From: mcbean@vax.oxford.ac.uk
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban,soc.culture.african.american,sci.skeptic
Subject: Re: 1950's Steve.
Date: 17 Nov 92 16:04:58 GMT
Organization: Oxford University VAX 6620

In article <1992Nov16.001205.3458@nezsdc.icl.co.nz>, derek@nezsdc.icl.co.nz (Derek Tearne) writes:
> In article <1992Nov12.134253@IASTATE.EDU> danwell@IASTATE.EDU (Daniel A Ashlock) writes:
>>
>>   SIV, HIV are retroviruses, a TYPE of virus deiscovered well after AIDS is
>>known to have been loose in the population at large.  Anyone who wants to
>>spread rumors or even theorize about conspiracies should make a big wall chart
>>and make sure their timing works out.  If someone dies of AIDS in 1959 they had
>>to have it in 1955 or so.  Retroviruses were discovered, as a class, in the
>>60's and are hard to locate, sneaky little buggers.  
> 
> Actually I believe they were discovered, as a class, in 1910.  They fell out
> of favour as there were much more exciting viruses to look at.  Retroviruses
> didn't appear to do anything exciting or rapid (cancer or AIDS in 40 or 10+
> years time respectively was not going to enthrall the average early 20th 
> century biologist).  I am still at a loss as to how someone could identify 
> a retrovirus before Whatson and Crick but, hey, Scientific American never 
> lies!
> 
> I was reading through back copies of the above publication at the weekend
> and reading an article on the discovery of retroviruses, how they work etc.
> Specifically HTLV-1 and II (AIDS is in the next months issue but seeing as I 
> am pulling them randomly out of a pile it could be a while before I find it.
> 
> Anyway - HTLV-1 was also originally a monkey disease which transferred 
> itself to man and was spread from Africa to Southern Japan, _Haiti_ and 
> South America among other places.
> 
> How did it get to these places.  The slave trade!  Now this is _well_ 
> before the CIA or WHO infecting Haitian workers.

Really?  So how come there was/is no rampant epidemic in all of the areas
populated by the descendants of slaves before it surfaced in the 80's.  By this
theory Jamaica, Brazil, Barbados, trinidad, etc should have been the first to
experience the epidemic, since the virus would have been mutating rapidly in
the host population?  Or is it that these populations have developed some
amazing immune response to the disease?

Eagerly awaiting your reply.

McBean
>>> That such experiments introduced HIV to the human species may not be highly
>>> probable, but certainly is not a ridiculous notion. And if they experimented
>>> on human subjects, those subjects would be black folks, either in Mississippi
>>> or the Belgian Congo.
> 
> OK 1960's lets go and do some testing in the Belgian Congo.  Now what was 
> happening in the Congo about then.  Let's see.  They kicked the Belgians 
> out during a rather bloody 6 week period in 1961 (or was it 63).  Great
> place to go testing diseases - most of the white people were running away!
> Remember Africa in the '50's and '60's was a particularly volatile and 
> exciting place - not a great place to try out new viruses.  
> 
> 
> -- 
> Derek Tearne.   --   derek@nezsdc.icl.co.nz   --    Fujitsu New Zealand   -- 
> Some of the more aware dinosaurs were worried about the environmental
> consequences of an accident with the new Iridium enriched fusion reactor.  
> "If it goes off only the cockroaches and mammals will survive..." they said.