ARE YOU POSITIVE?

A Novel by

Stephen Davis

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

Thank you for downloading this free ebook. You are welcome to share it with your friends. This book may be reproduced, copied and distributed for non-commercial purposes, provided the book remains in its complete original form.

This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright 2008, 2010 by L & G Productions, LLC

Chapter One

February, 2012

On November 1, 2011, the Arizona Tribune ran an article in their Sunday Feature section telling the story of Sarah Meadows, a health writer for the paper who lost her brother to AIDS in 1990. Sarah had been covering the AIDS trial in Phoenix, which had taken on a special meaning for her personally.

PHOENIX, AZ – The heart of her story is not unique. In fact, it is shared by hundreds of thousands of men and women who lost a loved one to AIDS in the last thirty years.

Sarah Meadows, born Sarah Noyes in Greenwich, Connecticut, 1967, was accustomed to the finer things in life. Her father was a well-known doctor, prominent in Republican politics both statewide and nationally. Her mother was a graduate of Wellesley College and had blue blood coursing through her veins. Sarah lacked for nothing, from comfort and money to the finest education and friends that money could buy.

It was a perfect life, an American dream come true; that is, until her senior year in high school, when her 15-year-old brother Greg announced that he was gay.

“My dream suddenly turned into a nightmare,” Sarah recalls. “My parents simply couldn’t deal with it. Most of my friends deserted me, like I had done something wrong. But worse than that, everyone abandoned Greg, as if he had leprosy.”

Sarah was the only one who stood by her little brother, gently persuading her parents over the next year that homosexuality was not a disease or a curse, and easing him back into the family. She became his guardian, his mentor, his best friend.

When Sarah graduated and left home to attend Amherst College for a degree in Journalism, she made Greg promise to stay in Greenwich and finish his last two years of high school. Sarah would drive home every other weekend to visit Greg and support him. It meant that Sarah had virtually no social life for her entire freshman and much of her sophomore years.

“That was okay with me,” Sarah admits. “I kind of slacked off in high school a little, didn’t apply myself as I should have, and it was good to focus on my studies and on Greg and forget about sororities and boyfriends for a while. Besides, Greg would have done the same thing for me if the tables had been turned. There was no way I could just leave him hanging.”

It was during Greg’s senior year when the devastating news surfaced. It was a routine physical for life insurance his parents wanted to take out on him before he left for college, a simple blood test that normally means nothing.

“I remember when Greg called me to tell me he was HIV-positive. I was on a date, but ten minutes later I was driving south, hoping to get home before our parents found out.” Sarah’s voice gives only a hint of the desperation she felt at the time.

None of the rest of the family tested positive for HIV. Just Greg. He had three homosexual lovers, but they too all turned out to be HIV-negative.

“This was early 1988, and we weren’t exactly sure what to do. Like an awful lot of people, we believed what we were being told by the ‘experts’ – that HIV caused AIDS, and that AIDS was always fatal – so we had no other choice but to accept the fact that Greg would be dead in two or three years unless the HIV could be stopped.”

They took Greg to their family doctor. Then they took him to an AIDS specialist in New York City, and finally to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester. The story was the same everywhere.

“They all told Greg to start taking AZT, the drug that had been approved just the year before to treat AIDS.” Sarah winces as she remembers. “They said it would kill the HIV and prevent him from getting AIDS, or at a minimum prolong his life. Since there was no contrary information being widely publicized, we had no reason to doubt this advice. It turns out that Greg was part of the first group of HIV-positives who had no symptoms of AIDS but were prescribed AZT anyway, despite assurances from the drug company to the FDA approval committee that they wouldn’t do that. But we didn’t know that!”

There were two problems, however. Greg hated taking pills. He always had. It had been a battle to try to get him to take vitamins when he was younger, and finally the family had given up. Apparently it wasn’t some philosophical stand against drugs as much as a physical abhorrence to swallowing a pill. Or perhaps it was completely psychological. At any rate, he would choke violently anytime he tried.

The second problem was that Greg was in perfect health, and it was hard for him to believe he needed medication. Hard for anyone to believe, for that matter. Though not big into competitive team sports, Greg loved cycling and wanted to ride in Connecticut’s annual 100-mile bkm/Steelcase Bike Tour to help raise money to fight MS that June.

“I would say that in March of 1988, at eighteen years of age, Greg was in top physical condition. Strong, muscular, toned, and aerobically fit,” Sarah offers. “He could easily ride his bike for 5 or 6 hours straight and not show any signs of weakness or exhaustion.”

But the doctors were unanimous. It was just a matter of time before his HIV brought on the symptoms of AIDS, and Greg needed to take AZT if he had any chance of surviving.

“I got a call from my mother at Amherst. She was hysterical and at her wit’s end. Greg was refusing to take his AZT and no one had been able to convince him otherwise.” Sarah hesitates for a moment, trying to hold back the emotion that was building. “I told Mother that I would drive down that weekend and have a talk with Greg, and that he would listen to me and do what I told him.”

By Sunday night they had a compromise. Greg would ride in the MS Bike Tour drug-free, and then start taking the AZT when it was over. It was the best Sarah could do, and it wasn’t easy.

“I had to remind Greg who it was that stood by him the last few years through all the trouble, and basically called in all the favors he owed me. I won’t say that I blackmailed him into taking AZT, but I pulled out all the stops and put on all the pressure I could to get his commitment. After all, at the time I thought it was the only way I could keep my brother alive, and I figured he was just too young or too stubborn or too much in denial to realize the seriousness of the situation.” Sarah bows her head for a minute, seemingly torn between the grief and anger. “I never gave any credence to the idea that Greg’s own intuition was telling him not to take the AZT.”

