Three Chapters from Truth to Power, the 466- page book available now on Amazon.
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Truth
to Power
“Charles Ortleb, as editor-in-chief and publisher of the New York Native, was and remains the Izzy Stone of science reporting. He was fearless in his pursuit of the origins of the AIDS epidemic and the government’s response in the 1980s. When his newspaper began to diverge from the dogmatic mainstream, however, he was ostracized by the very people he was seeking to inform. In addition, his laser-like focus in the Native on the simultaneous emergence of so-called “chronic fatigue syndrome”—a topic to which he assigned a full-time reporter, Neenyah Ostrom—was laudable. These disorders remain too much alike to arbitrarily submerge one in favor of the other, as the government has done without blinking for thirty years. Ortleb took considerable risks to profitability by pursuing every avenue of investigation on these matters. Yet, as much as Ortleb was criticized, the Native was also a “must read” of its time. When I was reporting my own book on the latter disease, I frequently spied the Native on the desks of high level scientists at the National Institutes of Health. As much as he made them uncomfortable, everyone in the AIDS research establishment wanted to know what Ortleb was going to report next. Ortleb’s caustic humor and piercing analysis of what he has dubbed “political epidemiology,” and “homodemiology” by the Centers for Disease Control alone makes Truth to Power worth the read. But the history he recounts here is crucial reading for anyone who missed the Native in its heyday or who didn’t “get it” the first time around. Given the recent rise of infectious disease alarms around the world, Truth to Power is, additionally, remarkably timely for those who seek to understand what drives the American public health establishment in times of crises. A rollicking, fascinating and important memoir.”
—Hillary Johnson, author of Osler's Web, Inside the Labyrinth of the Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Epidemic
“Charles Ortleb and the New York Native which he so brilliantly led was the absolutely indispensable source for all information—medical, political, personal—in the first five years of the AIDS epidemic when the major media in this country as well as the medical establishment tried so hard to avoid the topic. Not since I.F.Stone have we seen how important individual investigative journalism could be in breaking through society’s silence, when silence indeed equaled death. It is good to finally have the Native’s heroic work put on the historical record for all to see.”
—Michael Denneny, author of Decent Passions and Lovers: The Story of Two Men
"The gay press—with the exception of the New York Native, which deserves a Pulitzer Prize for its comprehensive coverage [of AIDS]—hasn’t been much better than the straight press."
—David Black, Rolling Stone, April 25, 1985
“Because of the extraordinary reporting of the New York Native, the city’s gay community had been exposed to far more information about AIDS than San Francisco in 1981 and 1982.”
—Randy Shilts, And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic
“It is undeniable that many major AIDS stories were Ortleb’s months and sometimes years before mainstream journalists took them up.”
—Katie Leishman, Rolling Stone, March 23, 1989
By the time you finish this eye-opening book you will question
everything you have been told about Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and AIDS.
In this powerfully written history you will find credible and disturbing
evidence linking the two epidemics to one virus, HHV-6. You will wonder
if HHV-6 is the real AIDS/CFS virus and whether the HIV theory of AIDS is
one of the biggest mistakes ever made in medical science. This book will inspire an international debate about HHV-6 and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.
*Truth to Power exposes the corrupt world of AIDS and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome research.
*Truth to Power reveals how the Centers for Disease Control has covered up a massive epidemic of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and HHV-6, the virus that clearly is what is destroying the immune systems of CFS patients.
*Truth to Power explains why HHV-6 has become the biggest public health problem in the world.
*Truth to Power reveals how HHV-6 may threaten your health and the health of your family and friends.
*Truth to Power uncovers the terrifying possibility that the virus HHV-6 is also infecting the pets of people with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.
*Truth to Power presents compelling evidence that HHV-6 originated in pigs.
*Truth to Power shows you how political American science has become and why so many honest whistleblowers have been silenced.
Charles Ortleb’s Truth to Power takes you inside the New York Native, one of the most unique and consequential newspapers of the twentieth century. Shortly after starting his small gay New York City newspaper in late 1980, one of the biggest scientific and political stories of our time fell into his lap in the form of the AIDS and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome epidemic. What he did with that story has secured his newspaper’s place in history. Under his guidance, a succession of intrepid journalists did some of their greatest work uncovering the crucial facts about the labyrinthine epidemic.
