In episode 149 David interviews Charles (Chuck) Ortleb a gay writer and publisher whose career bloomed at the start of the AIDS epidemic, and then crashed when he started to criticize the HIV=AIDS dogma promulgated by the CDC and powerful pharmaceutically funded organizations within his own community. The New York Native was a widely read newspaper in the early 1980s in New York’s gay community, but its criticism of the new and soon to be massively profitable AZT, through writers like John Lauritsen, caused a backlash and the newspaper was put out of business. Although Ortleb has been silent for a long time, he is now speaking up again, and he’s not sorry for the questions he raised then, that are still relevant today.
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For more on Charles Ortleb’s work see his blog at http://