A question about the AIDS virus.

[freethought]

Has it ever been scientificly determined where the AIDS virus orgininated? Someone in GD posted that his son learned in school that AIDS was 'God's Punishment'. I did get to thinking that I had never heard any scientific presentation as to where the virus originated. I did see a '60 Minutes' story on a group of British doctors who recalled a patient they had that died of a disease that seemed to defy explanation. Luckily, they were able to locate tissue samples from this poor fellow which had been held in storage. Testing revealled he had died of AIDS, 50 or so years ago. Has anyone read any literature on this?

[NMDemDist2]

1. IIRC it was a virus that jumped species from monkeys

but I may be wrong

[freethought]

2. Sounds plausible.

I would wonder if any researcher has tried to trace it. Not that it matters. Most energy is being put into finding a cure or vaccine. Rightly so.

[phantom power]

14. Finding the reservoir is also valuable

It could jump species again, in a different form. And you can warn locals and tourists about which species to avoid.

[seventythree]

4. Yes, I heard something similar

people got it from eating infected monkey meat which is a common practice in Africa. Of course, there's the conspiracy theory about gays vacationing in Haiti bringing it to the US, and the US engineering a virus which was only to take out blacks and testing it in Haiti, but not being aware of voodoo practices which involved homosexuality, or some such jibberish.

[serryjw]

3. Personally I think it

is a US government biological warfare that when array

[ancient_nomad]

5. It supposedly originated....

from green monkeys in Africa.

[freethought]

7. Green Monkeys?

Is there such a thing?

[ancient_nomad]

9. Oui! n/t

[freethought]

6. I tend to think that

The infected monkey senario makes more sense. The British fellow who died from AIDS shortly after WWII spent time with allied forces in Africa. Who knows what he may have gotten into.

If anyone has taken ecology at the college level, you learn about certain conditions that come together to 'release' and organism. I guess that same thing sort of thing happened with AIDS.

[applegrove]

8. Some of the first known cases followed a pattern of polio injections

given to villagers in Zaire. A team of doctors had run a lab on the cheap in an attempt to come up with a better vaccine (the race was on between Russia, USA (I think) and this team). They claimed they used certified healthy lab monkeys but locals claim they just took apes out of the Bush in Zaire to do the making of the vaccine. When the experts in Europe saw a sample of this vaccine, it had an anomaly in it. It lost out in the competition (for this reason obviously) and the samples were destroyed.

I saw that story on 60 Minutes too. Don't know if there is definitive proof. Ape - man transfers probably happen quite regularly as we are so closely related (all the flu virus come from domesticated animals). But the vaccination program would have given this virus the jump off it needed to become an epidemic. The War in Angola (1970s & 1980s) had many soldiers from Cuba and Angolans visiting Cuba and vice versa. May explain why the virus was so prevalent in Haiti & Dominican Republic.

Many in Africa were so untrusting of Western medicine because of all the scandals that there have been (someone put birth control pills in African powdered milk in the 1960s or something)- and now myths surrounding the AIDS epidemic. Some feel it is institutionalized genocide. Some didn't believe the virus existed.

George Bush & the Catholic Church should be taken outside and whipped for pushing for fewer (no) condoms and more abstinence (as if all African girls have a choice who they end up marrying or having sex with). What a bunch of freaks Bush & the Catholic Church are.

[uppityperson]

10. There were a few cases back in the 50's-vague recollection

At some AIDS/HIV/HTLV2 conference back in the 80's when I used to go to them, or maybe the 90's when I used to go to them also, I heard about a couple cases back in the 50's that, looking back, it became obvious it was HIV/etc. Sorry I can't give any better details, but there are weird, unexplained medical/health problems all the time and it was after French and USA people isolated HIv/HTLV2 in 80's that they started looking back and came up with some from 30 yrs back then. Sounded like an "oh, thats what it was" incident.

[ancient_nomad]

11. Re: The Origin of Aids

The following site is an excellent source for information on the Aids
virus. It is really worth reading.

http://hivinsite.ucsf.edu/InSite?page=pr-02-10&doc=2098.3cce

snip:

Where did HIV come from?

At this time, most evidence suggests that AIDS has its roots in Africa. In the early 1980s, Robert Gallo speculated that HIV crossed species to humans from an African green monkey. Although this idea has since been discredited, it is still widely believed that HIV came into the human population from one or more non-human primate species.



Scientists have long recognized the ability of certain viruses and other diseases to pass from animals to humans. This process is referred to as zoonosis. Once an animal disease has infected people, it may then be passed from human to human. The Ebola virus, (5) and the Marburg filovirus (6) are two diseases among many which were introduced into humans from animals through zoonotic transfer. Although it has not been proven that HIV came from primates, an SIV has been known to infect humans. (7)

Various means have been suggested through which HIV might have passed from other primates to humans. One theory is that the virus could have been transferred to humans while sooty mangabeys or chimpanzees were butchered for food or kept as pets. The most controversial theories contend that medical science played a role in introducing HIV into the human population. These hypotheses are so contentious because, if proven, the HIV epidemic would have begun as a result of human scientific error. Such a finding would be "incredibly damaging to the image of medicine and medical research," (8) to say the least.

The most well-known of the human error theories is that polio vaccines, which were given to many Africans in the 1950s, could have been contaminated with HIV. The vaccines were prepared using monkey kidneys. Although HIV has not been found in any of the vaccine batches which have been tested thus far, polio vaccines have been found to be contaminated with various other pathogens. One of these, Simian Virus 40 (SV40), infected millions of Americans, although it does not seem to be harmful to humans. (9) The World Health Organization has publicly refuted the arguments of scientists who suggest that the vaccines could have been the channel through which the virus crossed species. Despite this, the controversy continues. A recent letter in The Lancet hypothesized that polio vaccine stocks could have been contaminated by retroviruses. (10)

[Democrats_win]

15. An interesting side to this is colonialization contributed to the spread

"The article also speculates that large-scale vaccination campaigns, perhaps with the multiple use of non-sterilized needles, could have been the culprit."

In my reading, I learned that part of this involves vaccination of slaves. They figured--they're just slaves so why bother.

[Quakerfriend]

12. I believe that the AIDS virus was created

Having worked as a scientist for the NIH for many years, I believe this to be true.

Read Dr. Gary Glum's book, Full Disclosure, and decide for your self.

You won't be surprised. However, it is very heavy. Hard to imagine man's inhumanity to man, on this level.

He told me several years ago that his life had been threatened after he published the book. It is hard to find, but well worth the read.

[seriousstan]

13. Perhaps you should read other books also

http://www.snopes.com/medical/disease/aids.asp

Science forum......indeed.