*Truth to Power exposes the corrupt world of AIDS and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome research.
*Truth to Power reveals how the Centers for Disease Control has covered up a massive epidemic of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and HHV-6, the virus that clearly is what is destroying the immune systems of CFS patients.
*Truth to Power explains why HHV-6 has become the biggest public health problem in the world.
*Truth to Power reveals how HHV-6 may threaten your health and the health of your family and friends.
*Truth to Power uncovers the terrifying possibility that the virus HHV-6 is also infecting the pets of people with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.
*Truth to Power presents compelling evidence that HHV-6 originated in pigs.
*Truth to Power shows you how political American science has become and why so many honest whistleblowers have been silenced.
Charles Ortleb’s Truth to Power takes you inside the New York Native, one of the most unique and consequential newspapers of the twentieth century. Shortly after starting his small gay New York City newspaper in late 1980, one of the biggest scientific and political stories of our time fell into his lap in the form of the AIDS and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome epidemic. What he did with that story has secured his newspaper’s place in history. Under his guidance, a succession of intrepid journalists did some of their greatest work uncovering the crucial facts about the labyrinthine epidemic.
Ortleb made the decision to follow the facts wherever they
led. Charles Ortleb’s Truth to Power
takes you inside the New York Native,
one of the most unique and consequential newspapers of the twentieth century.
Shortly after starting his small gay New York City newspaper in late 1980, one
of the biggest scientific and political stories of our time fell into his lap
in the form of the AIDS and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome epidemic. What he did with
that story has secured his newspaper’s place in history. Under his guidance, a
succession of intrepid journalists did some of their greatest work uncovering
the crucial facts about the labyrinthine epidemic.
Ortleb made the decision to follow the facts wherever they
led. As a result of the New York Native’s
uncompromising investigative reporting, many powerful toes were stepped on. For
years the medical and political establishment did everything they could to
discredit New York Native and put it
out of business. But Ortleb stood his ground for as long as possible and as a
result the world now can have a clear understanding of the relationship of
AIDS, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, and HHV-6, the transmissible virus that now
threatens everyone on this planet.
Anyone who has wondered why the medical establishment will
not tell the truth about the Chronic Fatigue Syndrome epidemic will find the
disturbing answer in Truth to Power.
What makes Ortleb so unusual is that not only did he have the
natural instincts of a journalist, editor and publisher, but he was also a
poet, a fiction writer and a budding political philosopher. Truth to Power is not just a compelling
work of journalism and history, but also a major contribution to the
intellectual life of our time.
Truth to Power is a 466-page book published by Rubicon Media.
Truth to Power is available on Amazon in both print and Kindle formats. Also Kindle Unlimited.
Truth to Power is a 466-page book published by Rubicon Media.
Truth to Power is available on Amazon in both print and Kindle formats. Also Kindle Unlimited.
A free excerpt from
Iatrogenocide
Notes for a Political Philosophy of
Epidemiology and Science
Available in all countries at Amazon.
Iatrogenocide is a book bound to cause a shift in our understanding of epidemiology and science.In the tradition of Thomas Kuhn, Charles Ortleb has looked beneath the hood of science and exposed the cultural, social, and political inner workings of an intellectual endeavor that affects the lives of everyone.
His journey to his new political philosophy of epidemiology and science began in 1981 when he was the publisher and editor-in-chief of New York Native, a newspaper with a national gay readership in New York City. His newspaper wasn’t even a year old when the first report appeared in the media about what would become known as the AIDS epidemic. He is widely credited with being the first publisher and editor-in-chief to take the epidemic seriously and to use a newspaper’s resources to dig into the story.
New York Native’s coverage of the epidemic was so thorough that, in Rolling Stone, David Black said it deserved a Pulitzer Prize. As the epidemic unfolded, Ortleb oversaw the work of a number of talented journalists and writers who helped turn New York Native into the paper of record (and conscience) for the AIDS epidemic as well as its intertwined epidemic of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome which was concealed by all kinds of political legerdemain.
