Why Al Gore Does Not
Fight AIDS Holocaust
by Scott Thompson
In a deviation from President Clinton's policies that has received surprisingly little attention, Vice President Al Gore, Jr. has actively intervened for years to block an effective policy for combatting the HIV/AIDS holocaust, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, where some 11 million people have already died from this pandemic disease. Beneath his wooden exterior, Vice President Gore has proven himself to be a genocidalist beyond Adolf Hitler's wildest dreams. His intent to reduce the world population by some 2 billion people is a matter of public record, in his own writings and the writing of others whom he has endorsed. Yet, the major media are silent in the face of Gore's Nuremberg Crimes against humanity.
The Ehrlichs: Gore's Genocidal Gurus
Take the case of Paul R. and Anne H. Ehrlich, whose stated goal is to reduce the world's population by several billion people. They are both gurus and supporters of Gore; they are leaders of the Sierra Club, which recently endorsed Gore's campaign for President. Gore wrote the introduction to the Ehrlichs' book The Population Explosion: From Global Warming to Rain Forest Destruction, Famine and Air and Water Pollution—Why Overpopulation Is Our #1 Environmental Problem (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1990), and he enthusiastically endorsed the Ehrlichs' demand for radical population reduction measures in the world's poorest countries.
The Ehrlichs argue that AIDS is merely the latest of numerous pandemic diseases that have resulted from overpopulation in places such as Africa, where they believe that AIDS originated. But in reality, Africa is vastly underpopulated, relative to its productive potential. The problem is not overpopulation, but the financial policies of the International Monetary Fund and related institutions, which have plunged the continent into perpetual backwardness, war, and epidemic disease.
On the dust jacket of The Population Explosion, the Ehrlichs tout their endorsement by Gore: "Senator Albert Gore, Jr. says, 'Paul and Anne Ehrlich point out that humankind has entered into a brand-new relationship with Planet Earth. For the first time, our numbers threaten the ecological system that supports life as we know it. ...
" 'The time for action is due, and past due. The Ehrlichs have written the prescriptions.... If every candidate for public office were to read and understand this book, we would all live in a more peaceful, sane, and secure world.' "
And, inside, the Ehrlichs give political kudos to Gore: "Taking on bad politicians is not the only effective action you can take. You can encourage good ones.... For example ... write to them and let them know how grateful you are for their efforts. Do [this] ... for Albert Gore ... and others who have made the effort to become well informed on population/environment problems."
In The Population Explosion, the Ehrlichs blame every human catastrophe, real or imagined, upon "overpopulation." They state: "Global warming, acid rain, depletion of the ozone layer, vulnerability to epidemics, and exhaustion of soils and groundwater are all, as we shall see, related to population size. They are also clear and present dangers to the persistence of civilization. Crop failures due to global warming alone might result in the premature deaths of a billion or more people in the next few decades, and the AIDS epidemic could slaughter hundreds of millions. Together these would constitute a harsh 'population control' program provided by nature in the face of humanity's refusal to put into place a gentler program of its own" (emphasis added).
The Ehrlichs, as well as Gore, even blame AIDS on "overpopulation."
In The Population Explosion, the Ehrlichs sound—like Britain's Prince Philip (who once expressed his desire to be reincarnated as a "deadly virus," in order to contribute to reducing the world's population) and the late Lord Bertrand Russell—disappointed that AIDS has not done enough to reduce human population: "Computer projections suggest that, even in Africa, mortality from the disease alone (as opposed to social breakdown or economic effects) is unlikely to bring an end to population growth. While AIDS could turn out to be the global epidemic that brutally controls the population explosion by raising death rates, the strains of the virus that have so far been observed seem not to have that capacity. In truth, it is impossible at the moment to predict what will happen."
The Ehrlichs deride as "fringe groups," those who call for the quarantine of AIDS victims, to assure both that the contagion's spread is contained, and that AIDS victims receive the most advanced treatment available.
'Mein Planet'
In the latest edition of Gore's book Earth in the Balance: Ecology and the Human Spirit (New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2000), which was issued in the midst of his campaign for the Democratic Presidential nomination, the Vice President demonstrates that he has by no means given up these genocidalist views. The book might better be titled Mein Planet.
In a chapter euphemistically called "A Global Marshall Plan," Gore states that "the absolute numbers are staggering" for population growth in several African nations, whose populations will double or triple over the next 30 years. As a result of this, Gore states: "Already new epidemics—from cholera to the Black Plague to AIDS—have emerged in societies knocked off balance by rapid population growth and consequent disruption of their traditional patterns of living, and the degradation of their surrounding environments."
While the Clinton National Security Council has acknowledged that poverty expedites the spread of HIV/AIDS, Gore says nothing about the United States helping to engender the technological and scientific progress essential to increase the population-carrying power of the Earth; instead he opts for population control measures under the "Big Lie" of "sustainable development."
In the new foreword to the second edition of Earth in the Balance (the first was issued in 1992), Gore states: "None of our measures will fully succeed unless we achieve population stabilization—one of the most important environmental challenges of all. An overcrowded world is inevitably a polluted one. Since I wrote this book, the earth's population has increased by 500 million people; 800 million people go hungry each day; 2 billion live without electricity; 2 billion don't have access to sanitary facilities; 1.3 billion are without clean water; and 1 billion live on less than one dollar a day." Rather than a true "Marshall Plan" to alleviate this poverty, Gore calls for population control measures to reduce the population by 2 billion or more people, as he advocated as head of the U.S. delegation to the 1994 UN Conference on Population and Development in Cairo.
