Out of Zenna

I apologize; I haven't been around an awful lot lately. I can't be bothered with chatter when there's research to do.

In Kenya, there is a generation largely missing. Two, perhaps. This generation is between ages 16 and 50. There are children in many parts of rural Kenya who are raising multiple children, while they themselves are no older than nine or ten. They have homes, because their homes were left to them by parents who died from complications from AIDS.

People do not believe that these people -- and others like them all across Africa -- are the targets of medical experimentation, easily targeted due to their exploitability, due to the fact that they are poor, that they do not have easy access to medical information which would let them know that what is happening to them is irregular, that they do not have access to legal aid or live in a country where they have rights to fight against the people who have victimized them.

A prime example of exactly this sort of tragedy is described in a Washington Post article from December 2000 ^[1], in which a clinical trial conducted by a corrupt MD in Pfizer's name in Nigeria in 1996.[2] That study allegedly used children to test Trovan, which had been proven efficacious in adults but not in children.[3]

People believe even less that this sort of thing could be happening here, in the United States.

These people are incorrect, and this, if for no other reason than selfishness, is why the information I place before all is important.

In Dec 1952, Harold Blauer, a civilian in excellent physical health, but depressed following his divorce, was voluntarily admitted to the New York State Psychiatric Institute for treatment of depression. While at the Institute, he was injected on five different occasions with three different mescaline derivatives supplied by the U.S. Army Chemical Corps to determine the clinical effects of chemical warfare agents in a research project that was classified secret. ... After each of the first four injections, the subject told the nurses that he did not want any further injections... The death certificate attributed the death to "coronary arteriosclerosis; sudden death after intravenous injection of a mescaline derivative."

The anti-malarial drug Lariam has been suggested to be circumstantially linked to an excessively high rate of homicides in the Ft. Bragg, NC area in the early part of this century. The US Army denies this is even a possibility. Other sources, including those from Roche Pharmeceuticals, suggest otherwise:

In scientific terms, Lariam can cause neuropsychiatric adverse events. In plain language, it can make lose your mind. ... According to its own internal documents, Roche pharmaceuticals, Lariam’s maker, has received over 3,000 reports of psychiatric problems associated with the drug, from nightmares, depression and hallucinations to paranoia, psychosis and aggression.

Thousands of other examples exist; one needs only to look for them. One thing that a large number of the experimentations have in common is that they either involved known hallucinogens or drugs whose main effect is not hallucinogenic but which functions as a hallucinogen or which has active hallucinations or hypnosis-like suggestibility as a side effect. In combination with a drug like tetrodotoxin, such a person would have vivid hallucinations and appear dead, while still being very much alive and experiencing whatever hallucinatory fantasy had been introduced into their mind or minds. It need not even be a highly experimental drug; natural hallucinogens such as datura can easily lead to the inability to distinguish fantasy from reality.

Occam's Razor: your friend and mine.

Nico needs help. I have told him that he needs help. If he truly believes that he descended into the underworld and spoke with Hades, he needs both psychological help and prayer.

I am worried for him.

I simply don't believe it. I saw him dead.

I'm going back to church. Perhaps God will have some reason why someone saw fit to play some sort of sick joke by posting in his LiveJournal, pretending to be him. Taunting people who loved him -- not me, I do not know him save casually, but clearly some who have spoken of him did love him -- with the idea that he might be alive.

Disgusting.

Tonight was not the first time I had seen a body. My whole life, I spent in mostly rural Kenya. We assisted with many things, and some of those duties are ministering to the dead and the dying. I have done more of that in my life than perhaps a person my age is expected to do. More than many do in so much of their lives. I have seen children die; I have seen women murdered. I have seen men die from illness; babies have been buried in the villages that were born without breath, or died in their mother's arms. People I have loved as sisters and brothers in Christ have died from spoiled food and tainted vaccines.

It occurs to me that before tonight, I had only ever seen one other dead white person. That is a thought to examine for another time, how disparate the numbers of white and black dead people I have seen; it seems so little is cared how those little tally-marks disappear. A thought for another time, to be sure.

Tonight is not even the first time I have seen a suicide. And every time I see a death like this, I raise up my eyes and I ask of God: why was their burden too heavy for them to carry? Did they refuse You and ask to carry it alone? We ask ourselves if we have failed, or if they failed to ask of You what must be asked: help me to carry my burdens, Lord.

He has not as of yet had any answers for me that stay solid in my heart. I know His ways are unknowable and His mercy is infinite, and still I ache. And while I had known Niccolo Machiavelli only a very short time, I feel a hurt in my heart I cannot explain, as if I loved him well. I ask God why it was I who found this body, and I feel He answers to me; I feel the words pressed in on my heart with His loving hand. He answers: because you know this burden, know it well, and know how to shoulder its weight.

And still, after prayer and all the kind words of people who likely felt I knew him so much better, I am left asking: what was so heavy you could not carry, Nico? And who is Sinclair?

And so, I am come out of Africa.

Heh. It’s weird and cold here, and everyone seems entirely indifferent compared to what I am used to seeing. Having spent a year among missionaries – the first person to make any position-related jokes gets slapped – I am sort of baffled by the way that a lot of people keep their heads down, close their eyes, and walk along, stumbling from place to place. I miss my parents already; I know that probably makes me an oddity among teenagers as it is, but I miss their passion and clarity on matters. Everything that they do, they do because they are guided by a stronger exterior force.

To put it as culture shock is to put it mildly. I am thankful for Uncle Robert’s presence; he is a patient, forgiving sort. I am thankful that I will not have to finish high school a year late, but am being permitted to study for final exams at my own pace at the private school at which my parents have arranged admission. I am attempting to remember this thankfulness in the face of bitter cold, snow, and indifference.

And so it is that I am going to the library to pick up what I need to finish my study for European History.

Then it’s time to check the blogs.