Greg left that August to attend the San Francisco Art Institute, to follow his passion and his dream of being a world-famous sculptor. He and Sarah would talk frequently on the phone, and Sarah even visited Greg during Spring Break of her junior year.

“He didn’t look as good as I remembered him,” she recalls. “I just thought he was a little run down, maybe partying too hard, enjoying his new-found freedom from the confines of Connecticut. After all, he was finally surrounded with people who understood and loved him, and I would have expected him to revel in these new friendships.”

But it wasn’t just the late nights or the lovers. At the end of his first year at the Art Institute, Greg was too sick to continue. He returned to his family in Greenwich and went to bed. Never a whiner, Greg began to complain daily about the headaches and muscle aches and nausea. The doctors, of course, said that his HIV had caught up with him and he was now in full-blown AIDS.

“My senior year at Amherst is a blur: Monday through Thursday in classes, then drive home and be with Greg on the weekends. He just got worse and worse. He never had Kaposi’s Sarcoma or anything like that, but he eventually developed PCP – opportunistic pneumonia.” Sarah’s eyes began to water and her voice started to crack. “There was nothing else we could do except watch him die.”

Which he did on April 4, 1990. He was twenty years old. Sarah couldn’t go back to school after the funeral and withdrew from that semester. She stayed away for a year and ended up transferring to Stanford University in Palo Alto, California where she not only finished her Journalism degree but also got a B.S. in Alternative Health after meeting her future husband at Palmer West Chiropractic College.

“I wanted to be close to San Francisco, where Greg had felt at home, and I immersed myself in my studies to try to get over his death. I also offered my help at a local AIDS clinic as often as I could. But it wasn’t easy, and it took a long time for me to feel even somewhat normal again.” Sarah looked out the window as she said, “I loved my brother very much…and he was so talented…”

Did she blame herself for his death?

“I blamed a lot of people, including myself. I blamed his lovers for giving him AIDS, even though I knew they didn’t. I blamed the doctors who couldn’t cure him. I blamed God for creating a world where bad things happen to good people. I mean, it just wasn’t fair, to Greg, to me, or to our family. My parents have never really recovered, to this day.”

The anger began to make its way to the surface.

“Of course I was angry. I was incensed back then, almost paralyzed with the rage from time to time. But I have to say that it was nothing compared to what I have felt listening to the testimony in the AIDS trial. However angry I was in 1990 pales in comparison.”

The intensity of her voice, the energy of her words told a story beyond description.

“I now have even more people to be angry at – Dr. Robert Gallo, for lying to us about HIV; the FDA for so carelessly approving AZT; Burroughs Wellcome for its greed and manipulation; and the entire medical community who turned out to be a bunch of mindless puppets. I mean, where were the doctors of this country, the very people who should have known better, or the ones who at least should have stood up in sufficient numbers and asked the right questions? But especially, where were the press and the media – my own peers – and our investigative journalists?”

She laughs through her tears at the irony of what comes out next. “Where was 60 Minutes when we really needed them? Is everyone so afraid these days of losing their jobs if they rock the boat, that someone like Robert Gallo can get away with killing hundreds of thousands of people because of incompetence, or pride, or just plain arrogance?”

Sarah blows her nose and wipes her eyes and sits back in her chair. She talks about knowing now that the right information had been there all along, even before Greg died, but how hard it was to get to it through the media blackout that prevailed.

Can she forgive them all?

“I’m working on it. There’s a New Age saying that people are doing the best they can with what they’ve got. Mostly I think that’s bullshit. You could use that to excuse Hitler if you wanted to – he was just doing the best he could with what he had. I don’t believe it. I mean, I can’t believe that the people we trust the most with our health – our government, the FDA, the drug companies, and especially our doctors – couldn’t do better than this for the last thirty years.”

Sarah bows her head and almost whispers.

“But the hardest person to forgive is myself.” She pauses. “It’s funny. There are a lot of people out there who are in my same position; they lost someone they loved dearly to AIDS, and many of them needlessly, and solely because they took a lethal drug at the urging of the people they counted on for help. I have no trouble forgiving any of them for what they did or the advice they gave. I’m even sure, in this case, they were doing the best they could with what they had. So why is it so hard to forgive myself the same way?”

Does she wish the AIDS trial had never happened?

“No, I’m glad the truth is finally coming out. Yes, it was really, really rough to live through it all again – really tough to realize the role I had played in Greg’s tragic and unnecessary death. But it would have been worse to keep all of this a secret. If nothing else, we – the American people – better wake up and smell the coffee. Enron and Tyco and HealthSouth and Adelphia and WorldCom and Rite Aid should be enough to prove that there are obviously criminals in high places who care more about money and power than human life, and we better start to question everything that comes our way from our government and from the so-called medical and pharmaceutical industries. And I do mean everything.”

What does Sarah intend to do now?

“My best answer is this: I want to redeem myself and my brother’s death. I don’t want Greg to have died in vain. But it’s not just about Greg. They’ve literally killed thousands of people – more than 400,000 HIV-positives in the U.S. alone in the last twenty years. It was murder. It was genocide. And now there’s proof! So I am dedicating my life and my energy to making sure nothing like this can ever happen again.”

Exactly what form will that take?

“I can’t answer that specifically. Most immediately, I want to help make sure the whole world knows what happened in the AIDS trial, and I’m in a pretty good position to do that at the moment, right where I am. After that, who knows? Maybe I’ll write a book about it some day.”

Chapter Two

“Sam? Are you busy?”

