patients, who had seemingly recovered, were given their freedom. Most ofthe patients were professional criminals and New York City, which isrelatively close, offered them a suitable milieu. Moreover, the patients wereexclusively men, many of them having a history of homosexuality and drug abuse,as is often the case in American prisons. It is understandable why AIDS broke out precisely in 1979, precisely among menand among drug users, and precisely in New York City," assert the Segals. Theygo on to explain that whereas in cases of infection by means of sexual contact,incubation periods are two years and more, while in cases of massive infectionvia blood transfusions, as must have been the case with prisoners, incubationperiods are shorter than a year. "Thus, if the new virus was ready at thebeginning of 1978 and if the experiments began without too much delay, thenthe first cases of full-blown AIDS in 1979 were exactly the resultthatcould have been expected."In the next three lengthy chapters, the Segals examine other theories,"legends" as they call them, of the origins of AIDS. Dissecting each claim,they show that they have no scientific standing, providing also the findingsof other scientists. They also bring up the arguments of scientists andpopular writers who have been at the task of discounting them as "conspiracytheorists" and show these writers' shortcomings. Interested readers will haveto read the original article to follow those debates. I will only quote twomore paragraphs:"We often heard the argument that experiments with human volunteers are part ofa barbaric past, and that they would be impossible in the US today... We wishto present one single document whose authenticity is beyond doubt. Aninvestigative commission of the US House of Representatives presented inOctober 1986 a final report concerning the Manhattan Project. According to thisdocument, between 1945 and 1975 at least 695 American citizens were exposed...
