The Ethics of Hunting Down ‘Patient Zero’

New York Times ^ | OCT. 29, 2016 | DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.

[Askel5]

I was proud to be one of the Bloodhounds, many of whom I had the pleasure of meeting, including T'wit and the dear Budge, may they rest in peace.

I have unearthed a lot of the deleted articles and posted them elsewhere if ever anyone is interested.

Reading a lot of the more ignorant comments here, seems doubtful folks will want to know the truth.

exactly the reaction of some New Orleans attorneys I once knew. To be fair, the information I was handing them would have made it difficult to defend their clients who were profiting on Louisiana prison plasma through 1994, as did Arkansas. #conscience.kindasorta

And, technically, also the reaction of "Poppy's pick to head up the Red Cross, Elizabeth Dole. (only slightly ironic given control freak Poppy's avid interest in Educating human resources about sexual stuff ... http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/719579/posts?q=1&;page=1.

How else to explain her husband's settling for bimbo eruptions (the stupid laughable, "well whaddya expect dragging a dollar through a trailer park" kind, not the Serious kind of victim litany a warm-up comic like Cosby or a headliner like Trump have).

Justice Horace Krever's commission in Canada already had documented the transfer of tainted Cummins Arkansas prisoner plasma to Thomas Hecht's Connaught Labs in Canada for fractionation into the red gold of derivatives .... Factor VIII, albumin, HEP-C VACCINES, etc.

Can you imagine the stir that might have caused? 1400 units a month on the average, $7, a couple Percodan to the prisoner, $30-80 bucks a unit at market with only a pittance being kicked back to the prison? Leonard Dunn, whose plasma ops Bill Clinton re-upped three times after the FDA shut him down in the 80s, wasn't the only making bank in the millions.

I bet it would have been bigger, even, than having Ms. Heinz-Kerry insult the entirety of the Education Establishment by starting on the eve of the election that Laura Bush had never had a real job.

you can imagine what it's like for poor ole Askel this election ... I don't think Trump ever will get his due for all he did to get his pal Hillary elected AND innoculate the nation against her raft of treasonous incompetence and personal criminality.

Not NEARLY as easy as it used to be back when one could squander a 97% approval rating, good economy and Gulf War laurels by whining how you don't like broccoli or campaigning and - READ MY LIPS - working over the last of the greatest generation with scare tactics.

anyway ...

have you seen the adverts lately encouraging ALL boomers to get checked? I found that verrrry interesting.

Last but not at all least,

I hope this finds you and yours well. I was sorry I couldn't make it uptown for a longer visit but it was cool to see your mom after mass while I was there in April. (ever) hopeful I'll be back soon. it was a glorious week and seemed like a month. my favorite thing about New Orleans being the way she's wise to the conceit that is Time.

Give my regards to those who may remember me at St. Pat's.

Good to "see" you, Romulus. Thanks for the heads-up.

[Askel5]

I'm so very sorry for the loss of your godson. This is personal for me too.


the worst thing about the CDC (Canadian Development Corporation) and complicit actors in Canada's government who destroyed documentation, minutes, etc is how it never will be fully appreciated how egregious was Connaught's agreeing to fractionate US prisoner plasma in the first place.

Canada had wisely outlawed this practice in 1971 or 72. If the US had followed suit, there never would have been such a deluge of death delivered to the only actually innocent victims whose Factor VIII, albumin, plasma and vaccines killed them. (Recombinant Hep-B vax weren't developed infill late 80s and required, in some countries if not the "here's your free medical supplies!" sorts shortly thereafter.)

Even though I lost many very dear friends to AIDS and its host of gruesome complications, I don't consider willing bareback sex partners the same degree of victim I do the countless folks ... including children who'd never had sex and faithful monogamous spouses with families) who were infected thanks to their trust in our medical system, particularly the biologicals side.

one of the best caches I have saved was Waalaby's post if the Philadelphia Enquirer's summary Red Cross's more despicable practices and corruption as blood broker. (That side of the business is separate from the disaster relief they provide usually for a price in contrast to the assistance of truly charitable organizations like the Salvation Army to whom I have not failed to donate since Katrina.)

Another reason I reject the "victimhood" is right there in the book "The Band Played On" where he detailed meetings of the CDC and interested parties in Atlanta and Maryland in the early 80s where gay activists theatened to make donation an act against "profiling" gays as poor sources for plasma. The one thing on which everyone agreed, however, was that prisoner plasma was far and away too dangerous a source for the bleeding of prisoners to continue.

That's probably why, subsequently, you have the likes of Bruce Babbitt defending the state of Arizona when a prisoner sued for damages alleging infection as a result of his participation in the bleed program there.

If you study the findings of both the FDA and some outside groups brought in at one time to evaluate the Arkansas program upon allegations of groups mismanagement (Cummins was the model for Brubaker), it's easy to see how legitimate was the suit even if Arizona's program, unlike Arkansas's, was not a worst-case scenario of infractions including having prisoners work at the bleed ops and sell the right to bleed, fudge paperwork, fail to properly clean tools or store plasma, and regularly harvest from prisoners already infected and even jaundiced.

You're not the only who knows better ... That this is not something we can pin solely on bathhouse sex or that is primarily a gay or African jungle sex disease.

I guess it's some testament to faith in our fellow human beings that we'd rather believe it was the work of a Patient Zero who himself was victimized by some species-jump effected through bestiality, not the concerted work of scientists who, among them Thomas Hecht, were working on smallpox vaccines on the West Coast of Africa well after the debacle of early polio vaccines thanks to use of diseased monkeys proved fatal to so many trusting innocents.

As a New Orleanian of 17 years, I can attest to the way Alton Ochsner is revered as some saint of of all things anti-tobacco and cancer treatments.

not until I read Dr. Mary's Monkey did I realize that ... in a PR bid to override the objections raised by a few at the NIH/CDC that the vaccines obtained with diseased monkeys weren't safe, he jabbed his own grandchildren to prove how safe they were ... his granddaughter survived with some complications, his grandson perished.

no one talks about that.

Thank you for speaking up.