20 Nov-New York – After a fifteen-month delay, the Supreme Court of the State of New York has made a decision in the case of Farber v. Jefferys, Kuritzky & Murtagh.
Background
Investigative reporter Celia Farber
Farber filed the case after Semmelweis Society International (SSI) asked investigator Clark Baker to investigate allegations made by pharmaceutical marketers Richard Jefferys, James Murtagh MD and Kevin Kuritzky. Jefferys and his cohorts used Critpath and the Federal AIDS Policy Partnership (FAPP) to incite activists into forcing Congresswoman Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-TX) into preventing Farber and UC Professor Peter Duesberg PhD from testifying before Congressional tribunals about pharmaceutical retaliation. Said Jefferys:
… it appears that Celia Farber & Peter Duesberg – two inveterate liars who try and persuade people that HIV is harmless and that they should avoid testing & treatment – are participating in an event called the No FEAR Tribunal in Congress on Wednesday May 14.
The No FEAR Institute is a whistleblower-supporting initiative in which Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee seems to have a lead role. I’m afraid that they have somehow been conned into involving Duesberg & Farber in this event, if anyone has contacts with Sheila Jackson Lee’s office and could alert them, that would be great… (Jefferys)
After several requests, one of Jefferys assistants wrote:
This is ridiculous. Can a bunch of us mobilize calls to her office? Perhaps we need just a few talking points so that we’re all saying the same thing? Who can help do this? Needs to happen within the next 48 hours. Thanks Richard for the heads up! (Sue Perez)
When activists succeeded, Diana Scholl prepared the propaganda:
I’m working on a story for the Housing Works Update about the AIDS denialists Duesberg and Farber. (fyi-, they did NOT testify in Congress or attend the award ceremony but they will still receive the awards). If anyone on the list contacted Rep. Lee or the organizers, please send me an e-mail and let me know any reaction you received.
Like TAG and dozens of other pro-socialist organizations, Housing Works is funded by the CDC, George Soros and companies that use AIDS to avoid corporate liability from environmental pollution. Scholl wrote:
Farber and Duesberg have long disseminated factually inaccurate and dangerous information about HIV. Duesberg, a professor of molecular and cell biology at the University of California-Berkeley, believes that AIDS is caused by antiretrovirals rather than HIV. Farber has written many sympathetic portrayals of Duesberg, including a 2006 Harper’s magazine article, “Out of Control: AIDS And The Corruption of Medical Science”. She wrote, “Duesberg thinks that up to 75 percent of AIDS cases in the West can be attributed to drug toxicity. If toxic AIDS therapies were discontinued, he says, thousands of lives could be saved virtually overnight.” This theory has been widely disproved, but has still gained currency: In one 2007 U.S. study, 45 percent of gay men didn’t believe HIV causes AIDS. South African President Thabo Mbeki is a Duesberg endorser.
Scholl’s propaganda was splattered on numerous pharmaceutical websites without any mention about the millions paid to TAG and other activists to attack them. Since 2004, the pharmaceutical industry has paid $9 billion to settle thousands of criminal and civil complaints related to the illegal marketing of drugs that killed or injured thousands of people around the world every year. The pharmaceutical industry has used drug addicts and homosexuals to market AIDS drugs and protest those who question the arrangement. (More here and here.)
The Investigation
When SSI asked Baker to investigate the allegations, Murtagh and Kuritzky made repeated efforts to dissuade him and SSI from looking into the case. When Baker was suddenly deluged with thousands of gay and AIDS spam emails, Baker tracked the ID theft back to Kuritzky’s IP address. When Baker reported the inappropriate use of VA servers, Dr. Murtagh’s contract with the Veteran’s Administration was not renewed.
Their behavior was not new.
In 2007, Judge Wendy Shoob cited and fined Murtagh for contempt, perjury, issuing false and defamatory emails in other people’s names, altering evidence, identity theft and tax fraud. A year later, Judge Gary Blaylock Andrews affirmed multiple charges against Kuritzky for, among other things, dishonesty, unprofessional conduct and plagiarism.
According to Brian Foley PhD, Murtagh asked Foley to contact one of Baker’s witnesses. Using a false name, Foley intimidated the witness and contacted several of his associates. Baker tracked the emails back to Foley’s employer at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) – an act that Foley corroborated despite LANL’s refusal to investigate.
UC Berkeley manages LANL. If AIDS funding was suddenly cut off at Berkeley, the university and LANL would lose tens of millions of dollars annually. Berkeley’s latest allegations against Duesberg were dismissed last May. Murtagh later admitted to being funded by South African activists – who are funded by TAG. (More here).
Baker memorialized his investigation at Hollywood Gumshoe. SSI and hundreds of other websites have posted it as well, while pharmaceutically-funded editors at Wikipedia have repeatedly erased it.
Since 1992, the National Institutes of Health have paid UC Berkeley has more than $100 million each year.
Courts Not Impressed with Jefferys’ Defense
After an in-depth reading of documentation from both sides–materials pertaining to what he called “a bitter dispute in the medical, scientific, and advocacy communities over the cause and proper treatment of Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome,” Justice Louis B. York returned a decision this week to deny Richard Jefferys‘ (TAG) motion to dismiss Farber’s libel suit. Justice York converted Jefferys’ motion to a motion for summary judgment.
“Here’s the good news,” said Farber attorney Phil Byler, of Nesenoff & Miltenberg, a renowned New York firm specializing in libel:
The court correctly concluded that the motion to dismiss could not be granted because there is in fact a dispute over material facts here; a motion to dismiss based on documentary evidence can only be granted if the presented document or documents conclusively establishes there is no case.
Unfortunately for the drug industry, the court recognized the difference between pharmaceutical marketing and scientific evidence.
“I am delighted,” said Farber. “My assailants will no longer be permitted to hide beneath the skirts of NPR, The Nation, or the Columbia Journalism Review, but will instead have to face the incorruptible facts outside their financial and ideological bubble. I look forward to presenting the judge with the next round of documentation.”
Shortly after Farber filed her lawsuit, Critpath (FAPP) scrubbed their servers and added security to prevent investigators from illustrating how the pharmaceutical industry, CDC, NIH and pro-socialist activists use libel, threats and intimidation to attack drug industry critics. All of the Critpath traffic from May 2008 is posted here.
UPDATE, 10 Oct 2014: Kuritzky declares that he has served James Murtagh since 2005 and served as a “foot soldier” for AIDSTruth and is in part responsible for the attacks on Celia Farber and others.