Alexander L. Forbes

eMail: write@summitlake.com

April 5, 1996
Andrea Millen Rich
Publisher, Laissez-Faire Books
938 Howard Street, #202
San Francisco, CA 94103

I was surprised to read your glowing personal praise for your firm's new feature book, Inventing the AIDS Virus, by Dr. Peter Duesberg. Your testimonial did stop short of endorsing Duesberg's bizarre theories: that the AIDS battle is sloppy science, AIDS is a government hoax, and that the real cause of AIDS is drug abuse and promiscuity in the homosexual community.

Jim Powell's enthusiastic review of this Main Selection (April catalog) cites grossly untruthful claims, e.g., that while HIV is skyrocketing in Africa, AIDS deaths are not, and that AIDS in America still hasn't gone beyond male homosexuals. Powell concludes, if they (sic) are correct, and AIDS is due to drug abuse, it s vitally important to get the right story out.

Far from being a thriller of scientific discovery and cover-up , this book is a preposterous fraud, a "Chariot of the Gods" , as it might have been written by Ralph Reed and Lou Sheldon . Your readership expects you to be able to distinguish between minority viewpoints and crackpot hate polemics.

The right story is the dangerous truth about HIV and AIDS:

1. Heterosexuals are severely at risk and lack education as a community. In large part, this is due to unaddressed bigotry and it can't happen here propaganda.
2. Exploitation of heterosexual casualties such as young Ryan White, "who supposedly died of AIDS", is another extreme and repulsive example of explaining away the truth in order to peddle agenda and conspiracy theories.
3. AIDS is a clear and present danger to the entire community. It kills everybody.
4. Drug abuse and unprotected sex have been continuing social and health problems in both the gay and straight communities.
5. While long-term drug abuse obviously saps the system of defenses against all manner of diseases, Duesberg's bet fails to acknowledge the deaths and suffering of hundreds of thousands of men and women who have never been significant abusers.
6. Defamation of these men and women serves no truth, justice or rational purpose. Many contracted AIDS before its nature and prevention were well understood. No one deserves to die for unprotected sex.
7. Exploiting homophobic ignorance does not make straight sex safer . You are helping propagate several popular myths, encouraging younger and misinformed persons to risk making a fatal mistake.

As a presumably cutting-edge trader of the written idea within the individual-rights communities, it's fair to say you already knew all of this.

Laissez Faire sends the message that AIDS is "only a gay problem". The familiar big lie: it's the gays' fault , so "don t penalize the innocent"; the government is just covering up still another startlingly well-kept secret.

Your decision to feature this agenda-ridden un-scientific theory is unfortunate. Even a National Enquirer wouldn't stoop to this. It is grotesque to present this offering to a readership looking for material on reason and individualism.

When hate-catering sensationalist crap like this is being peddled by a leading book distributor for individual-rights advocates, small wonder that libertarian ideas (about which this book cannot speak) earn such low credibility in the general community, or in the gay community in particular.

It's a free country. As a gay person, and as a lifelong advocate of libertarian thinking about real-world problems, I'd naturally like to see a retraction in your May issue. But I'll settle, on your part, for being removed immediately from your mailing list.

If you fancy your firm being associated with material of this genre, folks should know exactly where one procures it. I expect to help you focus attention upon Inventing The AIDS Virus, by giving it the widest possible exposure -- free, on the World Wide Web. This will nicely complement public hate-links to such rabidly homophobic URL's as the Christian Coalition, and seriously eccentric, single-issue, anti-gay religious polemics bearing tell-tale titles like Aberrant Sexuality.

If you hope to cash in on the growing public awareness that gays and lesbians are, first and foremost, indistinguishable from other responsible Americans, you'd be well advised to find someone to review your books who knows something about the subject matter.

/s/ Alexander L. Forbes

cc: GLAAD-SFBA

Original file name: LaissezFaire 040296

This file was converted with TextToHTML - (c) Logic n.v.