How do you think AIDS came about? Why?

[Beatrix]

Since AIDS is such a frequent topic recently, and I've seen some people suggest this, I thought it might be an interesting topic for discussion.

Do you think that AIDS came about "randomly/unintentionally" so to speak, or do you think it was perhaps created? And if created, was it in fact made to target GLBT people? If so, did Reagan know about it, and thus remained silent?

It's been proven the US government has conducted experiments on citizens (both civilians and soldiers) in the past. I suppose AIDS could have been one of them.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

1. deforestation in african forest...the virus lives in the soil & the earth

is protecting herself....oh wait that was ebola....never mind

[physioex]

4. LOL...We think alike...EOM

[Warpy]

14. Not quite

The reservoir species is a species of green monkey used as bush meat in west central Africa. It's susapected that AIDS is an old disease that has jumped species before, but waited for urbanization, travel, and the economic disenfranchisement of African women that colonialism brought to become widespread.

The jump is posited to have happened more than once during the butchery of these monkeys. All it took was dripping bush meat and a nick on the butcher's hand for transmission to have occurred.

Scientists who are studying the mutation rate of this virus and trying to trace it backward to the likeliest date for simian-human transmission of the current epidemic to have occurred are pegging it between 1920 and 1930, far too early for the involvement of any scientist, whether mad or just sloppy.

[physioex]

2. Just my own opinion..

But, it comes from deforrestation in Africa. When humans enter forests and mess with things exotic, there are bound to be consequences. The theory that it was engineered is possible, but I like to see something concerete. In the end I don't sit around worrying too much about its origins, but rather what can be done to prevent its spread...

[napi21]

10. It's considered to be from the monkey virus family.

HIV is part of a family or group of viruses called lentiviruses. Lentiviruses other than HIV have been found in a wide range of nonhuman primates. These other lentiviruses are known collectively as simian (monkey) viruses (SIV) where a subscript is used to denote their species of origin.

So where did HIV come from? Did HIV come from an SIV?

It is now generally accepted that HIV is a descendant of simian (monkey) immunodeficiency virus (SIV). Certain simian immunodeficiency viruses bear a very close resemblance to HIV-1 and HIV-2, the two types of HIV.

If you're really interested, here's a link to some research:

http://www.avert.org/origins.htm

[genius]

3. Experiments in Africa during Nixon and Reagan's time

[ElsewheresDaughter]

5. gonorrhea is from lonely shepherds poking sheep and syphilis is from

morticians poking dead people ...perhaps some lonely natives poked rhesus monkeys

[GreenPartyVoter]

6. Well.. I DON'T think it's God's punishment for Gay people

That's as much as I feel sure of.

[AntiCoup2K4]

16. Logically, if AIDS were "God's punishment against Sodomites", then .....

....Lesbians would have to be "God's chosen people", as they are statistically at the lowest risk for HIV infection.

You wouldn't believe how many right wingers I've shut up with that argument :evilgrin:

[Pepperbelly]

7. stuff just happens all the time in diseases ...

Look at things like Ebola or even strains of flu we get hammered with every year. Who knows where they come from ...

Some jump from animals to human and mutating in the process. Spontaneous animation? Hard to say.

[BlueStateGirl]

8. I came across this theory sometime ago.. Aids/Polio/Africa

http://www.uow.edu.au/arts/sts/bmartin/dissent/documents/AIDS/

[Warpy]

15. That's been debunked pretty thoroughly

[BlueStateGirl]

17. And some of the debunking has been debunked, and then debunked again

To be honest, I have read both sides, and they lose me once they start talking about molecular characterizations, and cell structure. In theory I understand it, in practice I have no clue. Scientifically a lot of it is just over my head.

But anyway, it looks like it is still being debated and discussed.

As for me, I have no idea. I tend not to think it was disseminated on purpose to destroy the poor and minorities. That's what crack was for.

[Warpy]

22. Right, it's too damned inefficient a killer

People can be healthy but infectious for up to 15 years. The mean ole gummint would want something a little more efficient.

