OUR BODIES,

"Delta Agent: A Senario"

by

Harvey Thompson, M.D.

EDITOR'S NOTE: This month Dr. Thompson departs from a strictly factual column to indulge in a bit of science fiction. It's an intriguing connection of several bits of factual information that affect all of us which may raise important questions in your mind.

New York Gays had vacationed in Haiti for years. Creole Charlie always said it was because he and his fellow Haitians were French instead of Spanish like the Dominicans next door, or English like Jamaicans further south. Whatever the reason, it was common knowledge that you could pick up one of the easy-going Haitian hustlers off the beaches of Port-au-Prince for the cost of a drink and a U.S, ten-dollar bill. By the late 70's, it had become such a popular vacation spot that there were all-Gay cruises to Haiti each winter.

In 1977 there was an explosion at a top-secret Russian biological lab in Sverdlovsk that contaminated the surrounding countryside. An epidemic of deadly anthrax broke out a few weeks later; the government of the United States officially asked for an explanation.

By 1978, The U.S. Department of Defence permitted its Biological Warfare Division to clone Pseudomonas exotoxin by recombinant DNA experiments. It was no secret that the United States was loosening up on its observance of the Biological Weapons Convention of 1975. In the Congressional Record of the next year, botulism, anthrax, cholera, and diphtheria were listed as the bacterial toxins currently under study.

But the real interest was in viruses. They were much more difficult to detect, and far easier to transmit. At any rate, the Biological Weapons Convention had never actually barred research into possible agents, only development of new ones.

From Brazil in 1979 came reports of a mysterious "Delta Agent" that

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OUR MINDS

turned ordinary viruses like hepatitis-8 into dangerous killers. The combination was deadly; more than half the victims of the Brazilian epidemic died.

Delta Agent was frightening; it had never been isolated, and could only be detected through a complex antibody test in research labs. It seemed to be e tiny, subviral particle.

Bit also in 1979, The U.S. Public Health Service opened an office in Port-au-Prince to study the African Swine Fever virus that was decimating the entire pig population of Haiti. With Cuba only 20 miles away, the concern was that The U.S.S.R. was backing Castro with biological warfare aimed at creating economic and social unrest in Haiti.

Security was tightened when news came of the Brazilian "killer hepatitis." The Public Health Service began investigation of the second epidemic. When the Delta Agent was finally isolated, the information went straight to the Surgeon General's office, stamped "TOP SECRET: EYES ONLY."

C. Everett Koop was appointed Surgeon General by President Ronald Reagan in 1980. The appointee had made a famous statement the year before; he had warned that Gay Rights would lead to the production of "100,000 homosexual and Lesbian testtube babies to give the Gay movement more political clout." A few Gay leaders took him seriously enough to wonder about his mental stability, and began calling him "Dr. Kook," worrying about what he had in mind for Gay health.

But the medical community had always learned from the Gay community. Some bigoted investigators privately referred to Gays as "giddy guinea pigs." The hepatitis-8 vaccine had been developed only because of Gay willingness to serve as test

volunteers.

Gay blood was teaching medical investigators a lot about viruses in general. One such viruse cytomegalovirus was ubiquitous in the

Gay community. It had long before been found incorporated into the DNA of a rare cancer called Kaposi's Sarcoma, and was known to be a potent suppressor of the immune system.

Yet generally, CMV was a relativelybenign virus that at worst left the victim feeling tired for a few weeks, as if he had mononucleosis. Still, it had been long thought that viruses had some link to cancer, possibly causing it. President badly wanted to prove this connection and earn the title of "the President who had cured cancer".

Meanwhile, Creole Charlie, like all the hustlers on the beaches of Haiti, was feeling the effects of the slipping economy in the United States. His friends used to call him C.C. for his initials, but lately they had changed that to G.C. because he was always getting the clap, and the tetracycline tabs he bought at the pharmacy didn't work all that well anymore. His doctor called him "Juan-pepitas-de-manzana" -"Johnny Appleseed." Charlie did not know the story of the man who spread apple trees all over the United States; he thought the name came from the fact that he had met the doctor while eating an apple.

The hustlers all knew that the Americans had the best medicines. Their shots seemed especially good for the "maladies venereales" that they often caught from Yankee tricks. So, when the American doctor in the expensive suit offered him $100 to participate in something he called "vaccine trials", Charlie was only too happy to accept.

Charlie's arm was still sore as he walked away from the office of the U.S. Public Health Service in the new building just constructed for the Agency For International Development, Subamerica. All the people had been very nice, especially the doctor who had brought him to the nice big office behind a door marked "Projecet Delta".

The doctor had unlocked his black leather bag and brought out the vaccine himself; he said it was a

"new kind of penicillin," and Charlie could tell it was expensive stuff because it was inside a special metal cylinder with red labels all over it.

Charlie was feeling great about the day. He was going to get well, he had $100 in his pocket, and there was a whole shiplosd of New York Gays just pulling into port. Business was looking up, and he was able to grab a large part of it while the shot was still working. Thank God for America!

And AIDS began in Haiti. EPILOGUE

Medical science fiction? Yet the following parts are true; Delta Agent, Dr. Koop and his quote, the information on CMV, the African Swine Fever epidemic, the portion on biological warfare, and the Health Office in Haiti.

The last section can't be proved: Creole Charlie died last year. Of Kaposi's Sarcoma.

C Stonewall Features Syndicates, 1983

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