Europe's plagues helped halt AIDS Russell Jenkins March 12, 2005 LIFE was nasty, brutish and short when waves of plague swept across Europe right up to the 18th century. Scientific research now suggests, however, that the terrible suffering of those generations means a significant proportion of modern Europeans are now resistant to AIDS. A study by two British biologists published in the Journal of Medical Genetics suggests about 10per cent of Europeans have this protection as a direct result of the series of plagues that swept across the continent from the Middle Ages onwards. Biologists have known for some time...