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Liam Scheff: My Final Post

Dear Friends (final post)

By investigative journalist Liam Scheff, author of Official Stories

April 6, 2017

I’m lucky to count so many as friends and so few as enemies. Oh, I’ve made a few of those, mostly by standing up against abusers (they don’t like being confronted, called out or embarrassed), and they’ve come after me with sharpened teeth and rapier witlessness.

But that’s life.

And so is dying, which seems to be happening over here. Or, extreme daily illness.

I don’t want any wishes to get better; they’re only tiring at this point. I’ve been fighting this for a year on every front. I’m no pushover and have fought mightily, with energy that I no longer have, with health that has been diminished by the many months….

Keep reading HERE

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Martin Walker

10 April 2017

I didn’t know Liam Scheff, but from my contact with his work on Facebook I recognised him as an extraordinary and unique writer, a person who grasped the essential ideas of resistance in our time. He was a leading thinker and investigator and particularly amongst those involved in writing and investigating, he will be sadly missed.

Celia Farber who worked with Liam wrote this piece below in his honour on his death. Celia understood the trials that Liam was faced with because she too suffered these outrages. I have prefaced Celia’s article with a part of Liam’s last post.

The Death of Liam Scheff

Exceptional Journalism: The Story That Almost Brought Down The HIV Murderers April 9, 2017

By Celia Farber

‘It is sad. Suffering is sad. It’s been a year of suffering. I’ve been surrounded by love. I’d be long gone if not for the love of my tribe, my closest friends and those who are the family of my heart and soul.You’re going to have to miss me, because I’m not going to be around for much longer. I’ve already been missing you, and life, for a year. I’ve missed friends, activities, life, me, the me I always thought was the eternal me – I’ve missed that guy, who could bounce back from anything and go on with another project, a flight of fancy, a dive into the depths of another untapped or curiously verboten topic…to try to find what wriggled under the stones, what swan in the depths beneath the glistening, holographic surface.’

Liam Sheff. a part of his final post on his Facebook site.

* * *

Liam Scheff has passed away, after a long battle with extreme nerve damage (tinnitus), leaving his many fans, readers, followers, and friends bereft. He’d been mourning the loss of the love of his life, Helen, for many years, who died suddenly in 2010.

I had, like many, recent exchanges with Liam, in which death was openly discussed, and I was fairly good about refraining from imposing useless or banal advice on my suffering friend. Nothing makes people feel more lonely than the feeling that the person they are addressing can’t quite hear what they are saying. Including when they are saying they are ready to die, because living is too excruciatingly painful. (Not psychically–physically, in this case.)

Liam addressed that in his farewell letter, linked above, so I don’t have to run the risk of a ham-fisted or cloying effort to represent it. If I were to be dead, I would want somebody to bring up my best work.

Liam was both one of the most penetrating, fearless, investigative reporters of our time and one of the funniest YouTube satirists of fake science (I’ll post some of these later.)

He broke a story that was bigger, darker, more devastating, I think, than anything any of us ever broke (proved) before or since, on HIV/AIDS. It came to be known as “Guinea Pig Kids.”

I am a little unclear on whether it was 2002 or 2003 that Christine Maggiore first connected me with Liam Scheff, but when she did, it was because she had found out about a story that Liam then went after like a Tomahawk Missile – emerging with smoking gun evidence that got parlayed into several articles, got picked up by other reporters, and even became a BBC documentary.

Christine deserves the credit for making initial contact with the story, and Liam did the absolutely unparalleled penetrative, undercover investigative reporting that blew it wide open, locally (here in New York City), nationally, and internationally.

In memory of Liam Scheff, I invite you to tread his original story, “Orphans On Trial,” published in NY Press. And “The House That AIDS Built,”: http://www.altheal.org/toxicity/house.htm [Note: This was NY Press under Jeff Koyen, a very brave editor.]

You can read about how all hell broke loose, and read the letter that temporarily caused the BBC to expunge the film from its archives, after industry bullies threatened and threw tantrums.

The film below is painful to watch. I worked on it as a researcher when Liam fell out with the producer, Jamie Doran, and I know everything in the film is true, sourced, and accurate. If you have time for nothing else, watch this 25 minute BBC documentary, based on the original reporting by Liam Scheff.

You will find hard to believe, but it’s all true. And it all happened because of two remarkable people: Christine Maggiore, and Liam Scheff. May they both rest in peace, and hey guys–don’t squabble. Send word. We miss you.

Martin Walker: There were a number of tags in this piece by Celia but they disappeared when I copied it. Apart from The House That AIDS Built, you could look on his Facebook site for more contact with Liam’s writing. There you can read his final post, ‘Dear Friends,’ about dying. This was a brave, sensitive and intelligent man.

“Remember to live. Don’t be a cog in the machine, goddamn it. Goddamn the machine. Make sure to challenge the perceptions; make sure to breathe deeply.”

Liam Scheff

Reposted from Facebook

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“The main thing is the attitude that death is as positive as birth and should be a matter for rejoicing, because death is the symbol of the liberation.”

Alan Watts

RELATED:

– Alternative Media Mourns The Tragic Loss Of One Of Its Best Investigative Journalists: Liam Scheff
Anna Rodgers
April 24, 2017
http://www.collective-evolution.com/2017/04/24/alternative-media-mourns-the-tragic-loss-of-one-of-its-best-investigative-journalists-liam-scheff/

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“I can’t state enough how thrilled I am with this book! Mr. Scheff has dug massive tracts into the bedrock of many conventional “official stories” that we’ve been conditioned to unthinkingly believe. This book is a sumptuous combination of thought-provoking data and delightful, playful dialogue with the reader… it felt like Mr. Scheff sat down with me and started up a lively conversation on each topic. From doing my own research, many of the subjects were familiar to me and Mr. Scheff’s analysis simply reconfirmed my beliefs… but some of his findings were nothing short of revelation.

For example, entering into the chapter on Shakespeare, I must admit I was a little skeptical that he’d be able to find anything that could make me question the official story. With his methodical, affable and logical style, Mr. Scheff was able to argue that it would be impossible for the Shakespeare we’ve all been programmed to believe was the greatest writer in the English language to have created his body of work… practically out of thin air. I won’t give anything away, but suffice it say I have done my own digging and I now share Mr. Scheff’s viewpoint on the matter.

I believe even the most skeptical of you out there, at the very least, will be compelled to dig a little into topics held to be sacred. Open your mind and let Mr. Scheff take you on an entertaining, eye-opening, and hopefully epiphanic journey… you won’t be disappointed!” [Amazon]

– New York’s Incarnation Children’s Center – Guinea Pig Kids
An interview with Liam Scheff and Mimi Pascual, hosted by Lizz Brown, detailing the atrocities that occurred at the Incarnation Children’s House in New York City, where mostly poor and black orphans were used as guinea pigs for highly toxic antiretroviral drug experiments. The interview was recorded on August 6, 2005.