive
difficulties and depression. Most of the immediately effects will be
diagnosed as asthma or allergy attacks and treated accordingly. They will not
be recorded as the effects of pesticide exposure when patients arrive in
emergency rooms for treatment because the City has deliberately made no
effort to document reactions to the spraying.
How
much poison gas do you want to be exposed to? The answer for anyone with
common sense is-none. If it came down to a real epidemic with people becoming
infected everywhere they could spray the entire City in a day. To spray large
swatches of the City repeatedly, in many instances based on nothing more than
a single dead crow, is creating a public health disaster not preventing one.
It is becoming increasingly difficult to believe that the officials driving
this policy are making an honest well-intentioned mistake rather than
committing a deliberate act against the public interest.
The
role of Oravax, the commercial vaccine manufacturer
directly connected to the major players in this issue-the CDC, the Ft. Dietrick bio-warfare lab, Plum Island, former OEM chief
Jerry Hauer and Mayor Giuliani-remains unexamined
in the media yet Oravax stands to make billions
from its West Nile Virus vaccine if WNV hysteria continues to spread. That Oravax was developing a WNV vaccine before the 1999
outbreak, that its VP went to Washington with Jerry Hauer
and the head of Rockefeller University in 1998 to pressure President Clinton
to stockpile billions of dollars worth of vaccines or that according to the
NY Times, Oravax's stock value had lost 90% of its
value-making a mosquito-born epidemic the only chance of company survival-are
clues of significance that might prove a financial angle to WNV.
Not
one mainstream reporter has explored the connection between various research
institutions and this "epidemic". Rockefeller-funded labs such as Rockefeller University in Manhattan have been experimenting with WNV for decades. The
Chase Bank/Rockefeller funded CIA-founded Manhattan Institute (MI) and
associated MI scholars and reporters like Peter Huber and ABC's John Stossel are part of a concerted campaign to counter 50
years of evidence that pesticides and chemicals cause disease. MI just
happens to be where both GW Bush-a major promoter of pesticide use in Texas-and Mayor Giuliani admit to getting virtually all
of their policy ideas.
The
connection between Rockefeller and pesticides goes way back. Rockefeller's
Standard Oil was partners with IG Farben, the Nazi
chemical conglomerate which invented the organophosphate nerve gasses like Malathion that are among those being used in NY.
Petroleum products are the base ingredients in the manufacturing of many of
these pesticides. The four companies that IG Farben
was broken up into following WWII-Bayer, Hoechst, BASF and Agfa-Gevaert-are today the world's leading chemical and
pharmaceutical companies. They spend millions lobbying American and European
officials in order to keep their products from being removed from the
marketplace or effectively regulated. Prescription drugs and pesticides
injure and kill far more people each year than would die in a hundred year
long world-wide WNV epidemic.
Most
people think medical studies proving that pharmaceutical products and
chemicals like Anvil are safe can be trusted. Few realize that, as was
recently exposed on a 7/31/2000 CBS special, doctors who conduct these studies receive as much as
$20,000 per patient from the drug and chemical manufacturers just for
enrolling people as test subjects.
That
Rockefeller-funded organizations are at the forefront of population control
and Eugenics programs cannot be overlooked in this context considering that
miscarriage, infertility, endocrine-disruption and various forms of cancer
are known effects of exposure to the pesticides being used. Nor can the fact
that NYC area bio-warfare facilities have been genetically-altering WNV,
experimenting with it, injecting it in human and bird subjects, selling
samples of it to governments as questionable in their motives as Iraq and
raising mosquitoes deliberately infected with WNV in facilities in NYC, NJ,
Md. and in many third-world labs.
While
these facts are not absolute scientific proof of a deliberate effort to
promulgate West Nile Virus or to create a public demand for a vaccine it is
certainly far more compelling proof than the Mayor or the CDC have presented
in support of their explanations.
When
a corporation is sued regarding exploding gas tanks, defective tires that
disintegrate at highway speeds or baby clothes that burst into flames they
point to statistics to prove the relative safety of their products. We sold
thirty million of those and only fifty people died, they will claim, as proof
that the item is safe.
