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Chimp Virus Is Linked to H.I.V.
NY Times ^ | May 26, 2006 | LAWRENCE K. ALTMAN

Posted on 05/25/2006 9:40:17 PM PDT by neverdem

By studying chimpanzee droppings in remote African jungles, scientists reported yesterday, they have found direct evidence of a missing link between a chimpanzee virus and the one that causes human AIDS.

Scientists have long suspected that chimpanzees are the source of the human AIDS pandemic because at least one subspecies carries a simian immune deficiency virus closely related to H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS.

But because the simian virus, known as S.I.V.cpz, was identified in chimpanzees in captivity, researchers could not be sure that the same simian virus existed among these apes in the wild.

It does, the team of American, European and Cameroonian scientists reported in the journal Science. They found it by testing hundreds of chimpanzee droppings collected in Cameroon.

The genetic and immunologic tests were developed in stages over the past seven years to help trace the evolution of H.I.V. and solve the mysterious origins of AIDS, said Dr. Beatrice H. Hahn, a virologist at the University of Alabama in Birmingham. Dr. Hahn led the international team that conducted the study, which combined genetics and epidemiology.

The new findings, she said in a telephone interview, do not explain the entire chain of events that led from the first human H.I.V. infection to the infection of 65 million people around the world.

But, Dr. Hahn reported, her team's findings show "for the first time a clear picture of the origin of H.I.V.-1 and the seeds of the AIDS pandemic." H.I.V.-1 is the virus that causes the vast majority of AIDS cases in the world. The first cases of AIDS were detected in the United States in 1981.

Studies estimate that the human AIDS virus jumped species 50 to 75 years ago. But no one knows who the first infected person was or how that person acquired H.I.V...

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: africa; aids; apes; cameroon; chimpanzees; hiv; hivaids; hivorigins; manpurse; monkeys; polio; savage; siv; vaccines; viruses; weiner; weinerbots
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To: Cementjungle

He did have a monkey under his desk in the Oval office more than once.


41 posted on 05/26/2006 8:07:27 AM PDT by F.J. Mitchell (A government that will not enforce the laws of the land, is a government standing on quicksand.)
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To: Mother Abigail
My first day in veterinary school the Dean gave us a speech. He said 50% of all you learn here will be obsolete or proven false within ten years and it is your job to learn it all and continue to find out which is true and which is false. He was right but I think the percentage is higher, like 66% is wrong or false. Your data just continues to validate that statement.
42 posted on 05/26/2006 8:24:15 AM PDT by vetvetdoug
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To: Mother Abigail

Thanks for the info & link.


43 posted on 05/26/2006 12:56:31 PM PDT by neverdem (May you be in heaven a half hour before the devil knows that you're dead.)
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To: John Valentine; agere_contra
What this study does not say, at least in the abstract, is whether any of these HIV positive infants were given anti-viral drugs.

If they were given anti-virals, then the study is worthless.

You can go back to the link in comment# 24. The links in the abstract function, if not always as expected. IIRC, the anti-viral drugs were continued as long as the kids continued having significant p24 antigen titers, which was used as a surrogate for eventually positive HIV cultures.

Here's another article for which I have to thank you for causing me to search for it. Click on "Related Articles" at PubMed for more.

Basics of the virology of HIV-1 and its replication.

Human immunodeficiency virus is undoubtedly the causative agent of AIDS. The understanding of HIV-1 pathogenesis is essential to develop and maintain antiretroviral treatment and vaccination. Since the first isolation of HIV-1 in cell culture, thousands of publications dealing with HIV and/or AIDS per year were released. In this review we give a basic overview of the virology of HIV-1 including the functions of the different HIV-1 proteins required for effective viral replication. Moreover, we summarize the interactive processes between HIV-1 and its target cells. Finally, the HIV-1 specific immune response and the current status of antiretroviral therapy are briefly described in this review.

44 posted on 05/26/2006 1:24:17 PM PDT by neverdem (May you be in heaven a half hour before the devil knows that you're dead.)
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To: Mother Abigail; vetvetdoug

You might be interested in the link I found, "Basics of the virology of HIV-1 and its replication." It's in comment# 44.


45 posted on 05/26/2006 1:31:47 PM PDT by neverdem (May you be in heaven a half hour before the devil knows that you're dead.)
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To: neverdem
Human immunodeficiency virus is undoubtedly the causative agent of AIDS. The understanding of HIV-1 pathogenesis is essential to develop and maintain antiretroviral treatment and vaccination. Since the first isolation of HIV-1 in cell culture, thousands of publications dealing with HIV and/or AIDS per year were released.