Sarah Meadows stands in the open doorway to her boss’ office. Strategically positioned near the center of the large newsroom, all four walls of the office are glass from floor to ceiling so that Sam Moretti can see everything going on around him. A middle-aged, over-weight son of an Italian immigrant with a rough and tough exterior, he runs a tight ship at the Tribune; but he’s well respected and liked, and his door is always open.

As Sarah arrives, Sam is staring at his computer screen, intently focused on something. He simply holds up his hand and motions for her to sit without saying a word. His hand stays in the air, in case he needs it to keep Sarah from talking while he finishes. Sarah knows better than to interrupt and quietly takes a seat in front of Sam’s desk. She watches and waits, until Sam raises his other hand and ceremoniously hits “Enter” on the keyboard, sending the story to be formatted for the evening edition. Then he turns slightly and smiles at Sarah.

“What can I do for you, Sarah?”

Sam has always had a soft spot for Sarah. She had been his student in high school, and when he took over as chief news editor at the Tribune, he hired her as a part-time health correspondent, against the wishes of his superiors since she had virtually no experience. But her weekly column, HEALTH MATTERS, had become a regular feature for the paper, and some of her best research work had also become known internationally, thanks to the Internet.

The other reason Sarah is welcome in Sam’s office any time is her big scoop two months ago about the settlement in the AIDS trial. It not only made Sarah famous, but was a feather in Sam’s cap as well. Still, Sam is not quite sure himself why he treats Sarah more like a daughter than one of his employees.

“Sam, I’d like to take some time off.”

Sam wasn’t really surprised at the request. Sarah had been spending many more hours than usual for the last few months covering, first, the AIDS trial, and now the ongoing AZT trial, and he knew it had taken a toll on her family life as well. With three children and a successful chiropractor for a husband, Sarah had been quite willing to spend ten or fifteen hours a week researching and writing her health column. But since the AIDS trial started last October, it had been more like forty to fifty hours a week; and Sam knew that was too much. Regardless, he had hoped she would keep at it just a little longer.

“The AZT trial’s not over, Sarah…”

Sarah interrupts by leaning forward on his desk. “I know, Sam. But Gene can handle it. He’s come a long way in a couple months, and he’s filing some good stories.”

“But his name is not Sarah Meadows – the one who broke the story on the AIDS trial settlement. You know, you might just win a Pulitzer for that!”

Sarah blushes and tries to dismiss the idea. “I was just in the right place at the right time.”

“And they give awards for that, Sarah.”

“Let’s not talk about that now. This new trial for GlaxoSmithKline and AZT is pretty much a rehash of what we heard earlier, and I don’t think there will be many surprises. I feel totally confident that Gene is capable of handling it.”

Sam rolls his chair around and looks Sarah straight in the eye. “Do you think they’re going to get away with it?” he asks, almost under his breath.

Sarah ponders the question for a minute. “No, Sam, I don’t. Gladstone is not presenting any evidence to contradict what Messick and Baker had established in the first trial, and although Gladstone is putting on a strong defense this time – and I think he thought he could get a different outcome – it’s still pretty obvious that 90% of the AIDS cases in this country up until 1997 were caused by AZT, not HIV. No,” she pauses, “I think he’s going to lose just like Crawley did, and the jury is going to award a lot more money to the families of those who died from taking AZT.”

“You’re one of those families, Sarah. Don’t you want to stay with this trial until it’s over?”

“You know the money’s not important to me, Sam. It can’t bring my brother back. Besides, I just found out there’s another trial that may be even more important for me to cover.”

Sam looks genuinely surprised this time. “Another trial? You’re not going to go home to your family and rest?”

“No, I’m not. As a matter of fact, I’m going to leave in two days for South Carolina.”

Now Sam is completely baffled. “What in God’s name is so important that you have to go to South Carolina? Don’t they still fly the confederate flag there?”

Sarah is enjoying watching Sam squirm. He always wanted to be one step ahead of his employees and was clearly uncomfortable that Sarah knew something he didn’t. It was fun for her to be in this position for once.

“Sam, the AIDS trial dealt with the people who were killed in this country through 1997. As important as that is, there’s another tragedy going on today – right now – that I’m just finding out about, and that I think we should be covering.”

“Are you talking about what’s happening with AIDS in Africa, because while it’s tragic – and I agree that it is – it’s really not something our readers seem to care that much about.”

Sarah winces at the sad truth, wishing it weren’t so. “Do you know what I just heard today, Sam? Bono’s Red Campaign to fight AIDS in Africa only raised 18 million dollars in its entire first year. And they spent 100 million to advertise it.”

Sam leans back in his chair. He isn’t sure how he feels about the Red Campaign. On one hand, it’s a sign of the times that most Americans pay so little attention and give so little of themselves to people in other countries who really needed our help. On the other hand, since Clinton and Bono and Oprah and Gates and company are still stuck on the idea that HIV causes AIDS – despite the outcome of the AIDS trial – and their solution is to send more lethal drugs to give to unsuspecting Africans, part of him is glad the Red Campaign is failing.

“But if you’re not talking about AIDS in Africa, what are you talking about?”

Sarah leans forward in her chair and puts her forearms on the front of Sam’s desk. “I’m talking about the fact that we continue to diagnose people in this country as HIV-Positive, and continue to pressure them into taking highly toxic drugs, even though it’s now been proven that HIV doesn’t cause AIDS. But that’s still only half the story.”

Sarah leans back again and pauses long enough for Sam to get impatient. When she doesn’t speak, but instead gets a glazed look in her eyes, Sam asks, “Are you going to make me beg for the other half.”

