AIDS Activist Jason Robertson Dies at 23

AP-Yahoo ^

[KantianBurke]

GRANITE CITY, Ill. - Jason Robertson, whose battle to attend school as a boy with AIDS (news - web sites) in the 1980s helped other children with the virus overcome its stigma, has died. He was 23.

Robertson died this past Thursday in his mother's home in Granite City.

"Until the end, he was more concerned for our feelings than for himself," said Tammie Robertson. "He told me, 'Mom, I'm sorry I made you cry so many times and that I was such a burden.' ... But he was never a burden."

Robertson was diagnosed with the virus that causes AIDS when he was 5 years old. He contracted the virus through blood products used to treat his hemophilia.

At his mother's suggestion, the Granite City School District designated a special classroom in a trailer to shield him from controversy.

But he was lonely without contact with other children, so she asked the district to let him attend regular classes. The district refused, siding with parents who feared, contrary to medical fact, that their children could become infected through casual contact.

A federal judge ordered the district in 1988 to admit the child to regular class.

Tammie Robertson said on the first day of classes, her son had to walk past angry parents shouting "Back to the trailer!"

"Jason forgave them, and I forgive them," she said. "They didn't know any better. It was the early days of AIDS."

When Robertson was 8, his family moved to South Roxana, Ill. There, he once again faced placard-waving demonstrators on his first day of school.

"He was a tough little fella. He showed a lot of courage," said the school's then principal, Dorothy Stickels.

Robertson's struggle made him a symbol of the fight against AIDS discrimination. But to his family, he was a boy who dreamed of living a normal life, who loved baseball, comic book superheroes and wrestling.

Robertson became close friends with Ryan White, an Indiana boy with AIDS whose legal struggle to attend a grade school in his state became a national story in 1985.

When White died in 1990, Robertson "ran off and locked himself in his room and cried," his mother said. "To him, it was like losing his big brother."

With money from a suit filed against the companies that supplied the tainted blood products that made him sick, Robertson bought a car and house of his own.

As the drugs that kept full-blown AIDS at bay began to aggravate his hemophilia, Robertson stopped taking medication.

"He wanted to live at least a couple of years without pain," his mother said.

[gdani]

I'd like to know the cause of death. Hemophilliacs often die of hemophillia not AIDS. This was the case with Ryan White despite media hype to the contrary.

Nobody ever dies *of* AIDS. They die because AIDS so severely weakens their system that something else comes along & kills them (pneumonia, etc).

[glock rocks]

hell of a fire destroyed the records. quelle chance.

[ambrose]

And where would you send the people who taunted, tortured and made a young boy's life hell?

Columbine.

[misterrob]

Hard to say where this came from....could have been through gay sex just as easily as it could have been from a needle user.

[Ann Archy]

What a sad story.....hope he had a dad in his life also.

[ClancyJ]

It doesn't matter where it comes from. It is a horrible cruel disease that takes many of the young.

May God bless and comfort his family.

[Jorge]

I'd like to know the cause of death. Hemophilliacs often die of hemophillia not AIDS.

Found this in another article;

"As the drugs that kept full-blown AIDS at bay began to aggravate his hemophilia, Robertson stopped taking medication."

[KantianBurke]

"He wanted to live at least a couple of years without pain," his mother said.

[glock rocks]

prayers for this family.

[misterrob]

Amen

[ikka]

Nobody ever dies *of* AIDS.

Not true. AIDS will eventually attack the major organs including the brain. Most folks do however contract other illnesses before the AIDS damage becomes life-threatening.

[Zeroisanumber]

Remember, he was infected by tainted blood in the early 80's, before the blood banks began testing for the presence of HIV in donated blood. The donor could very likely have been totally ignorant of his condition.

[AdamSelene235]

Why on Earth would this be important to you?

Because no one has even demonstrated HIV to be the cause of AIDS.

Nobelist Kary Mullis on the HIV-AIDS hypothesis

[AdamSelene235]

. They die because AIDS so severely weakens their system that something else comes along & kills them (pneumonia, etc).