The thoughts in this volume were culled from notebooks in which he began to work out his ideas for a political philosophy of epidemiology and science. He has concluded that what we think of as the epidemiology and science of AIDS and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome are essentially a corrupted hard drive. Because of sexual and racial bigotry, virtually all of the science and conducted on that hard drive is false even though it has the appearance of being rational, progressive, and normal. A bold new kind of political philosophy of epidemiology and science has helped him understand how that hard drive got corrupted in the first place. The thoughts in this book will help show a way forward for anyone who wants to fix that hard drive.
During his experience of watching the AIDS and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome disaster unfold, Ortleb realized that only a new political philosophy of epidemiology and science could awaken people to what has really happened. A biomedical crime against humanity was being committed, but even serious intellectuals like Susan Sontag and many others could not perceive what was occurring before their very eyes. They could only see the surface of what was happening because they did not fully understand the intense political nature of epidemiology and science. They trusted and they did not verify what the scientific establishment was telling them. Public health is now in a state of peril because the best and the brightest were asleep at the switch.
In addition to Thomas Kuhn, Ortleb's thinking has been heavily influenced by the work of Hannah Arendt, George Orwell, Isaiah Berlin, Sartre, and Camus. Like these thinkers and writers, his work is both analytical and creative. His background as a poet, journalist, humorist, and fiction writer has helped him craft one of the liveliest books of philosophical thoughts of our time.
The Stonewall Massacre
A Free Excerpt.
The second part of the story presents a dark and surprising vision of what would have happened in the decades that follow the Stonewall Massacre. Would there have been an AIDS epidemic if the gay community had been destroyed? What would society be like?
Available now in all countries at Amazon in print, Kindle and Kindle Unlimited.
"The Stonewall Massacre" is one of the most entertaining and provocative fictional works of alternate history ever written. This gripping 54-page story asks the politically explosive question, "What if the gay movement had been completely destroyed at its moment of birth in 1969?"
The visionary tale is told from the perspective of a gay waiter who happens to leave the famous Stonewall Inn, a gay bar located in Greenwich Village, just minutes before a police raid on a hot night in June. What happens in this imagined version of the Stonewall riots is a terrifying nightmare of violence and repression which results in the gay community permanently retreating into the shadows without any hopes of ever achieving any form of civil rights.
Ortleb captures perfectly the sinister glee of the conservative forces in psychology, religion, and the media who are only too willing to collaborate in the permanent suppression of a hated and feared sexual minority.
The second part of "The Stonewall Massacre" is where things get really wild. Set in 1982, at a time when the world is completely free of out-of-the-closet homosexuals, it describes the outbreak of a strange illness which first strikes women who are feminists. The disease is first perceived to be a kind of chronic fatigue syndrome, but as doctors study the women more, they describe it as "acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS)." As AIDS begins to break out in women who are not feminists and in men and children, they realize that AIDS is not just a feminist disease. All the forces in government and science are quickly marshalled to deal with what was initially thought to be a form of chronic fatigue.
Basically, Ortleb has cleverly used a brilliant fictional premise to ask the disturbing question, "Would there have been what we think of as the AIDS epidemic in America if there was no visible gay community and would the medical establishment have realized that chronic fatigue syndrome and other mysterious illnesses are actually forms of AIDS if gay people were essentially invisible?"
A story that at first fictionalizes the total destruction of the gay community evolves into a string of troubling questions about politics, science, and the ability of medical authorities to control the information about epidemics.
There has never been an alternate fictional history quite like this. Ortleb's uncanny narrative invention is fast-paced, darkly hilarious, and infused with great philosophical intelligence as well as journalistic knowledge. "The Stonewall Massacre" is more than just literary fun. This is the rare alternate history that has the potential to actually alter history.
Charles Ortleb was one of the most important journalists of the twentieth century. As the publisher and editor-in-chief of New York Native, he pioneered the coverage of the AIDS, HHV-6 and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome epidemics. Rolling Stone said Ortleb's newspaper deserved a Pulitzer Prize. His book, Truth to Power, is considered to be the definitive history of AIDS, HHV-6, and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.
The visionary tale is told from the perspective of a gay waiter who happens to leave the famous Stonewall Inn, a gay bar located in Greenwich Village, just minutes before a police raid on a hot night in June. What happens in this imagined version of the Stonewall riots is a terrifying nightmare of violence and repression which results in the gay community permanently retreating into the shadows without any hopes of ever achieving any form of civil rights.
