When the survival of South Africa’s (SA) mining industry now appears to hinge on their ability to blame their laborers’ costly mine-related lung diseases on irresponsible sex, the financial connections between South Africa’s mining industry, government regulators and university researchers is becoming clear.

Because strategic mining operations depend upon our ability to cheaply mine defense materials like gold, platinum and uranium, the US government shares a powerful incentive to promote the “irresponsible sex/HIV” mythology rather than support the historical claims against the SA mining industry.

The latest evidence comes from Farber lawsuit defendant James J. Murtagh MD who recently posted this email about possible criminal prosecution of the so-called AIDS denialists:

Starling new evidence that AIDS denialist Peter Duesberg and his supporters may be liable for vast human tragedy. I hope that other denialists including Gil and Ullberg will read this carefully. I hope Gil and his gang will repent. Time may already have run out.

Attached to Murtagh’s email was this commentary by AIDS Truther Nathan Geffen, which reads in part:

From 1999 to 2007, (Thabo) Mbeki and his Minister of Health Manto Tshabalala-Msimang obstructed and then undermined the implementation of highly active ARV treatment (HAART) and prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV in the public health system. Two studies, conducted independently of each other, conservatively calculated that over 300,000 people died because of Mbeki’s AIDS denialist policies.

Edward Mabunda was one of them. These studies could not account for additional deaths due to the promotion of quackery, often with the health minister’s support. They also did not consider the number of infections that occurred because of the confusion generated by the insipid state-funded prevention campaign and the messages by some outspoken Mbeki supporters dismissing the link between sex and HIV infection. The Mbeki era also fostered a profound mistrust of scientific medicine, the consequences of which also cannot be quantified.

What, if any, repercussions should be there for those responsible for this tragedy?

Geffen ponders various possible criminal charges and venues citing studies, all written by South African researchers who just happen to also be directly or indirectly funded by the SA mining industry, US pharmaceutical companies, investors and/or consultants to those industries. Some of those reports are published by the National Institutes of Health.

As I described last month, RMIT professor Jock McCulloch used portions of the Leon Commission Report (1995) to explain the incestuous relationships between the SA mining industry and research community which:

… shared the same research focus and a common source of funding through mine revenue. They also shared the same personnel, as key researchers moved between one sector and the other. The same men served on state commissions and departmental committees, and represented the Chamber at public inquiries. That made it difficult for an individual to confront the mining houses over the dust hazard…

While the slippery relationships between the genocidal post-Apartheid groups AIDS Truth, Treatment Action Campaign and the pharmaceutical industry and investors were exposed last month, Murtagh’s latest email and Geffen’s report produce one more financial/pharmaceutical connection.

The report footer indicates that it was published by the newly created Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiancy Syndrome (JAIDS.org), which is managed by co-Editors in Chief William Blattner (who just happens to be the co-founder of Robert Gallo’s Institute of Human Virology) and acclaimed AIDS researcher David Ho.

The website’s domain name registrant is the international investment powerhouse Wolters Kluwers, which generated ~$5 billion in 2008.

According to WK’s 2008 Annual Report:

Wolters Kluwer had 2008 annual revenues of €3.4 billion, employs approximately 20,000 people worldwide, and maintains operations in over 35 countries across Europe, North America, Asia Pacific, and Latin America…

The division is organized into four market-centered business units – Pharma Solutions, Medical Research, Professional & Education, and Clinical Solutions – to serve the information needs of its customers.

Their product Pharma Solutions:

… provides a wide range of data and analytic capabilities, marketing and publication services, business intelligence products, and diversified consulting services to support life science professionals and the pharmaceutical industry, from drug discovery through distribution, as well as government agencies and other healthcare sectors…

… The unit was awarded multi-year pharmaceutical data contracts, including a long-term agreement with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)… and a multi-year partnership with Bristol-Myers Squibb to provide Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) - compliant prescription sales data to measure business efficiency, control costs, and determine sales force effectiveness.

Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS) is the manufacturer of  Sustiva (Efavirenz), which is so highly addictive that African children are now smoking it like crack.  Sustiva’s addiction-withdrawal syndrome also appears to produce symptoms that AIDS clinicians identify as the onset of AIDS.

Because BMS faces significant liability regarding the Sustiva snafu, they have good reason to partner with a damage-control publishing company like WK and children of Apartheid like Nathan Geffen who, with the assistance of very creative legal counsel (probably from WK), threatens real scientists like Peter Duesberg with false charges of genocide.

As an investigator, Geffen’s commentary appears to be one more propaganda piece that fits well with the genocidal post-Apartheid organizations that exploit Africa’s cheap black labor force for mining operations, leaving them with mining diseases, false HIV diagnoses and highly addictive and deadly AIDS drugs.

It is also possible that Geffen’s propaganda is the beginning of fabricated documentary evidence that Murtagh and his co-defendants may try to use to defend themselves from Ms. Farber’s lawsuit - even as they try to distance themselves from him.

Either way, Bristol-Myers Squibb has much to explain.