This is typical of mainstream HIV articles. An bare assertion buttressed only by an intensifying adjective, and followed by an appeal to conformity.

46 posted on 05/26/2006 2:45:54 PM PDT by John Valentine
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To: John Valentine
This is typical of mainstream HIV articles. An bare assertion buttressed only by an intensifying adjective, and followed by an appeal to conformity.

You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. Alternatively, there are none so blind as those who refuse to see.

The following link includes the entire article including references. Once again, thanks for the impetus to find it.

Laboratory methods for early detection of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 in newborns and infants.

Cumulative data on serological testing of newborns and infants have shown that (i) maternal and newborn anti-HIV-1 IgG titers are high at delivery, which may explain the persistence of antibody in the infants of seropositive mothers; (ii) in some situations, serial HIV-1 antibody testing may identify infected infants; and (iii) detection of anti-HIV-1 IgA or IgM is specific for infection but the sensitivity of this assay may be compromised in certain situations, such as when infected infants are hypogammaglobulinemic or when the rise and fall of HIV-1-specific IgM synthesis following acute infection has been completed before delivery of the infant. Cumulative data on PCR, viral culture, and tests for antigen in newborns and infants have shown that (i) among all age groups, viral culture is probably the most specific test available for detection of HIV-1, as PCR and the p24 antigen test may (though rarely) give false-positive results; (ii) the sensitivity of these tests increases in the order of antigen, culture, and PCR, with relatively insensitive results in the first 3 months of life for all of these tests; (iii) the sensitivity of all of these tests improves and approximates 90 to 100% when infants over 6 months of age are tested; and (iv) data regarding the sensitivity, specificity, and usefulness of these virological assays in infants under 3 months of age are very scant and inconclusive.

47 posted on 05/26/2006 4:25:08 PM PDT by neverdem (May you be in heaven a half hour before the devil knows that you're dead.)
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To: neverdem

Look, surely HIV exists and is transmitted en utero. That's not at issue.

What is at issue is the consequence of this. If left alone there would be no consequence whatsoever of an HIV infection; epidemiological data suggests this virus has been infecting humans for centuries, millennia or longer. But when Doctors decide to poison innocent children with lethal anti-virals in the name of "curing" a harmless passenger virus, they are inadvertently causing with their treatment the very disease they claim to be curing.

It's happened before, and its happening with AIDS.

Some people are bound to notice and object, that's natural, and its also entirely natural that Doctors are not too eager to face the horror they have created, and will insist that they are acting rationally. This means that by and large they will continue to insist that HIV causes AIDS even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

Otherwise they would have to admit horriffic responsibility.


48 posted on 05/26/2006 6:34:20 PM PDT by John Valentine
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To: neverdem

Worst Job alert.


49 posted on 05/26/2006 6:40:07 PM PDT by TASMANIANRED (The Internet is the samizdat of liberty..)
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To: John Valentine
What overwhelming evidence to the contrary? They were being killed from HIV/AIDS before they had antiretroviral drugs. Folks were being killed from contaminated blood transfusions, blood products for hemophiliacs and needle sticks in healthcare personnel before the advent of antiretroviral drugs. Now in many places around the world they are dying from HIV/AIDS without any antiretroviral drugs.

I'm not saying antiretroviral drugs don't have any adverse drug reactions. I always have a first suspicion about adverse drug reactions. I don't buy Duesberg's argument of misdiagnosis, and I don't buy that it's a big Pharma cabal.

50 posted on 05/26/2006 9:40:31 PM PDT by neverdem (May you be in heaven a half hour before the devil knows that you're dead.)
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To: TASMANIANRED
Worst Job alert.

That's over my head. What's that supposed to mean, collecting contaminated chimp crap?

51 posted on 05/26/2006 9:43:48 PM PDT by neverdem (May you be in heaven a half hour before the devil knows that you're dead.)
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To: neverdem

Until Doctors started killing HIV positive individuals with AZT and other antivirals, the only people dying were gays and intravenous drug abuserswho had driven their own immune systems into oblivion through drug use and other chronic insults to their immune systems.

No healthcare worker has ever died of a needle stick unless they were persuaded to undergo antiviral treatment. You say otherwise, then provide me with a name. I don't believe you can, because to the best of my kowledge there isn't one. Not one.

You say that "in many places around the world they are dying from HIV/AIDS without any retroviral drugs." I don't doubt that there are people all around the world dying of many causes, and no doubt some of them are HIV positive, but whatever they are dying from, they aren't dying of an HIV infection. They are merely dying of any one of a couple dozen different diseases.

