Posted on 04/23/2004 8:09:14 PM PDT by neverdem
REUTERS
New evidence rebuts a controversial theory that the AIDS pandemic was touched off by contaminated polio vaccines used in the 1950's in what was then the Belgian Congo, American scientists reported yesterday.
The theory holds that the vaccines were tainted with chimpanzee tissue that contained an ancestor of H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS. But in a study published yesterday in the journal Nature, a team of researchers led by Dr. Michael Worobey of the University of Arizona said it had discovered a new strain of chimpanzee virus near Kisangani in the Democratic Republic of Congo that is very different from H.I.V., further evidence, the team said, that the animals could not have been the source of human AIDS.
"The locally circulating strain is very distantly related to H.I.V.," Dr. Worobey said in a telephone interview. "It is not a virus that could have been the progenitor, and therefore H.I.V. did not come from that region."
But Edward Hooper, a British journalist who in 1999 wrote about the theory connecting polio vaccine and AIDS in his book "The River," said Dr. Worobey's conclusion was incorrect.
"Although Worobey's new research is helpful, the chimp groups his team has sampled are far from being representative of the chimpanzees that were used for the polio vaccine research," Mr. Hooper said in a statement.
The generally accepted view among scientists is that a chimpanzee virus jumped species when a human was bitten by a chimpanzee or when people ate contaminated chimpanzee flesh.
In their article, Dr. Worobey and his colleagues said their data should finally lay the polio vaccine theory to rest. In light of current fears in some parts of the world about the safety of polio vaccines, they added, "our clear-cut evidence against one of the key sources of concern is timely."
Nope, most likely trasmitted originally by some sort of scratch or cut in capturing monkeys or preparing them for food ("Bushmeat" or eating chimpanzees and monkeys is popular in Africa.)
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In the US, homosexuals account for a little over 50% of HIV/AIDS cases at the last time I looked at the numbers. In the rest of the world, especially Africa, heterosexual transmission accounts for the vast majority. It's aggravated by other concomitant venereal diseases like syphilis, herpes simplex type II, etc. where people have genital ulcers and little or no medical care.
The only problem i have with the bushmeat theory is that the denizens that dwell around the Congo have been consuming bushmeat (eg bonobos, duikers etc) for centuries. How come the HIV virus arose within the last 50 or so years (I believe it is currently accepted that the virus started to spread in the 60s ...although it was 'discovered' in the 80s).
If the virii genesis stemmed from bushmeat (and people coming into contact with infected blood, which got into cuts in their hands or something, and managed to make an inter-species jump), then two things should have happened.
One: HIV should have been exceedingly rampant in the area for a very very long time (centuries even), especially considering that its limited virulence (it does not kill with the same speed and efficacy as Ebola for example) would allow it to spread well into those communities (yet today, even among 'bushmeat' eating populations, the infected people are primarily men who work in the cities or in logging operations, who pick up the virus from prosititutes ....normally with other venereal infections ...., and their wives when their hubbies infect them).
Two: If it was from bushmeat shouldn't the hunters have developed some sort of antibody since in all the decades and centuries infected animal blood with the HIV precursor virus (whether it be simian or duiker) would have exposed them to the antigens. Yet again the hunters come negative, not only to infection but to any sort of antigen response.
Yet when Ebola outbreaks occur the hunters are always the first to fall ill (they still do not where the Ebola virus 'hides' between outbreaks, but there is definitely some animal connection .....but no one knows what). Strangely though the same is not true for HIV.
Bushmeat may seem like a good choice for HIV genesis, but it raises a lot of questions.
Somehow something happened within the last half century that led to the introduction of HIV to humans, and within a short-time (disease-wise) it had spread throughout the globe (primarily due to modern transportation and modern morals). Yet, the zero-source for the alleged bushmeat connection-the hunters-seem to be absolutely ok. A secondary theory could be the reason they are ok is because they developed some sort of immunity to the virus (like some prostitutes in Africa have to one form of HIV ...I believe A), but on being tested the hunters are just as vulnerable as any normal human being hence negating that secondary theory. And whenever a bushmeat related disease (eg Ebola) breaks out it is always the hunters and their families that take the brunt.
Whatcha think? I am not saying it is not the source ....it is just that personally that theory has some holes in it. The only problem is that now that the Polio theory seems to have been debunked there are not many sensible theories left out there (meaning the crackpot theories of racial 'genocide' and what-not are silly). Hence this is a conundrum. Anyways, whatcha think? LOL.
Addendum: The consumption of Bushmeat is not as widespread in Africa as is conventionally thought. The only regions that consume bushmeat are the parts adjacent to the Virungas, the Congo, and swathes of the remaining parts of Central Africa. Infact the animals that are reportedly the animal link of the HIV precursor (i.e bonobos , chimpanzees,and lowland and highland gorillas, are to be found in Central Africa ...with scattered populations in Uganda-which is in east Africa but just adjacent to Central Africa, and even the part i know of in Uganda was started as a wildlife refuge for chimps after they have been almost wiped out in the country formerly known as Zaire). Most of Africa does not consume monkeys and apes, and infact the only people who do not associate such 'food' as taboo are those that live in the afore-mentioned areas (central Africa)....eating primates is anathema virtually everwhere else. In most parts of Africa the only places you will find gorillas and chimps are in well financed zoos and special wildlife-preservation areas.
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