Crazy Is As Crazy Does

A couple of days before one of the absolute longest, most boring hip-hop "charity" events we ever had the displeasure of hosting, a piece of mail arrived adressed to one of the headliners in c/o someone I'd never heard of. A day or two after the concert took place, the mail still undelivered, I took it upon myself to open it. What can I say, I'm curious [and larcenous] like that.

The letter enclosed was from a Manhattan woman. She identifies herself as an architect. Which I assume means she’s had some sort of formal education. The subject was infant vaccinations, HIV and AIDS. The second paragraph verbatim:

HIV came through experimental Hepatitis B vaccines given to gay men, inner city children, hemophiliacs, college students, military personnel and people traveling abroad; and also smallpox vaccine given in developing nations, beginning with Haiti, and then Africa, India and Asia.

*whew!*

and further:

These vaccines were contaminated because this country still makes vaccine by culturing it on the organs of lab animals, like the African Green Monkey. (They do?) The reason that Europe has been fighting in the WTO courts not to import American beef, is because they know of the hazards involved in using lab animals for vaccine production. (They do?) European nations and Japan have outlawed their use on humans or livestock since the mid 70's, when it became clear that many Simian (monkey) viruses had been spread into the population through vaccines. The most famous of these is SV-40, (wha?) which contaminated all of the polio vaccine in the early sixties.

She goes on to mix facts with fantasies with a soupcon of outright paranoia. She asserts that AZT is really a poison (it is) but that AIDS in Africa is actually caused by starvation. The same disease in America is explained away as a result of over medication with toxic pharmaceuticals. Or by the use of Amyl Nitrate and/or Methadone. I'm assuming the Methadone reference is a double back flip in logic to explain HIV in IV drug users. It's not the needle sharing it's the government. They're just part of the conspiracy.

And finally, I paraphrase:

African Americans are quick to take the test. When they tell us that we are positive, even though we don't feel sick, we go along with the treatment. Otherwise we are told that we are "in denial". In Africa townships get more money at the local clinic if they say their patients have AIDS instead of TB. The doctors get money and buy themselves Mercedes-Benzs (sic).....I know that people like Common think they are helping the community when they tell us to take the test. But they are setting us up to be poisoned. It's like Special Ed. in public school. They can only say you need Special Ed. if you take the test. So don't take the test. Please spread the word, if you can.

Consider the paranoid, ridiculously twisted, half-baked convoluted mess of factoids and innuendo spread, you Fruit Loop.

Love, Tom.

Coming up next week: A very special episode of From The Ashes.