1988 THROWBACK: "DR FAUCI SAYS AZT AIDS DRUG IS SAFE AND EFFECTIVE"

AtlantisEmpire
Published on Jan 1, 2022
At the end of 1989, two years after we had started the highly controversial AIDS column in SPIN, we published an article by Celia Farber called â€œSins of Omissionâ€ about the truly bad and corrupt science surrounding promoting AZT as a treatment for the syndrome of diseases.

Celia was the editor and frequent writer of the column and unearthed hard evidence of the cold-bloodedness of the AIDS establishment pushing a drug that was worse than the disease, and killed faster than the natural progression of AIDS left untreated. AZT had been an abandoned cancer drug, discarded because of itâ€™s fatal toxicity, resurrected in the cynical belief that AIDS patients were going to die anyway, so trying it out was sort of like playing with the houseâ€™s money. Because the drug didnâ€™t require the usual massively expensive research and trial processes, having gone through that years earlier, it was insanely profitable for its maker, Burroughs Wellcome. It was a tragically perfect storm of windfall profits, something to pacify AIDS activists and the media, and a convenient boom to the patent holders for HIV testing.

Celia â€” who should get the Congressional Medal of Honor for her brave and relentless reporting, here and throughout the ten years we ran the column â€” exposed the worthlessness of the drug, the shady studies and deals to suppress the negative findings, and its awful and final consequences. This piece very literally changed the mediaâ€™s view of AIDS and sharpened their discerning and skeptical eye. And soon after, AZT was once again shelved, hopefully this time forever.

Many times over the years since, people have come up to me and said that reading this article saved their lives, that they either stopped taking the drug and their health improved vastly, or they never took it because of what we reported. Nothing ever made me prouder.

â€” Bob Guccione Jr., founder of SPIN, October 3, 2015