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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, SEPTEMBER 13, 1985
But as the international accounts closed down, the world
economy choked•••• What is troublesome is to� the !!m!
politico - economic scena rio working itself � today:
International debts, falling primary prices, agricultural
distress, an end to foreign lending and now rising clamor
for protection. No
™
intends .t2 write another Smoot
Hawley , .Qi. course ,� n2. 2n§. intended .t.Q. write
.th.!.
first
�....
As
Mr.
[Charles]
Kindleberger
Can
internationalist writer of the 1920s] put it, •The
congressional Ji abble enlarged protection from agriculture
to primary pro ucts and manufacturers of all kinds.•••••
If
n � �
protectionism,
n
.Kill.
be. toying
.w.i.th
another depression.
But at least a 74-year-old man is
around to remember, throwing an ironic cloak over •the age
issue.• In facing the protectionist threat, we are singu
larly lucky to have an old and experienced presi.dent who
lived through it the last time.
AIDS--The Scourge That Won't Stop
PAGE 11
•rt could•••become one of those infectious diseases that change
history,• speculated the August 12 NEWSWEEK. The statistics are indeed
alarming:
over 12,000 cases reported in the
o.s.
alone, with half
resulting in death. The number of cases is currently doubling every
ten months.
Experts believe that 300,000 Americans already are
infected by the AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) virus and
that if the present rate of spread continues, one million people will
be infected within the next two years. They estimate that about 10
percent or 100,000 of those infected will develop AIDS. Similar sharp
increases are being experienced in Britain and Australia.
(Western
Europe is about two and a half years behind the U.S.)
•once infected, a person is infected for the rest of his life,• says
William A. Haseltine of Boston's Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.
He
adds, •once a person is infected, a person is infectious•--meaning a
person can spread the disease even though he or she shows no symptoms.
The politically powerful big-city homosexual communities--homosexuals
represent the largest number of victims--are exerting immense pressure
on politicians to expend vast sums of public money on a crash program
to find a •cure• for AIDS.
This despite the fact that research
scientists claim that an AIDS-vaccine will be extremely diff!cult to
devise since the virus that causes it is highly mutable, existing in at
least 100 different forms. Immunologists would have to try to isolate
enough common features of each to develop a vaccine.
The sympathic entertainment industry is scheduling huge fund-raising
drives in New York (the Metropolitan Opera House) and Los Angeles. The
entertainment industry is deeply concerned because, as UPI on July 27
reported, Hollywood has an •immense gay community,• both on-screen
people as well as directors, producers, stagehands--top to bottom. The
revelation that Rock Hudson, a long-time movie idol, has AIDS, is just
the tip of the looming iceberg. (Look some day for AIDS to be renamed
•Hudson's Syndrome• or •Rock Hudson's Disease.•)