by PlanetOut, www.PlanetOut.com, a Worldwide Online Community of Gay, Lesbian, Bi and Trans People
AIDS Vaccine
OK'd For Trials
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has given approval to the first "phase 111" testing with large numbers of healthy people of a vaccine to prevent AIDS, as first reported by the San Jose "Mercury News." A three-year study will begin later this year with 7,500 healthy volunteers at a cost of $20-million.
"AIDSVAX" uses the HIV protein gpl20 to stimulate production of antibodies which it is hoped will stop the virus from attaching itself to white blood cells, thereby stopping the virus from replicating. AIDSVAX was developed by the California biotech company VaxGen, Inc. According to the "Washington Times," 5,000 volunteers will be from the U.S. and the other 2,500 from Thailand, with most considered to be "at high risk," and the study will be placebo-controlled.
Navy Discharge
for AOL Profile
The Navy will discharge the top enlisted man on a fast-attack nuclear submarine simply because he had listed his marital status as "gay" on an America Online (AOL) profile that didn't even list his last name. The Chief of Naval Personnel gave approval on Jan. 5 to the honorable discharge for "Homosexual Conduct Admittance" within ten days of Senior Chief Petty Officer Tim McVeigh (no connection whatever to the convicted Oklahoma City bomber), a 17-year veteran with a spotless record who had been serving as Chief of the Boat on the Hawaii-based USS Chicago. McVeigh had received a promotion only five months before he was first presented with charges in September.
McVeigh, not "telling," was quoted in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin last month as saying he put "gay" in the profile because, "I have dedicated so much of my life to military, I really didn't want to get married and be out to sea all the time. Nor did I want to have children and not be there to see them grow up. To me, it is a word. It wasn't put there as a statement at all." In the past, he has dated women and been engaged to be married.
The AOL profile was brought to the Navy's attention by a civilian employee who worked with McVeigh. She turned the information over to the Pacific Fleet's Submarine Force's legal office. The Servicemembers Legal Defense Network (SLDN) believes that nothing further should have happened. SLDN co-director Dixon Osburn last month told the Honolulu Advertiser that, "Under 'don't ask, don't tell,'there is this concept of a zone of privacy. Service members were supposed to have a little more wiggle room. One would think that private statements that are made on AOL are not the sort of thing that the military should be interested in."
But given that the case did proceed, according to SLDN attorney Kirk Childress, who has been assisting in McVeigh's defense, there was "a clear violation of the fact-finding process" at that point. He says that proper procedure under "don't ask, don't tell" called for McVeigh's commanding officer on the USS Chicago, Commnander John Mickey, to carry on any initial investigation and determine if any further action was indicated.
That never happened. McVeigh says that during his Nov. 7th administrative hearing, when his Navy attorney asked, "What actions did you take as Commanding Officer, pursuant to any of the rules that require commanding officers initiation of action investigation?" Mickey replied, "I took no actions. I don't know what is required. I didn't research it." In fact McVeigh charges that Mickey "said that he didn't know what the regulations were, hadn't looked at the regulations since, and didn't plan on looking at the regulations."
Instead, based solely on the AOL profile, the legal office began an investigation towards possible charges of sodomy and indecent conduct. McVeigh says, "The investigating officer said she looked in my record and noticed that I had never been married and went from there." Because of that investigation, on Sept. 12 McVeigh was relieved of his job on the submarine and transferred to the squadron with a pay cut of $745/month. According to McVeigh, the investigation failed to find any further evidence whatever.
McVeigh reports that the government's attorney said during his administrative hearing that the policy violations were irrelevant, and they have not been addressed at any level in the course of the discharge proceedings. McVeigh has also charged that during the hearing two of the three board members judging the case "routinely gave sympathetic winks, nods and smiles to the leading government witness while she was on the witness stand." To add insult to injury, Secretary of the Navy John Dalton made a visit to Hawaii in December and expressed confidence that "don't ask, don't tell" was working well, although he was not familiar with McVeigh's case and no one in the Navy is allowed to offer public comment on a personnel matter in progress.
In questioning squadron legal officer LNI Joeseph Kaiser, both defense attorney LCDR Cole and government attorney LT Dolan inquired how the pivotal information linking McVeigh to his screen name was obtained from AOL. "I simply said that I was the third party in receipt of a fax," Kaiser responded, "and I wanted to ensure that this was from the individual we thought it was, and that's all I did say. [Owen at Tech Services] said not a problem I can give you the name and say that that's the billing account, but I can't give you anything more. They gave me the name, 'Timothy R. McVeigh.'"
AOL's Terms of Service agreement states, "Our policy is not to disclose identity information to third parties that would link a Members (sic) screen name(s) with a Members (sic) actual name, unless required to do so by law or legal process served on AOL, Inc. (e.g., a subpoena). AOL, Inc., at its sole discretion, reserves the right to make exceptions to this policy in extraordinary circumstances (such as a bomb or suicide threat, or instances of suspected illegal activity) on a case-by-case basis." When asked by Cole whether "Owen" indicated that he could not provide McVeigh's name without a subpoena, or whether Kaiser had said there was any extraordinary circumstance or suspected illegal activity, Kaiser answered "No" on all counts. Richard Barkin, in a Honolulu Advertiser guest column supporting McVeigh, noted that "Federal and state laws, supplemented by AOL policies, safeguard the privacy of information collected by AOL."
McVeigh is eager to bring the matter to public attention and has both set up a website at http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/9241/ and requested letters for this purpose. He's aware of at least 1,800 letters which have been sent to government officials objecting to the handling of his case.
AOL Profile
Sparks Two Murders
A man is believed to have killed
his young son and daughter
and then slashed himself in a rage inflamed by what he saw as his wife's lesbian adventures on the Internet. In ironically-named Nicetown, Pennsylvania, William Earl McClellan acted early January 8 while his wife Juanita, a library computer specialist, was at her office. He allegedly stabbed to death his son Will, age 5, and daughter Patrice, age 8, and wrote a message on a wall of his home reading, "Shi butch, you can be. Love Earl. I always gave you what you wanted. Now you are free. Love Earl." " Shi butch" was a reference to an America Online screen name used by Juanita, with a profile which has been described as "sexually suggestive" which identified her as a "hopeless romantic" and her marital status as "lonesome." McClellan was aware that Juanita had been exchanging E-mail with another woman and believed she had been visiting lesbian chat rooms online, and convinced himself that she was having an affair.
McClellan's self-inflicted knife wounds were treated at a hospital and he was released to police custody later in the same day. Police interviewed him for about a half-hour without his making any formal statement. He was later charged with two counts of murder and arraigned. While McClellan apparently attacked his children and had not previously been reported to be violent, it is very common among wife-beaters to suspect lesbian activity by their partners, with or without any basis.