Based
on that kind of proof West Nile Virus, which the CDC claims killed seven out
of more than 30 million people in the NYC area last year during a so-called
epidemic, is also safe. Based on statistics WNV is safer than aspirin, any
vaccine, driving a car, using an airbag or showering. Statistically, the NYPD
(America's most restrained police force according to
Giuliani) is far more deadly for New York residents than WNV.
If
one were to use only the information on the NYC Department of Health website
[http://www.ci.nyc.ny.us/html/doh/home.html]
in analyzing the relative risk factors of WNV and the pesticide nerve gasses
being used, there can be no other conclusion than that the pesticides are
more dangerous than WNV. The virus is described as mild, very difficult to
become infected by and a disease that most people who are infected with will
recover from without any treatment and without any symptoms. The Health
Department's announcements urge asthma suffers-of which NYC has the nation's
largest population numbering more than one million-to be especially careful
to avoid exposure. The pesticide labels describe them as dangerous toxic
substances that should not be inhaled, exposed to the skin, eyes or clothing
or allowed to contact water, food or wildlife. Thousands of studies-including
those conducted by the pesticide manufacturers themselves and the National
Institutes of Health-show links between these chemicals and various diseases,
nerve damage, liver damage and developmental damage in children and young
animals.
The
testing these studies are based on is virtually all done on rats-creatures
known for their ability to live in the filthiest and most diseased
environments on earth. Rats are known to be able to survive exposure to
substances such as anthrax that minor exposure to might kill any human. In
other words, if Anvil can cause disease in rats the likelihood is that humans
are far more vulnerable.
Not
one mainstream reporter-despite the information being widely circulated to
every newsroom in the City-has mentioned that a NY State Department of Health
study printed in the Journal of the American Mosquito Control Association
found that massive pesticide application as is being done in NYC causes a
long-term 1500% increase in mosquitoes, a dramatic increase in mosquitoes
infected with encephalitis and concluded that only mosquitoes exposed to
pesticides appeared to be able to become infected with the viruses. That
study alone would seem to prove that the spraying is intended to increase
West Nile Virus.
In
a trial that study would be called, exculpatory evidence, and the lawyers
would be required by law to share it with the other side. In a scientific
study, suppressing such information or not referring to it would discredit the
entire conclusion of the study.
The
reason there is such superficial coverage being done on this issue is not
that the media thinks the public isn't interested in hearing anything besides
the daily spray schedule. The reason is that if the facts were fairly
discussed the public would rise up in self-defense against being sprayed as
everyone who has these facts has done across the nation.
It
is not enough to know we are being lied to by elected officials-which
unfortunately most people are now so used to they barely notice it. We need
to ask why are we being lied to about this. Who
benefits and how? Who stands to lose if the spraying is not stopped and who
is receiving the most exposure to the chemicals?
Is
everyone in NYC being equally exposed to these nerve gasses? At this time of
year many of the City's wealthy residents-including most of our elected
officials and their families-are out of town. It is not well-educated
high-income residents of NYC that will be found standing around on the street
in shorts and tee-shirts late at night allowing themselves
to be sprayed or hanging out of the windows of their stiflingly hot
apartments as the spray trucks go by. The evidence shows that the Mayor has
taken extraordinary efforts to make sure that tourists are not exposed to the
chemicals. While the media reports this fact, not one sentence has ever
questioned the reason why. Is there a reason the Wall street area-which is
right near a very large park-was not sprayed last year or this year? Do
mosquitoes only live above 23rd Street?
When
you hear Mayor Giuliani ridiculing anti-spray activists and calling them
irresponsible environmental terrorists, you might think he is expressing his
own opinion. You'd be wrong.
As
in virtually all other viewpoints expressed by this administration during the
past six years, the source is the CIA-originated Rockefeller-funded Manhattan
Institute.
