Subject: Re: "Cold Science"
Date: Fri, 6 Dec 1996 23:27:26 -0500 (96 lines of text)
From: Facpat at aol.com

Dear Paul and John, 
Well, at long last it looks as if we are getting somewhere. 
Paul and John wrote: [Paul]
>  My mention of "cold science" was unfortunate.  I was trying to say that
> many things, including psychological factors, should be taken into
> account in trying to explain why a certain subset of gay men became sick
> in certain ways.

I agree. Recall my "Debunking Darby" article in RA. I proposed that "HIVpos"
knowlege is a possible cause of death, even in the absence of physical
factors.

>  Health is always multifactorial, and disease almost always is.

As am I, who include exactly one more factor than does Fred in my explanation
of "AIDS."

>  I'm not against "cold science", which demonstrated that poppers are
> mutagenic, cause anemia, destroy immune functions, etc. -- which
> demonstrated that AZT kills healthy human cells -- and so on.  Logic
> comes first, but shouldn't obliterate the reality that the health of
> human beings involves emotions, among other things.

Well said, and my thoughts exactly.

Dear Paul and John, 
OK, so far, but Paul has also agreed many moons ago, on a different reflector
and discussion group, that having anal sex is no more deleterious than having
a glass of wine.  Well, I am having a glass of wine as I write this (too bad
I don't also have the added pleasure of being buggered at the same time!) and
I have been drinking all my adult life, as well as buggering, and I am 67!  I
also have a lady friend who is a clysterphiliac and has been "taking it up
the ass" for about forty years without a condom and from many different men
(she is STRAIGHT).   She does yoga, goes to my nude beach, is a remarkably
healthy woman who can talk about anything (she is from Vienna) and is
disgustingly healthy, as am I.  

My point in all this, is that if anal sex is no more immuno-suppressive than
a glass of wine (which you have admitted, Paul), then why all this idiotic
discussion, and why do you you have to crow about going to a group of gay men
in Seattle and telling them about the immuno-suppressive effect of anal sex?
 WHY?  If makes no sense, of course, unless you follow those scientists who
have blindly repeated this canard because they believe that that is what gay
men DO.    

Furthermore, you have admitted, Paul, in the above quotation, that you agree
that the psychological factor is extremely important in the mix.  So why,
then, do you insist on going to gay men, who are already a bundle of neuroses
and playing on their fears?  This seems very cruel to me and this is why I
oppose you with such vigor and will continue to do so.  Gay men, if they
clean up their acts with drugs, drink, smoking, not eating right, and all the
rest of it, do not have to worry about anal sex any more than my lady friend
who has been doing it with many different men for forty years.  

Is this so difficult to understand?

In addition, you have let slip in one of your recent postings that I am just
the same as your professors who opposed you.  It seems to me you see me as an
authority figure and that you are in an arrested state of teen rebellion
against your elders.  I am sorry about this, because I have NEVER tried to
emphasize my age or my position.  I am just as stupid and prone to error as
are most human beings.  You will remember that I did tell you to moderate
your attacks on your professors because I thought you would make a good
doctor and I did not want you to be thrown out of school.   You rejected me
outright, saying to me that you had already ruined everything and were now
just out to get them.  Have you transferred this hostility over to me?  Is
that the problem?  

It seems to me, and to Peter Duesberg, that what I have to say in my paper is
incontrovertible.  There is no use arguing about this subject any longer, it
is now a DEAD ISSUE.  

I am holding out the olive branch to you and asking you to join me in
fighting the real enemy, and you already know who that is.  Peter and John
have dilineated it well in their writings.  
My only beef with Peter right now is that he and the others have a little
private club of STRAIGHT PEOPLE and that John and other major contributors to
the cause have not been included on the board of Reappraising AIDS.  I could
go into why this has not happened, but I don't think I should air our dirty
linen in public. 

For me none of this is a matter of pride or wanting to win; I only want gay
men to stop being maligned and murdered, and continuing to talk about anal
sex to them, when it is only 6% of what we do, is to continue to oppress them
and mindfuck them.  
Come on, Paul, you have a heart, I ask you in the name of decency and love of
mankind to quit this.  

I raise my glass of wine to you and ask you to join me and Peter and all the
other dissidents when we finally get together.   We are quite simply right,
you know... 

Hugs, 
Uncle Fred
(Whew...)