Ortleb captures perfectly the sinister glee of the conservative forces in psychology, religion, and the media who are only too willing to collaborate in the permanent suppression of a hated and feared sexual minority.
The second part of "The Stonewall Massacre" is where things get really wild. Set in 1982, at a time when the world is completely free of out-of-the-closet homosexuals, it describes the outbreak of a strange illness which first strikes women who are feminists. The disease is first perceived to be a kind of chronic fatigue syndrome, but as doctors study the women more, they describe it as "acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS)." As AIDS begins to break out in women who are not feminists and in men and children, they realize that AIDS is not just a feminist disease. All the forces in government and science are quickly marshalled to deal with what was initially thought to be a form of chronic fatigue.
Basically, Ortleb has cleverly used a brilliant fictional premise to ask the disturbing question, "Would there have been what we think of as the AIDS epidemic in America if there was no visible gay community and would the medical establishment have realized that chronic fatigue syndrome and other mysterious illnesses are actually forms of AIDS if gay people were essentially invisible?"
A story that at first fictionalizes the total destruction of the gay community evolves into a string of troubling questions about politics, science, and the ability of medical authorities to control the information about epidemics.
There has never been an alternate fictional history quite like this. Ortleb's uncanny narrative invention is fast-paced, darkly hilarious, and infused with great philosophical intelligence as well as journalistic knowledge. "The Stonewall Massacre" is more than just literary fun. This is the rare alternate history that has the potential to actually alter history.
Charles Ortleb was one of the most important journalists of the twentieth century. As the publisher and editor-in-chief of New York Native, he pioneered the coverage of the AIDS, HHV-6 and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome epidemics. Rolling Stone said Ortleb's newspaper deserved a Pulitzer Prize. His book, Truth to Power, is considered to be the definitive history of AIDS, HHV-6, and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.
A free excerpt from Pig: A Memoir
Published in the last century, George Orwell's Animal Farm has sold more than 40 million copies and been translated
into 70 languages. Pig: A Memoir is the Animal Farm
of the 21st century.
This is a very funny book about talking pigs in Iowa that is destined to become an international bestseller. But it is so much more than that. Pig: A Memoir will make your head spin.
As African Swine Fever Virus, a deadly virus that infects pigs, threatens to spread into Western Europe and may even reach America, the timing of this novel could not be more perfect. As fears grow that the virus might be capable of infecting humans, this book raises troubling questions about the honesty and competence of public health officials. Could the next human epidemic be lurking in pigs? Has a pig virus already quietly infected us and is it responsible for mysterious illnesses like Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and autism?
Is African Swine Fever virus already infecting American pigs and being covered up? With incisive political satire, Pig: A Memoir explains how that could easily be done by government scientists who can always rename diseases in order to hide them. Pig: A Memoir shows how the game is played.
Pig: A Memoir, which appears 70 years after Animal Farm, updates the political and existential status of man and pig in a laugh-out-loud, mini-epic of a narrative that readers everywhere will be quoting at the water cooler. Pig: A Memoir has so many dynamic moving parts that it reads like it is reflecting the state of our world in real time.
A contemporary allegorical fable about the overlapping breakdown of the porcine and human public health systems, Charles Ortleb's little masterpiece is full of the absurd zaniness of Catch-22 and the gritty horror of The Jungle. He has used his journalistic, critical, and comedic skills to expose our planet's newest biomedical Silent Spring.
Some will call Pig: A Memoir an edgy, postmodern, meta-satire, while others will deem it a jolly good tale that opens our eyes to the situation of the human-like pigs and porcine humans in our midst. In the upside-down world of Pig: A Memoir, the pigs talk and the humans oink. The pigs are more terrified of getting cockamamie diseases from humans than the humans are of getting them from pigs.
One never escapes the feeling in Pig: A Memoir, that Ortleb has strategically nailed something utterly monstrous that will one day bite us all on the ass, if it hasn't already. This provocative and hilarious book is as wild and crazy as a fox. A literary and philosophical torch has been passed from Orwell to Ortleb. The world has a new classic.
Charles Ortleb was the first publisher and editor-in-chief to provide the world with extensive coverage of AIDS and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome at a time when most of the media was looking the other way. He is the author of Truth to Power, the definitive history of the AIDS and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome epidemic.