John Stossel, a well known 20/20 ABC investigative reporter who
has recently become a focus of controversy due to a special he hosted that
falsified test results of pesticide residues on organic vs. non-organic
foods, has been promoting a viewpoint for years that ridicules concerns about
pesticides and other chemical toxins. Stossel's
reports would have us believe that exposure to pharmaceutical drugs,
asbestos, pesticides, genetically-engineered foods, foods irradiated with
radiation and industrial pollutants are not dangerous and that we are
"scaring ourselves to death" over nothing. The source of Stossel's ideas on this topic? The Manhattan Institute
[see F.A.I.R. report http://www.fair.org/media-outlets/stossel.html]
The
Manhattan Institute's stable of authors includes Peter Huber, an apologist for
major chemical companies like Monsanto, DuPont, Dow
Chemical and Novartis. All of these companies have
direct ties to the military and intelligence agencies. Huber argues that
green activists, not the chemical companies manufacturing hundreds of millions
of tons of poisons each year, are the real threat to the environment. Huber
also strongly advocates against lawsuits by activists trying to stop these
companies. While the average person has never heard of Huber or the Manhattan
Institute those who decide policy for the entire United States read and follow every
word from the MI-which is for all intents and purposes an extension of the U.S. intelligence community. [See http://www.manhattan-institute.org/
for numerous samples of Huber's ideas and of the other viewpoints being
promoted by this CIA front].
Doesn't
the media have a professional obligation to explore this issue in the kind of
detailed manner they explored the Mayor's prostate cancer or his affairs-or
has the CIA directed them to report nothing more than the number of dead
crows and the spray schedule?
NY Times August 16, 2000
U.S. Weighs Changes in Rules
on Drug Research Conflicts
BETHESDA,
Md., Aug. 15 -- The huge influx of money into biomedical research is
creating unacceptable conflicts of interest for scientists and is eroding the
public's trust in the data, scientists and officials said today at a
government conference...Dr. Jane E. Henney,
commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, said some researchers
testing drugs or therapies have profitable arrangements with companies
financing the research, raising the question of whether the data is
unbiased...Dr. Thomas S. Bodenheimer of the
University of California at San Francisco and a contributor to The New
England Journal of Medicine, said today that he had spent a year reviewing
literature and interviewing researchers and drug officials. What he found,
Dr. Bodenheimer said, was that when drug companies
paid for a trial of a new drug, 89 percent of the time, the studies found
that the new drug was better than ones it was replacing. But when tests were
done by scientists who were not paid by the company, the new drug received
good marks only 61 percent of the time. He said he also found that some
articles published in medical journals were written not by the researchers
who conducted the studies but by a ghost writer at the company whose drug was
being studied. In other cases, he said, well-known doctors were hired to be
guest authors on studies they had not conducted. Dr. Bodenheimer
cited a survey of six major medical journals in 1996 that found that of the
809 articles, 29 percent had guest authors, ghost authors, or both.
Important Note:
Mr. Lederman has explained that his articles posted
here are not to be taken as official statements by the No-Spray Coalition of
which he is a member or of the "No-Spray"
lawsuit in which he is a plaintiff.
Robert
Lederman is an artist, a regular columnist for the Greenwich
Village Gazette [See: http://www.gvny.com/
for an extensive archive of Lederman columns] The
Shadow, The African Sun Times, The Vigo-Examiner [see: http://www.vigo-examiner.com/archive.htm]
and Street News, and is the author of hundreds of published essays
concerning Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. Lederman has
been falsely arrested 41 times to date for his anti-Giuliani
activities and has never been convicted of any of the charges. He is best
known for creating hundreds of paintings of Mayor Giuliani as a Hitler like
dictator.
Robert Lederman,
President of A.R.T.I.S.T.
(Artists' Response To Illegal
State Tactics)
artistpres@aol.com
(718) 743-3722
For
a detailed exposition on the West Nile issue
http://www.nospray.org/
For archived Lederman
articles see:
http://www.levymultimedia.com
[For essays and notes on pesticides scroll
down to and click on Lederman archive link or go to
http://www.levymultimedia.com/lederman/index.htm]
For an article on the Manhattan Institute go to
http://www.konformist.com/2000/rudyg.htm
If you would like to help oppose the spraying,
please write to the
No Spray Coalition
PO Box 334
Peck Slip Station
NYC, NY 10272-0334
or call the No Spray hotline at (718)
670-7110.
Any funds you can send to help
continue the lawsuit and this work
are greatly appreciated.