Sarah laughs. “Sorry, Sam. No. I just got lost chasing a fleeting thought for a second. The other half is this. Ever since people knew I was involved in the AIDS trial, I’ve been getting lots of emails about different aspects of HIV and AIDS. Some of them are from kooks and conspiracy theorists. But some of them have made me realize that there are as many questions to be raised about the accuracy of the HIV tests as there were about the theory that HIV causes AIDS.”

“I’m not sure I’m following you.”

“Let me put it this way, Sam. In the last twenty-four hours, and I mean that literally, more than one-hundred people in the United States alone have been told they are HIV-Positive based on getting a positive HIV test, according to the estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That’s one-hundred people right now who are going through hell, whose lives have been changed in an instant, whose hopes and dreams for the future are totally crushed, whose families are in turmoil, and whose friends may never speak to them again. I know what it means to be diagnosed HIV-Positive. I went through it with my brother, Greg. It truly is a living hell. But the worst part is, it looks like the HIV tests may be very unreliable and diagnosing many of these people incorrectly. So the tragedy is compounded.”

Sam is thrown off balance once again. “That’s the first I’ve heard of the HIV tests being wrong. Are you sure of this?”

“No, I’m not. Not yet,” Sarah admits. “And that’s why I want to do a lot more research to find out what’s true and what’s not. But there’s even more to the story, Sam.”

This time he waits until Sarah is ready to talk again. He can see some emotion in her face, can hear it in her voice, and he wants to give her the time and space to get it all out.

“Sam, I’ve read some reports that these people who are being told they are HIV-Positive are being pressured into taking what may still be highly toxic drugs.”

“I thought we stopped giving AZT to people years ago.”

“True, at least not by itself in the high doses it used to be prescribed. But there’s still some AZT apparently in a couple of the drug cocktails used today.”

“And people are still dying from it?”

“Again, Sam, I don’t know anything for sure yet. All I know is that even the AIDS ‘experts’ are admitting that about 25 people are dying every day from the side effects of these newer HIV drugs, and not from any AIDS-related illness.”

Sam is suddenly losing his own cool. “Wait a minute. You’re saying that we’re telling one-hundred people a day they are HIV-Positive, and there’s a chance many of them got the wrong diagnosis, and twenty-five of them are admittedly dying from the drugs they’re told to take anyway?”

“That’s what it looks like to me right now. But I want to verify that.”

Sam pops up out of his chair. “Damn right, you should. And I get to print this story when you’re done. I’m tired of these guys getting away with this bullshit. How long will it take you?”

It’s very seldom that Sarah sees Sam display any kind of emotion, or express his own opinion about any issue; and in this case, he’s jumped the gun. “Hang on, Sam.”

“For what? The answer’s ‘Yes,’ you can have the time off for this. Let’s work out the details.”

“Please wait a minute, Sam.”

Sam looks carefully at Sarah and sees that she’s on the verge of tears. Finally he puts two and two together.

“Sarah, I’m sorry.” He gives Sarah a few minutes to regain her composure. “This is about your brother again, isn’t it?”

Sarah nods, but doesn’t speak. Finally, “I’ve been through the worst of it, Sam, realizing that it was the AZT that killed him, and it was I who played a big part in his taking that awful drug. But now I’m wondering: Was Greg even HIV-Positive to begin with? Was this whole thing a big mistake? If the HIV tests really aren’t very accurate at all, how many others have lost loved ones because of another lie from these AIDS ‘experts’? I’ve got to know, Sam. I’ve got to know for sure.”

“I don’t blame you, Sarah. Take all the time you need. Is this why you’re going to South Carolina?”

Sarah takes out a tissue and dabs at her eyes, being careful not to smear her mascara. “I got a call over the weekend from an old friend. There’s a trial that just started in Greenville…”

“Greenville, South Carolina?”

“It’s pronounced Greenvul, Sam, not Green-ville. And the town next to it, Greer, is pronounced Grrrr – in two syllables.”

“Whatever. What’s this trial about?”

“You know that a lot of states have recently passed laws making it a crime to have sex with someone without telling them you are HIV-Positive.”

“I’ve heard that, yes.”

“Well, this trial goes beyond that. A man is being charged with first degree murder for sleeping with a woman, not telling her he was HIV-Positive, and then she got AIDS and died.”

Apparently it was a day for Sam to be caught flatfooted more than once.

“Murder?”

“Yes, first degree murder. And the defense apparently is going to claim that the HIV-tests that diagnosed him are wrong most of the time, and that there’s no real scientific proof that he, or the girl that died, were actually infected with HIV. So this will be a case, like the AIDS trial, where all the evidence will come out about the HIV tests.”

“Perfect!”

“And it’s possible that the girl died from the drugs she took after she was diagnosed HIV-Positive, so that story will come out in sworn testimony as well.”

“Double perfect!” Sam is elated at the possibility of another huge scoop for the paper; and then he comes back to reality. “But we’ve got a few problems, Sarah.”

“What?”

“There’s no way I can talk the Tribune into paying to send you to South Carolina to cover this trial, way out of our coverage, especially when we don’t know how long it will take.”

“That’s okay, Sam. I’m not asking for that. This friend who called me…”

Suddenly worried, Sam interrupts. “How did he find out about the trial?”

“It’s a ‘she,’ and she now lives about thirty minutes from Greenville, near Spartanburg, South Carolina. We met when I lived in California. She was a student in the same class as my husband, Bill, at Palmer West Chiropractic College, and now she’s teaching at a chiropractic college called Sherman.”

Sam was disappointed. “So it’s already all over the papers back east?”

“No, Sam. Gwen – Dr. Gwen Turner… one of the reasons we became such good friends is that she also lost a brother to AIDS a few years ago. So she’s been following this issue, and she found out about this trial and let me know. She’s still single and living alone in a house on a lake, and she’s invited me to stay with her as long as I want. And I’m willing to pay my own expenses to get there and back. The Tribune doesn’t have to spend a penny on this.”

