[Mother Abigail]

http://www.nature.com/nature/links/010426/010426-4.html

Origins of HIV: Polio vaccine cleared

New evidence from three separate laboratories pours cold water on claims that contaminated polio vaccines may have introduced the AIDS virus into humans.

It was suggested that chimpanzee kidney cultures allegedly used in the preparation of oral polio vaccine stocks used in Africa during the late 1950s could have introduced a precursor of HIV-1 into humans.

But now PCR amplification of frozen samples of the suspect vaccine has failed to reveal any HIV-1-related nucleic acids or chimpanzee mitochondrial DNA.

In addition the evidence points to the use of macaque monkey cells, rather than chimpanzee in the vaccines in question.

And finally, a phylogenetic study of modern HIV-1 strains identifies the last common ancestor of HIV-1 group M as a virus present in a human host, rather than as a single transfer from another primate.

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Polio vaccine samples not linked to AIDS
PHILIPPE BLANCOU, JEAN-PIERRE VARTANIAN, CINDY CHRISTOPHERSON, NICOLE CHENCINER, CLAUDIO BASILICO, SHIRLEY KWOK & SIMON WAIN-HOBSON


Vaccine safety: Analysis of oral polio vaccine CHAT stocks
N. BERRY, C. DAVIS, A. JENKINS, D. WOOD, P. MINOR, G. SCHILD, M. BOTTIGER, H. HOLMES & N. ALMOND

Human immunodeficiency virus: Phylogeny and the origin of HIV-1
ANDREW RAMBAUT, DAVID L. ROBERTSON, OLIVER G. PYBUS, MARTINE PEETERS & EDWARD C. HOLMES

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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.

Edward Hooper's book, "The River", has slowly moved from the realm of epidemiological gospel to urban myth.

MA

[vetvetdoug]

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.

[neverdem]

Thanks for the info & link.

[Proud_texan]

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.