Mulitple blood transfusions are known to be immuno-suppressive. I'd like to know why they are blaming HIV in his death. Ryan White certainly didn't die of an immune system failure but rather complications common to hemophillia.

[tracer]

"there should be a special place in hell reserved for the AIDS-infected scum who knowingly donated tainted blood"

And for the greedy bastards who run the scum sucking companies that sold tainted products. Cutter Laboratories is one such toilet.....

[tracer]

He was diagnosed with AIDS 18 years ago (do the math. Very reliable HIV-antibody immunoassays were available in 1985 and were used by reputable companies to screen their blood products (e.g. Factor VIII clotting factor, platelets)...

[AdamSelene235]

Another death to credit the homos with. How many have there been?

Odd that the "AIDS" deaths among homosexuals bear little semblence to AIDS in hemophilliacs which agains looks nothing like AIDS in Africa. Why don't hemophilliacs ever get Kaposi's sarcoma? Probably because they aren't out huffing amyl nitrates to facilitate anal sex. South Africa is the only African nation with reliable statistics which just happen to show "AIDS" to be completely decorrelated with other STDs. Almost as if it is not sexually transmitted.

I've met PHD's with decades of pharmaceutical experience who started companies based on the HIV-AIDS hypothesis to only later conclude HIV was not cause of AIDS.

[AdamSelene235]

The chemical bases of the various AIDS epidemics: recreational
drugs, anti-viral chemotherapy and malnutrition

Peter Duesberg^†, Claus Koehnlein* and David Rasnick

Donner Laboratory, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA

*Internistische Praxis, Koenigsweg 14, 24103 Kiel, Germany

^†Corresponding author (Fax, 510-643-6455; Email: duesberg@uclink4.berkeley.edu)

In 1981 a new epidemic of about two-dozen heterogeneous diseases began to strike non-randomly growing numbers of male homosexuals and mostly male intravenous drug users in the US and Europe. Assuming immunodeficiency as the common denominator the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) termed the epidemic, AIDS, for acquired immunodeficiency syndrome. From 1981–1984 leading researchers including those from the CDC proposed that recreational drug use was the cause of AIDS, because of exact correlations and of drug-specific diseases. However, in 1984 US government researchers proposed that a virus, now termed human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), is the cause of the non-random epidemics of the US and Europe but also of a new, sexually random epidemic in Africa. The virus-AIDS hypothesis was instantly accepted, but it is burdened with numerous paradoxes, none of which could be resolved by 2003: Why is there no HIV in most AIDS patients, only antibodies against it? Why would HIV take 10 years from infection to AIDS? Why is AIDS not self-limiting via antiviral immunity? Why is there no vaccine against AIDS? Why is AIDS in the US and Europe not random like other viral epidemics? Why did AIDS not rise and then decline exponentially owing to antiviral immunity like all other viral epidemics? Why is AIDS not contagious? Why would only HIV carriers get AIDS who use either recreational or anti-HIV drugs or are subject to malnutrition? Why is the mortality of HIV-antibody-positives treated with anti-HIV drugs 7–9%, but that of all (mostly untreated) HIV-positives globally is only 1×4%? Here we propose that AIDS is a collection of chemical epidemics, caused by recreational drugs, anti-HIV drugs, and malnutrition. According to this hypothesis AIDS is not contagious, not immuno­genic, not treatable by vaccines or antiviral drugs, and HIV is just a passenger virus. The hypothesis explains why AIDS epidemics strike non-randomly if caused by drugs and randomly if caused by malnutrition, why they manifest in drug- and malnutrition-specific diseases, and why they are not self-limiting via anti-viral immunity. The hypothesis predicts AIDS prevention by adequate nutrition and abstaining from drugs, and even cures by treating AIDS diseases with proven medications.

[Duesberg P, Koehnlein C and Rasnick D 2003 The chemical bases of the various AIDS epidemics: recreational drugs, anti-viral chemotherapy and malnutrition; J. Biosci.28 383–412]

Read the paper

[Theodore R.]

The one who made the blood donation is probably unaware that he did so, and he may no longer even be living.

[RightWingNut]

I agree with you.
I also hope there is a very special place in heaven for people like Jason.