But, because some are HIV positive, they are labled as "AIDS" patients or "AIDS" deaths, while the patient in the next bed dying of the exact same disease is denied the label because the individual is not HIV positive.

HIV is associated with AIDS solely by definition. Causality has nothing to do with it.


52 posted on 05/26/2006 11:43:20 PM PDT by John Valentine
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To: kellynla

I'm waiting for someone to say this is racist.


53 posted on 05/26/2006 11:47:48 PM PDT by Jorge
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To: Tired of Taxes

The vaccines in question were based on viruses cultivated in the kidney cells of primates known as green monkeys. That said, it is not certain whether SIV/HIV was present in that species as well as in chimpanzees....


54 posted on 05/26/2006 11:54:14 PM PDT by tracer
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To: John Valentine
Until Doctors started killing HIV positive individuals with AZT and other antivirals, the only people dying were gays and intravenous drug abuserswho had driven their own immune systems into oblivion through drug use and other chronic insults to their immune systems.

No healthcare worker has ever died of a needle stick unless they were persuaded to undergo antiviral treatment. You say otherwise, then provide me with a name. I don't believe you can, because to the best of my kowledge there isn't one. Not one.

The demand for the name of any healthcare worker is preposterous on the face of it. How could I obtain it in the first place, and then disclose it without liability?

AIDS therapy with azt first started in 1988 as a regular prescription drug

Glaxo's Patent Protection on First AIDS Drug, AZT, ends; AHF Blasts Glaxo's & Drug Industry's Greed

Give or take a year, National Guard troops were screened for HIV antibodies in 1987. After I received a scholarship from the goverment's Health Profession's Scholarship Program for medical school, I was discharged from my unit in May 1988. I had been an acting platoon sergeant at the time. One of my squad leaders was positive. Show me antiretroviral drug toxicity in blood and blood product recipients prior to that time in blood and blood product recipients.

55 posted on 05/27/2006 1:35:45 AM PDT by neverdem (May you be in heaven a half hour before the devil knows that you're dead.)
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To: Mother Abigail
Indeed. In addition I read a paper presented at the Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections conference that put the date of the first human infection at 1930. Granted it was plus or minus 15 years but it still predates the vaccine issue.

While the above is probably as definitive as it'll get I've seen other studies that suggest the first infection may have occured as early as the late 19th century.

56 posted on 05/27/2006 2:02:17 AM PDT by Proud_texan (I'm gonna break my rusty cage and run)
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To: neverdem

Unfortunately I don't have my references with me as I write, so I can't provide references or quotes. There have been several challenges trying to identify any healthcare worker infected with HIV who became an AIDS case without the intervention of antivirals. To my knowledge no individual meeting these criteria has ever been identified. I'm open to the possibility that someone exists, but its strange that not a single such individual has ever been identified.

Antiviral treatment is only one of a number of massive, chronic insults to the immune system that can cause immune system collapse and the onset of opportunisitic infections and diseases that are, because of the unique and circular way that AIDS is defined, commonly (or uncommonly) associated with AIDS. Neither I nor anyone sharing my perspective on this disease would suggest that prior to the use of AZT and other antivirals, that people weren't dying of a number of diseases ravaging individuals with profoundly weakened immune systems, only that the use of antivirals to treat otherwise benign HIV infections acerbated the situation, and created the false impression that the epidemic was spreading.


57 posted on 05/27/2006 3:08:08 AM PDT by John Valentine
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To: vetvetdoug


The great tragedy of science -- the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact.

--Thomas Huxley

MA


58 posted on 05/27/2006 5:10:46 AM PDT by Mother Abigail
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To: John Valentine
Unfortunately I don't have my references with me as I write, so I can't provide references or quotes.

If you don't have anything to say, maybe you shouldn't say anything. Healthcare personnel infected with HIV were 56 documented and 138 possible as of June 2000. Do you need the reference? Here AIDing Disease, comment# 16. Forget about them.

How do you account for the mortality of all of those infected by blood transfusions and blood products prior to the use of AZT? How do you account for the reduction of mortality in transfusion and blood product recipients since blood was screened for HIV antibodies?

HIV and the Blood Supply: An Analysis of Crisis Decisionmaking (1995)

How do you account for the decrease in mother to child transmission at childbirth, i.e. vertical transmission, with the use of antiretroviral drugs?

59 posted on 05/27/2006 11:59:28 AM PDT by neverdem (May you be in heaven a half hour before the devil knows that you're dead.)
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To: neverdem

Crap inspector for Chimps doesn't sound like my dream job.


60 posted on 05/27/2006 12:00:03 PM PDT by TASMANIANRED (The Internet is the samizdat of liberty..)
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