Brass-Knuckle Tactics toward South Africa
U.S. government documents show that, as Vice President, Al Gore practices what he preaches. He has used every bullying tactic short of war to stop the Republic of South Africa, from leading a revolt within global institutions for poor to gain access to the production of affordable, generic anti-retroviral drugs, to prolong the lives of those who are either HIV-positive or suffering from full-blown AIDS. Gore has been a party to threats to punish South Africa, which is facing an HIV/AIDS emergency, because it has threatened to break the death-grip of the pharmaceutical cartels on these life-prolonging drugs, not only in Sub-Saharan Africa, but throughout the Third World.
Al Gore is lying, when he claims that South Africa is not obeying international law. Even the World Trade Organization permits patent right infringement under conditions of a "national emergency," and the United States and European Union have repeatedly done this for far less reason.
The following chronology of events since the founding of the 1994 U.S.-South Africa Bi-National Commission (BNC), shows that Gore has worked consistently to keep South Africa from producing generic anti-retroviral medications, despite its national emergency.
July 29, 1997: During a BNC meeting, Secretary of Commerce William Daley, who is now Gore's campaign chairman, voiced opposition to the proposed amendments to South African Medicines Act of 1965, Section 15(c), which would permit compulsory licensing (generic production) and parallel purchasing (finding the lowest possible price).
Feb. 13, 1998: U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) Joe Papovich attends an inter-agency meeting chaired by Gore's aide Leon Fuerth, to discuss ways of short-circuiting Section 15(c) at the upcoming BNC meeting. As Gore's National Security Adviser and longest-serving staff member, Fuerth is in charge of policy formulation for all of the five Bi-National Commissions run by Gore.
Feb. 23, 1998: Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) asks the USTR to designate South Africa as a "Priority Foreign Country" under the special 301 Review. PhRMA says: "South Africa has become a 'test case' for those who oppose the U.S. government's long-standing commitment to improve the terms of protection for all forms of American intellectual property, including pharmaceutical patents."
March 17, 1998: USTR Charlene Barshefsky vows that U.S. "agencies with both trade and health policy responsibilities will continue to press South African government in all possible fora as long as possible."
May 1, 1998: USTR puts South Africa on the 301 "Watch List," because it has threatened to abrogate patent rights in order to produce generic anti-retroviral drugs to help its AIDS-stricken people.
June 30, 1998: The White House announces that four items, for which South Africa had requested preferential tariff treatment, will be held in abeyance, pending progress on "intellectual property rights" protection in South Africa.
August 1998: During BNC meetings in Washington, Gore makes the issue of pharmaceutical property-rights protection the central focus of his discussions with Deputy President Thabo Mbeki.
Oct. 21, 1998: HR 4328 passses the House of Representatives. It contains a provision inserted by Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-N.J.), who represents major pharmaceutical industry interests, that would cut off aid to the government of South Africa, pending a Department of State report outlining its efforts to "negotiate the repeal, suspension, or termination of Section 15(c) of South Africa's Medical and Related Substances Control Amendment Act No. 90 of 1997."
Feb. 5, 1999: The State Department sends a report to Congress, stating that "all relevant agencies of the U.S. Government ... have been engaged in a full-court press with South African officials from the Departments of Trade and Industry, Foreign Affairs, and Health, to convince the South African Government to withdraw or amend the offending provisions of the law."
February 1999:. Gore again raises the issue with Mbeki. South Africa is placed on the trade "Watch List" for intellectual property-rights violations.
April 30, 1999: USTR schedules an "out-of-cycle review" for South Africa, to conclude in September 1999. According to the USTR, South Africa's "barriers to trade" are parallel imports, compulsory licensing, and speaking out at the World Health Assembly, during which South Africa was accused of fomenting a faction of nations in the World Health Organization (WHO), calling for a reduction in the level of protection provided for pharmaceuticals.
Although President Clinton subsequently reversed this murderous sanctions policy against South Africa in a May 10, 2000 Executive Order, entitled "Access to HIV/AIDS Pharmaceuticals and Medical Techologies,"[1] South Africa is still unable to produce generic anti-retroviral drugs to combat HIV/AIDS, because of a lawsuit by the pharmaceutical cartels before the nation's High Court.
Gore's Pharmaceutical Friends
Several top members of the Gore Campaign 2000 team are lobbyists for the pharmaceutical cartels, and they have been trying to line up major funding from the very cartels that are suing South Africa.
Gore's chief campaign fundraiser, Peter Knight, is a high-paid lobbyist for PhRMA, which represents several of the firms that have been demanding sanctions and issuing injunctive suits against South Africa. In 1998, Knight earned $120,000 from the pharmaceutical cartel of Schering-Plough alone.
Anthony Podesta, a close friend and top adviser to Gore, is one of the PhRMA's chief lobbyists. His firm was paid $160,000 by PhRMA to lobby on patent issues, among other matters, between January 1997 and June 1998. He was also retained by Genentech, a major biotech firm, to the tune of $260,000, for the same period. Gore's chief domestic policy adviser, David Beier, was previously the top in-house lobbyist for Genentech.
No matter what campaign rhetoric Gore peddles nowadays about the need to combat HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa, both he and top campaign officials are lining their pockets with money from the pharmaceutical cartels that are suing South Africa to stop generic affordable drug production.
[1] Scott Thompson, "Clinton Issues Order Allowing Africa to Produce AIDS Drugs," EIR, May 26, 2000.