Basically, the argument against the polio vaccine theory comes from the scientist, himself, who claimed he used a different species of green monkey than is the natural reservoir of the type of SIV that jumped species to become AIDS. Add to that the fact that they've pretty much traced down the most recent species jump to 1920-1930, and that kills that idea.

Yeah, crack was much better at keeping the undesirables controlled and quiet.

[The Backlash Cometh]

9. With billions upon billions of one cell organisms going through an

entire evolutionary process in a relatively blink of an eye, it's a wonder it doesn't happen more often. Which is to say, that in the absence of modern medical solutions, some of the kosher rules were ahead of their time.

[phaed]

11. Yes, Mother's revenge

[Zinfandel]

12. Way too convenient for the 1980 fascist coming into power.

I'm sure AIDS is just one of the many horrible viruses the well funded U.S. government and military has developed working night and day on them for the past 60 years...

It was amazing how AIDS struck perfectly in the what the fascist saw as the undesirables and the wretchedness of humans in our society (much like the Nazi's saw many in the same way)

Homosexuals, Black people and intravenous drug users.

Oops, it got a bit out of hand...but at least it also stopped all the free sex and fucking going on in the 60's & 70's that the 1980 right-wing religious fascist coming into power hated so much.

Way too convenient to be coincidental.

Just like most powerful liberal Senator, Paul Wellstone's plane going down right before a sure win and a tip in the Senate to the Democrats.

Way, way too convenient to be coincidental.

[AntiCoup2K4]

13. Don't know whether or not Reagan knew about it, but Poppy certainly did.

The CDC distributed 2 vaccines in the late 1970's. A small pox vaccine went to central Africa while at the same time a hepatitis vaccine went to the gay community in New York.

The fact that AIDS epidemics broke out in these 2 same populations - with no other reasonable connection between the two - a few years later is no mere coincidince.

The whole purpose of creating the virus was population control. Prescott Bush and others of his ilk were big time believers in Eugenics. Which isn't all that different from what Hitler had in mind. Maybe that's why they got along so well?

Blacks and homosexuals were among the "undesirables" targeted for extinction.

The only reason the Reagan administration ever acted on AIDS at all was that eventually claimed one of their own. Unknown to Ronnie, Poppy, and the gang at the Jellybean Ranch, their friend Terry Dolan, founder of the National Conservative Political Action Committee was in the closet. Dolan died in 1986, but not before being immortalized in song (along with Reagan, Jerry Falwell, Jesse Helms, and Anita Bryant) by the Dead Kennedys "Moral Majority"

[Shopaholic]

18. I always liked Eddie Murphy's explanation:

Some monkey bit a guy in the ass in Africa and now we're all going to die. Having said that, I think it was a genetically engineered virus that got lose and out of control, thanks to nefarious means.

[Duncan Grant]

19. A reputable academic source which may answer your question.

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


The Center for AIDS Prevention Studies - University of California San Francisco: http://www.caps.ucsf.edu/
I have many friends that work here. I can assure you they don't wear tin foil hats. :hi:

[BlueStateGirl]

21. Thanks for the links.

[Duncan Grant]

23. Sure thing!

(btw, I had no idea Marlo Thomas was here at DU! I am so lovin' you.) ;) :hi:

[KT2000]

20. Weapons program

is what I believe. Our military weapons programs have included genetic engineering research. "By 1983, at least 13 recombinant DNA research projects were underway under the sponsorship of the DoD.
They included cloning of genes of various disease causing organisms...."
Clouds of Secrecy, Leonard Cole

If you read the book Osler's Web by Hilary Johnson, you will see that what is called Chronic Fatigue Syndrome had "outbreaks" in several locations around the country at about the same time. This was about the same time that AIDS was recognized. CFIDS being a hyper immune system and AIDS being a depleted immune system.

Also included in the books Clouds of Secrecy and The Eleventh Plague, both by Leonard Cole, are revelations of sloppy lab hygeine (Fort Dedrick) lost vials of pathogens, open air testing on unsuspecting civilians....