That was one problem solved; but there were others.

“What about your weekly column?”

“I can always write it and send it to you from wherever I am in the world; and I already have columns planned for the next month, in case I’m gone that long.”

“On what?”

“Remember when I said that there were one-hundred people a day still being diagnosed HIV-Positive in this country?”

“It wasn’t that long ago, Sarah, and I’m not that old – yet. Of course I remember.”

“I think our readers should know what these people go through when they’re told they’re HIV-Positive, what happens to them and to their lives from that point on. And some of the emails I’ve gotten have been from Positives who want to tell their own true stories. So I’m going to do some in depth interviews with a few of them and use them as my column for the next few weeks.”

“Sarah, do you really think most people really want to read about that?”

“Yes, I do, Sam. For one thing, people seem to love to hear true-life stories about other people; and look at the response that came in after the feature article was printed about me last November. It was amazing.”

“True.”

“And these one-hundred people a day being diagnosed HIV-Positive are not limited to a small number of gay men or drug addicts any more. In fact, since the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced their new protocol last May to have everyone in this country tested for HIV, more and more people are being diagnosed HIV-Positive who are not gay and who have not used drugs – white soccer moms, Little League coaches, high-powered executives. In fact, my first column next week will be about a sixty-year-old woman from rural Texas, mother of eight children. Sam, it’s important for us to tell everyone that if this keeps up, no one is safe from having an HIV diagnosis touch them very close to home. Maybe it won’t be them, but it will be their family, or a loved one, or someone they work with. Yes, I think people should be told about this, and read about what it means to be labeled HIV-Positive, especially if that label is wrong.”

“Alright. We can at least try it for a week or two and see what the response is. Just make sure I’ve got your column by close every Monday so I can have it ready for your usual Tuesday placement. When do you leave?”

“Day after tomorrow. I’ll go to the AZT trial with Gene tomorrow morning and make sure he’s comfortable to take over on his own. And then I fly out Wednesday around noon.”

“But what about your family?”

“Bill has been really great about this and we made all the arrangements this weekend to make sure the kids are taken care of.”

“No idea how long you’ll be gone?”

“Not at the moment. The trial actually started last Wednesday. Right now the prosecution is still calling its own witnesses. Gwen is faxing me the transcripts of the opening statements so I can read them before I get there.”

Chapter Three

Bill was seeing patients all day, so Sarah took the shuttle to Sky Harbor rather than pay to park for the length of time she would be gone. She really didn’t like the Phoenix airport very much, eighth-busiest in the U.S. and fourteenth busiest in the world. It had grown too fast, with too little planning. Fifteen-hundred planes handling more than 100,000 people arrive and depart every day, mostly from the newer Terminals 3 and 4. Many first-time visitors are surprised to discover there is no Terminal 1; it was torn down in 1990 and its number “retired” like a sports hero’s jersey in honor of its service since the airport opened in 1935.

Sarah always preferred to use Terminal 2 anyway, when she could. It was older and smaller, with shorter lines and more convenient and better parking. That meant taking United Airlines or Continental most places. She was still angry at United for losing her luggage on the last trip to New York and not offering her adequate compensation, so she swore she’d never fly them again. She had chosen Continental for this trip, with a stop in Houston. Besides, Continental had those adjustable headrests on their seats, even in coach, with the wings that came out on either side that kept your head from falling over when you dozed off. Why every airline couldn’t provide that kind of comfort and thoughtfulness was still a mystery to her.

She had waited until she got her V8 from the beverage cart and heard the pilot’s prediction of a smooth ride for the rest of the three-hour flight. Now she opens her briefcase and pulls out the trial transcripts Gwen had faxed yesterday. There is a cover letter that had come with them.

Dear Sarah,

Here are the court-reporter transcripts of the opening statements delivered last Wednesday on the first day of the trial. And here are some barebones details you probably need to know for background….

The defendant’s name is Tyree Johnson, African-American, now twenty-six years old. He has been charged with first-degree murder for the death of Beth Ann Brooks, white, just eighteen years old when they started having sex, twenty when she died. He faces the death penalty if found guilty.

You asked for the name of the District Attorney prosecuting the case. In South Carolina, they’re called “Solicitor,” and the Solicitor for the 13th Judicial Circuit, which includes Greenville, is Richard Armand. Because of the nature of the case, Armand himself has taken charge and delivered the prosecution’s opening statement.

The defense attorney is Bernard Campbell III. His father, Bernard Campbell II, apparently was a famous lawyer in Greenville for many years, and their law firm is well respected. The father’s nickname was “Bernie;” the son’s is “’Nard.” Campbell is doing this case pro bono and actually had to get the court’s permission to represent Mr. Johnson instead of the usual public defender.

The jury is 4 white women, 3 white men, 3 black women, and 2 black men.

The judge is Byron Stevenson, white, mid-fifties, on the bench for fourteen years.

See you tomorrow night…

Gwen

Sarah reaches up, turns on the overhead light, and closes the air vent. She takes out her yellow highlighter and skims through the first part of the transcript, skipping over the opening remarks by the judge and other court formalities, until she reaches the place where the Solicitor begins his opening statement.

ARMAND: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen of the jury. My name is Richard Armand, and I am Solicitor for the 13th Judicial Circuit.

I don’t usually try criminal cases myself. But this case is different. This case is going to set a precedent for the rest of the country; and it’s high time we took a strong stand on this issue, because we will prove to you that the defendant – Tyree Johnson, seated right over there – murdered an innocent teenage girl, Beth Ann Brooks, just as surely as if he had taken a gun and shot her in the head.

