Yesterday Hemispherx announced it was launching an “experimental program to treat potential smallpox outbreaks….” On November 2, 2001 Hemispherx issued another release promoting Carter’s claims about the applicability of Hemispherx’s “technology to the current crises growing out of the use of chemical and biological agents in the United States.” Kristen Philipkoski of Wired News in San Francisco has written a story titled “Smallpox Treatment or Snakeoil?” dated November 19, 2001 concerning Carter’s latest medical claims.
Four independent scientists are quoted in Wired News on Hemispherx and Ampligen: Steven Block of Stanford University; Joseph Guglielmo of the University of California at San Francisco; Eric Wickstrom of the Kimmel Cancer Center at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia and Dr. William Shearer of Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. Each of these researchers questioned the validity of Carter’s claims. In fact, even W. Edward Robinson of the University of California at Irvine (“UCI”), a long-time co-conspirator of Carter commented that claims that Ampligen could work on smallpox might be unfounded. Robinson further stated, “As far as I know there’s absolutely no data to support that.” Robinson then oddly added, “However, because of the way it reportedly works…it makes sense that it could work.” Interestingly, Robinson is one of the few researchers who have reported how Ampligen works.
Robinson is a co-author of an article that was published in the British medical journal The Lancet. The authors claimed that a human clinical test had shown that Ampligen was effective in treating HIV. The Lancet article’s claims were made famous by the clear failure of a subsequent Ampligen HIV test, which was halted and resulted in charges that Hemispherx and its Lancet co-authors had engaged in scientific fraud. Last year, a public controversy ensued after Hemispherx renewed its 15 year-old HIV claims using findings from an alleged new Robinson conducted lab test. As a result, UCI disclosed that Robinson’s laboratory programs were in part financed with a Hemispherx cash “gift.”
Hemispherx is being investigated for fraud by the SEC. Carter was Hemispherx’s leader when Hemispherx made payments and executed transactions that are the subject of at least 6 federal criminal indictments and other New York state indictments. Over the past 25 years, Carter has been accused of unethical and illegal behavior by Hemispherx itself, of extortion by an AIDS patient, of scientific fraud by E.I. Dupont, of improper medical work by a hospital and his own staff and was fired by that hospital after years of disputes and lawsuits. Its entire stock value is based on its public promotion of the commercial value of Ampligen that is based on questionable out-dated studies.
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