And heres one last note about the Robert Rayford story.
"There is one final theory about this first AIDS case in America that I will put forth for all of those who love to sink their teeth into a good conspiracy theory. In the book The River, a theory is advanced that Robert became vulnerable to the illnesses during the 1950s when the Army Chemical Corps conducted open-air chemical warfare tests in American cities. These included 35 aerosol releases in and around St. Louis. Most of those tests were conducted in low income neighborhoods, allegedly to minimize public resistance to such tests. One of those test areas was only half a block from the house in which Robert was born. These tests, conducted at the height of the Cold War, were explained away to local officials as being simple smoke screen experiments designed to shield U.S. cities in the event of a Soviet attack.
Decades later it was revealed that those tests involved zinc cadmium sulfide, a mixture of zinc sulfide and cadmium sulfide. It’s frequently referred to as a fluorescent particle because it glows in ultraviolet light. This quality makes it easy to trace for efficacy after the fact. However, cadmium is a highly toxic metal that is even more pernicious when spread through the air. Because the kidneys absorb it quickly, it is commonly associated with kidney failure, leads to cirrhosis of the liver and causes severe damage to the lungs and body cavities. All of these conditions were noted in Robert R’s report. Also, the effects can be passed by a mother to her fetus, so it’s entirely possible that Robert may have developed the seeds of his illness while still in the womb.
We’ll most likely never know the whole truth about the death of Robert Rayford — in part because we weren’t looking for the answers in the context of AIDS. We are content to label him as the first victim of a terrible epidemic that ran unchecked through our nation during the Moral Majority driven Reagan Revolution. Most of the knowledge gained about AIDS in the two decades between Robert Rayford’s death and ultimate diagnosis came from research and development, not from doctors and hospitals, but from the victims themselves. We Americans owe a great debt of gratitude for our understanding of this dread disease to those who have suffered, and often died, while searching for a cure — Robert Rayford, a mere medical footnote in history, among them."
Same old story