In this case, however, it wasn’t a gun that Mr. Johnson used. It was a deadly virus called HIV, the virus we know causes AIDS. Mr. Johnson knew he carried this lethal virus in his blood, knew that he could infect any women he slept with and give them HIV as well, and knew that they could get sick and die from AIDS. And yet he didn’t tell Beth Ann Brooks that he was HIV-Positive, didn’t give her the chance to refuse to have sex with him, didn’t warn her that she could get a fatal disease from him if she did. And he didn’t use a condom, either.

This is nothing short of premeditated murder – murder in the first degree.

Beth Ann Brooks had been the Homecoming Queen in her senior year at Riverside High School. She was a cheerleader, a Merit Scholar, and president of the Central Spirit Committee. She went to church with her family every Sunday and sang in the choir. She was a freshman at Furman University, on her way to a degree in sociology. She wanted to work with the homeless and the poor. Beth Ann Brooks had the brightest of all possible futures and would have brought hope and joy to so many people.

That is, until Tyree Johnson knowingly infected her with HIV, the virus which caused her to contract AIDS and die.

Rest assured that we will be bringing witnesses to that chair who will provide you with all the information you will need to find this man guilty of murder. You will hear his doctor confirm that Tyree Johnson had indeed tested HIV-Positive. You will hear Beth Ann Brooks’ doctor confirm that, after having sex with Mr. Johnson, she too tested HIV-Positive. You will hear the Greenville County Coroner confirm that Beth Ann Brooks died from AIDS at the age of twenty, less than two years after her sexual encounters with Mr. Johnson.

I wish you could have seen Beth Ann Brooks for the last year of her life. Gone was her joy, gone was her beauty, gone was the light of life from her eyes. AIDS is a terrible way to die – long and painful and ugly. Her face was sunken, her abdomen was swollen, she had humps on her back and her neck. She was so nauseous she couldn’t eat and wasted away to nothing.

The evidence will prove that the defendant – Tyree Johnson – is the one responsible for her hell on earth. That man over there is the one who caused her tragic and horrible year-long losing battle and finally, her death. Honestly, if Beth Ann Brooks had to die, it would have been kinder had Mr. Johnson actually taken a gun and shot her in the head. At least she would not have suffered so much for so long.

CAMPBELL: Objection. Inflammatory.

JUDGE: Sustained. Tone it down, Mr. Armand.

ARMAND: Ladies and gentleman, please forgive my anger and outrage. In this case, I happen to believe that it’s well justified, and when you hear the testimony we will present, I hope you will feel the same way. Over the course of this trial, we will give you all the evidence you need to decide, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that Mr. Johnson knowingly had sex with Beth Ann Brooks, knowingly withheld from her the fact that he carried the deadly HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, and knowingly infected her with that virus, causing her death.

After hearing all the evidence, it will be your duty to find Mr. Johnson guilty of murder. But more than that, it will be your responsibility to send a message to rest of the country – indeed, to the rest of the world – that those who are HIV-Positive have a moral and ethical responsibility to protect other innocent people who they contact from the possibility of infecting them with this deadly disease; and that if they ignore or violate that responsibility, they must pay the highest price possible for their crime.

Sarah sits back and lets the transcript fall on the open tray table in front of her. She understood this man’s anger; she had carried her own rage for years about her brother’s death, wishing those responsible for giving him HIV could have been found and prosecuted for cutting his life short – a life just as promising and full of potential as Beth Ann Brooks’.

She also knows that there will be thousands of others – perhaps hundreds of thousands – who agree with Armand, and that if this trial were decided by popular vote, Tyree Johnson wouldn’t stand a chance, for many reasons. She picks up her pen and writes in the column of the transcript: “Follow up on racial issue – black man, white woman, South Carolina,” then closes her eyes for a minute.

It must have been more than a minute, because the flight attendant is back, handing out a snack box containing nothing that Sarah would ever consider putting in her mouth. But it does give her the chance to grab another V8 on the way by. She picks up the transcript again and starts reading the opening statement by the defense, which apparently came after the court recessed for lunch.

CAMPBELL: Good afternoon. That was an impassioned speech from Mr. Armand this morning. I don’t blame you for being moved.

I agree with Mr. Armand that this will be a very unique trial, for many reasons. In fact, you may well be involved in a truly historic event.

But this is a murder trial, and your decision about the guilt or innocence of my client cannot be based on emotions, especially when we are dealing with the lives of two young people – Tyree Johnson and Beth Ann Brooks. We have the greatest sympathy for the family of Ms. Brooks; the loss of her life is truly a tragedy, to be taken so young.

But the question you have to decide is how her life was taken. Did Mr. Johnson in fact murder Ms. Brooks? Is he really the one responsible for her death, as Mr. Armand claims?

I’m sure many of you have watched enough shows on television to know that in any murder trial, the prosecution has to prove motive, opportunity, and method beyond any reasonable doubt in order to find someone guilty of such a heinous crime.

What was Mr. Johnson’s motive? Is there any proof that he wished to intentionally harm Ms. Brooks? Even the Solicitor is going to stipulate that Mr. Johnson and Ms. Brooks made love together as two consenting adults, a number of times as a matter of fact, over the course of a couple months. There is no suggestion of a forced sexual assault, or that there was anything except mutual admiration and good will between Mr. Johnson and Ms. Brooks – no evidence of any animosity between the two of them, and no reason for Mr. Johnson to want to harm Ms. Brooks at all. In short, there was no motive for murder.

Opportunity? Yes, we agree that when the two of them made love, there was an opportunity for lots of things to happen.

