Study: AIDS dentist likely serial killer

“Authorities had assumed the infections to be an ‘accident,’ but Horowitz said there is now ‘substantial evidence’ to believe Acer infected the patients on purpose, although Horowitz conceded that evidence was circumstantial.

“Horowitz, a Harvard graduate researcher, who also has a doctorate in dentistry, said he based his conclusions on a three-year study of previously unreported medical and legal documents. He said Acer infected the patients to ‘express a vendetta’ against the U.S. Public Health Service and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The scientist said Acer’s principal motive was to seek revenge against the health agencies he believed infected homosexuals with AIDS during an experimental hepatitis B vaccination program in the 1970s.

“The first of at least six people allegedly infected by Acer, Kimberly Bergalis, later died of AIDS. Horowitz said his findings support the theory that Acer murdered Bergalis, even though some media reports claimed the six alleged victims engaged in risky sexual activities and could have been infected elsewhere. Horowitz called such claims ‘indefensible.’

“Because there were no other reported incidents of HIV transmission from a health care worker to a patient, officials at first believed the infections were due to inadequate sterilization practices on the part of Acer, who died on Sept. 3, 1990. Horowitz, who reported his findings in AIDS Patient Care, [and J. Clinical Pediatric Dentistry]  journal[s] for health professionals involved in HIV/AIDS patients, said Acer’s serial killer-like traits included: Social isolation, lack of demonstrated emotion, chronic deceit, denial, anger, alcoholism, pedophilia, being sexually aggressive and assaultive, depression, self-mutilation, rebelliousness against government health authorities and homophobic society, a poor body image, physical fetishes, a dependent and extremely protective maternal relationship, and in his final days, entertaining himself by watching television news accounts about Bergalis, his alleged first victim.”

The aforementioned statements published by United Press International (UPI) pre-dated Dr. Horowitz’s subsequent publication of the book Deadly Innocence: The Kimberly Bergalis Case (Tetrahedron, Inc., 1994).

Horowitz relied on the FBI’s research and publications into the “Motivational Model for Sexual Homicide” developed by the Justice Department’s leading behavioral scientists, Burgess and Ressler. Federal investigators consider more than 60 factors before concluding suspects are serial killers. According to Horowitz’s research, dentist David Acer “matched 60 out of 63” of those factors. Yet, “federal investigators at the CDC claimed Acer was a ‘nice guy’ who ‘wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

Following the doctor’s peer-reviewed science publications solving for many the “Florida Dental AIDS Mystery,” Horowitz’s position as the leading professional advisor for Henry Schein Co., was terminated.

The gross national product in dentistry had rose more than $15B between 1990 and 1991 due to the ‘infection control fright’ caused by the media’s coverage of the deadly disease transmissions. Horowitz’s determinations undermined sales in the infection control industry and enormous profits to stockholders.

Consequently. by the time Horowitz published his controversial findings, company officials financing public health agencies and infectious disease discoveries no longer wished to allay public fears about HIV/AIDS that could reduce corporate profits.