AIDS Numbers Racket, Chapter

Andy Warhol didn’t just say that in the future everyone would be famous for 15 minutes. By making his own fame ride on giant paintings of Campbell’s Soup cans, he proved it. It is now the future, and with Roper polls indicating that no magazine and newspaper articles are read by more of the public than those on AIDS, the ticket to that promised quarter-hour is most cheaply bought by proclamations of fresh news about that disease. Especially bad news.

Messrs. Kevin Hopkins and William Johnston, both researchers at the Indianapolis-based Hudson Institute, have caught the eye of the media by criticizing the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) estimate regarding the number of Americans infected with the AIDS virus (HIV). The Hudson report, which was endorsed by President Reagan’s former science advisor Dr. George A. Key worth, suggests that from 1.9 million to three million Americans were infected with the AIDS virus by the end of 1987, more than twice the CDC estimate of 945,000 to 1.4 million. The report also argues that the total includes 200,000 to 500,000 heterosexuals who are not intravenous-drug abusers (IVDAs), many times the official estimate.

About the Author

Michael Fumento

Michael Fumento is a journalist, author, and attorney who until recently lived in the Philippines.

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Andy Warhol didn’t just say that in the future everyone would be famous for 15 minutes. By making his own fame ride on giant paintings of Campbell’s Soup cans, he proved it. It is now the future, and with Roper polls indicating that no magazine and newspaper articles are read by more of the public than those on AIDS, the ticket to that promised quarter-hour is most cheaply bought by proclamations of fresh news about that disease. Especially bad news.

Messrs. Kevin Hopkins and William Johnston, both researchers at the Indianapolis-based Hudson Institute, have caught the eye of the media by criticizing the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) estimate regarding the number of Americans infected with the AIDS virus (HIV). The Hudson report, which was endorsed by President Reagan’s former science advisor Dr. George A. Key worth, suggests that from 1.9 million to three million Americans were infected with the AIDS virus by the end of 1987, more than twice the CDC estimate of 945,000 to 1.4 million. The report also argues that the total includes 200,000 to 500,000 heterosexuals who are not intravenous-drug abusers (IVDAs), many times the official estimate.