But the real issue in this trial is the method. Despite Mr. Armand’s attempts to make it sound like it, my client did not take a gun and shoot Beth Ann Brooks in the head. He did not take a knife and stab her to death. He did not tie her up, or rape her, or violently interact with Ms. Brooks in any way, shape or form. Quite the contrary. He made love with her, with her agreement.

So let’s be clear from the start, ladies and gentlemen, that if there was a murder, the murder weapon in this case is a virus called HIV that is said to cause AIDS. My client is alleged to have HIV, and to have infected Ms. Brooks with it through sexual intercourse. In fact, the one and only reason we are here today is that Mr. Johnson was diagnosed to be HIV-Positive as a result of what is called an HIV test. If Mr. Johnson were not HIV-Positive – if he didn’t have the virus Mr. Armand claims he has – there would be no murder, and no murder trial.

Remember too that the defendant is innocent until proven guilty. In other words, it is Mr. Armand who has the responsibility of proving that Mr. Johnson is in fact HIV-Positive – that he indeed carries a deadly virus called HIV; because if Mr. Armand cannot prove that, we have no murder weapon, and no crime committed. Stated very simply, this whole trial hinges on whether or not the State can prove to you beyond a reasonable doubt that Mr. Johnson is infected with HIV, and whether he could then infect Ms. Brooks with it.

Now, as Mr. Armand told you this morning, he is going to bring a few witnesses up here who will testify that Mr. Johnson and Ms. Brooks tested HIV-Positive; and they will tell you things you undoubtedly have heard for years from the so-called AIDS experts and the mass media. This is going to be your most difficult task during this trial – to decide who and what you are going to believe; because, after Mr. Armand gets finished, it will be my turn, and I am going to prove to you that there is no scientific evidence – none whatsoever – that Mr. Johnson, or Beth Ann Brooks, for that matter, are or were infected with the virus we call HIV.

I can see the looks of amazement on your faces already, and I don’t blame you. Everything we have been told for two decades has convinced us that someone who tests Positive on a so-called HIV test has the virus called HIV and can infect someone else with it, especially through sexual intercourse. But I ask you to consider this: What if everything we’ve been told about these so-called HIV tests is wrong? What if everything you’ve heard is not supported by the scientific evidence? What if HIV has never been proven in various scientific studies to be transmitted by heterosexual intercourse? And what if Beth Ann Brooks did not die from HIV or AIDS at all, but instead from the side effects of the drugs she was prescribed to allegedly treat her infection?

You’re going to hear exactly that from quite a few expert witnesses I will present who will offer you not just theories and speculation, but numerous scientific studies to prove that the so-called HIV tests do not accurately diagnose anyone as having HIV, that HIV has not been proven to be transmitted by heterosexual intercourse, and that more people diagnosed HIV-Positive today are dying from the side effects of the drugs they are taking than from any AIDS-related illness.

Sound unbelievable, after all we’ve been told? Sound like some wild story made up by a few kooks on the Internet? Well, you will learn that these experts are not a bunch of lunatics, or some fringe element of society. In fact, two of them are Nobel Prize winners in medicine and chemistry. Some are members of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. Still others are well-credentialed, published scientists who are part of an organization called The Group for the Scientific Reappraisal of the HIV/AIDS Hypothesis. You’re also going to learn why you may never have heard of them or the scientific studies they will discuss.

But the first thing that may surprise you is that the so-called HIV tests used to diagnose Mr. Johnson as HIV-Positive are so inaccurate that they are virtually useless. In fact, you will hear testimony that the Food and Drug Administration has never approved a test – any test – to diagnose HIV infection. Let me say that another way. The HIV tests that both Mr. Johnson and Beth Ann Brooks took have never been approved by the FDA to diagnose infection with the HIV virus.

Sarah suddenly sits up, startled by this line. She highlights the words “never been approved by the FDA” and writes: “Is this true? Check this out!” in the column of the transcript. She finishes her V8 and continues reading.

Then what is this so-called HIV test? It is a test that is supposed to find the antibodies to HIV. It is, in fact, called an HIV Antibody Test, as you will see on the actual test kit packages we will introduce into evidence.

What exactly does that mean – an “HIV antibody test?” It means that the test is supposedly designed to find antibodies to HIV in a person’s blood; and if it finds them, you are said to be HIV-Positive, when in actuality you are HIV-Antibody-Positive.

Until HIV came along, having the antibodies to a virus meant that we were immune from any disease that virus could cause, which is the entire theory of vaccinations. I’ll be asking some expert witnesses why, all of a sudden and for the first time in medical history, having the antibodies to HIV means that you will get AIDS and probably die.

Once again Sarah makes a note: “Good question. Why have I never heard this asked before?”

But that’s not the only problem with these HIV tests.

You’re going to hear testimony that a Dr. Robert Gallo, who worked at the United States’ National Institutes of Health, announced at a press conference in 1984 that a virus he claimed he discovered, which was later to be named HIV, was the probable cause of AIDS. There were lots of problems with that announcement that came out later in various investigations, including an investigation by a congressional subcommittee proving that Dr. Gallo had stolen the virus he said he discovered from a French scientist by the name of Dr. Luc Montagnier. Dr. Gallo, just a few hours before this press conference, had also filed a patent application for these HIV tests that we’re talking about. Trouble is, it was also proven that he lied on that patent application.

Today, the HIV tests being used are based on the very same patent Dr. Gallo filed in 1984, for which he has been paid over a million dollars in royalties. The tests have not changed one bit; and there are lots of other problems with them as well. We’ve subpoenaed Dr. Gallo to come here and tell you exactly how he came up with the so-called HIV test, and we hope that he tells the truth this time.

ARMAND: Objection. Prejudicial.

JUDGE: Sustained. The jury will ignore the last remark.

CAMPBELL: All right. Let’s start with what we know to be true. There’s one kind of so-called HIV test known as an ELISA. It’s usually the first test anyone takes, mainly because it’s the cheapest. Sometimes it’s the only test some people take, although it’s never supposed to be. You’ll hear more about that from our witnesses.

There are a myriad of problems with this ELISA test that our expert witnesses will discuss in detail. For now, I will simply tell you that there is no scientific evidence that this ELISA test is accurately finding antibodies to HIV in anyone’s blood.

For example, none of the proteins used in the ELISA test have ever been proven to be unique or specific to the HIV virus. So when an ELISA test comes up Positive, there is absolutely no way to tell what it’s Positive for, and certainly no proof that it’s Positive for HIV.

This will be very important testimony for you to understand, because it is Mr. Armand’s job to convince you that the test which diagnosed the defendant as being HIV-Positive must be a test that reacts specifically and only with the virus we call HIV, or else the test he took could have been reacting with some other antibodies he had that have nothing to do with HIV. In that case, there’s no proof he was infected with HIV, and no murder weapon, and no murder.

Sarah highlights “reacts specifically and only with the virus we call HIV” and writes “Good point!”

Very early on, the AIDS ‘experts’ admitted that the HIV Test had problems; so they said that if someone reacts Positive on a so-called HIV ELISA test, they should be given another test, called a Western Blot, to confirm the results. But this Western Blot test has a myriad of problems, too – so many problems, in fact, that Great Britain and some other countries refuse to use it.

Sarah’s note in the left hand column says: “Call Ian in London to confirm.”

Now, you’re going to hear a lot of statistics thrown around during this trial, and I’m going to do my best not to confound you with numbers. But the scientific studies have shown that, because the ELISA and Western Blot proteins are not specific or unique for HIV, there can be as many as 90% false positive reactions to these tests. That means that nine out of ten test results can be wrong; and I will challenge the Solicitor to prove to you that Mr. Johnson’s HIV test results were part of the 10% that might be correct, and to offer whatever scientific proof he thinks he has for that.

One of the reasons why there are so many false positive reactions to these tests is that scientific studies have found more than 70 conditions that a person can have that will cross-react with the HIV ELISA test. If someone had a recent flu shot or a tetanus shot before taking the so-called HIV test, they can get a false positive result. If they had a cold when they took the test, they can get a false positive. If they had a Hepatitis vaccination, they can get a false positive. If they had Hepatitis, or Tuberculosis, or Herpes some time in their life, they can get a false positive. The list is very long, and you will see more than fifty scientific studies entered into evidence that prove each and every one of them.

So before you can find the defendant guilty of murder, you are going to have to be 100% convinced that Mr. Johnson’s HIV test results were not a false positive reaction to one or more of these 70 things other than HIV.

These are some of the reasons why these so-called HIV tests have never been validated, and this is perhaps the most important problem of all. Here’s what I mean. With any antibody test, like the so-called HIV Antibody test, the test itself must be validated to prove its accuracy. You’re going to hear what the standard procedure is to validate any antibody test, including the HIV antibody test, and the fact that that procedure has never been done.

In fact, I challenge Mr. Armand here and now to produce scientific evidence that any of these HIV tests have been validated, and therefore proven to be accurate and specific.

But that’s not all. We’re going to show you that these HIV Western Blot tests get very different results from different laboratories that process them. With this kind of inconsistency, I have no idea how Mr. Armand is going to prove to you that the so-called HIV tests the defendant and Ms. Brooks took were processed correctly by the laboratory they were sent to.

And now we come to the way these test results are interpreted – how someone makes a determination about which results are Positive and which are not. Right now there are ten different ways to interpret a so-called HIV Western Blot Antibody test. You’re going to see a chart of these ten different ways, and how someone can test Positive using one set of criteria and not test Positive using another set. That’s a big problem for Mr. Armand if he wants to prove that my client was correctly diagnosed as HIV-Positive, and therefore had the means of infecting – and murdering – Beth Ann Brooks.

Sarah had trouble reading those last few lines as the plane hit some unexpected turbulence. The captain’s voice on the intercom is apologetic, requesting that everyone return to their seats and fasten their seatbelts while they try to find some smoother air. Sarah checks her own seatbelt, which she had never unfastened, and gives a little tug on the short end to tighten it just a bit. Then she goes back to her reading.

Let me mention just one more thing, and then we’re going to leave these awful so-called HIV-Antibody tests and move on to other issues. You’re going to meet Dr. Robert Richardson, one of our expert witnesses. Dr. Richardson worked in collaboration with the company that developed the first so-called HIV tests – the ELISA test. Dr. Richardson is going to tell you that these tests cannot be used to diagnose HIV infection. He’s also going to show you the printed inserts included in each test kit where the manufacturers admit that their test is not guaranteed to establish the presence or absence of HIV antibodies in human blood, let alone HIV itself.

The turbulence is worse, not better, and Sarah gives up trying to read. She doses off again, and wakes up realizing how easily and peacefully she can sleep on an airplane for some reason. Maybe it’s the altitude; I don’t know. The plane is now steady and the seat belt light turned off. She picks up where she left off in the transcript.

As a result of the very poor performance of these ELISA and Western Blot HIV Antibody tests, there are other tests being run today that are supposed to find HIV. They are called viral load tests. I don’t want to go into detail now, because you’ll hear a lot of testimony about these viral load tests during the trial, particularly from the man who won the Nobel Prize for inventing the most commonly used viral load test procedure. He’s going to tell you that his test can not be used to measure the viral load of HIV, and why.

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