From: dhartung@chinet.chi.il.us (Dan Hartung)
Subject: Re: Where AIDS came from
Organization: Chinet - Public Access UNIX
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1993 23:51:42 GMT

gj156879@alfred.carleton.ca ( gj student 156879) writes:
>The following story was told to me by a friend of mine who says a
>prof told it to him in class.  Whether it is true or not, I have no
>idea.  It would be interesting if it were.
>
>The Prof claimed he had a reporter friend who was on the trail of
>where AIDS came from.  The reporter said that it seemed strange that
>AIDS broke out in Africa and among the gay community of San Fran at
>exactly the same time.  How does such a lethal virus bop about like
>that?

But it didn't.  It was present in Africa for a few years before appearing
in Europe and America.  There is also evidence that it may have been
around, merely extremely rare, for many years before that.

>The reporter (according to the prof) was tracking down some monkeys
>used in government work.  Apparently the monkeys were used (?) to
>make/test a vaccine (hepatitis?  something else?) used both in San
>Fran and Africa.  It is suggested that these monkeys were tested
>earlier, toyed with with certain FUN bacteria, manufactured by evil
>yanks.  The results of this toying seemed to have no effect (there was
>no aids test back then), so the monkeys were either handed over to
>another government quadrant, or somehow accidentally ended up there.
>Thus, spreading AIDS about to gays and Africans.

This is speculative hogwash based on the fact that green monkeys
(I think that's their name) carry an autoimmue virus that is very 
similar in many ways to HIV.  These monkeys are found in central
Africa, near where the virus is first found among humans in large
numbers, and one might reasonably suppose there is a connection of
some kind.  None has ever been conclusively demonstrated, however.

>Anybody buy this or heard this anywhere else?  It seems like an
>interesting idea.  I wonder myself at how often "plagues" just
>suddenly appear out of nowhere and ravage the land.  I suspect even
>the bubonic plague slowly started (due to unsanitary living
>conditions, etc).  A sudden appearance of a lethal sexually
>transmitted disease seems a tad strange.

Not strange at all.  In fact, disease and civilization go hand in hand.
What a disease needs to become an epidemic are two things: concentrations
of carriers (i.e. cities) and mobile carriers (i.e. shipping, trade,
etc.).  The modern world has both in abundance.  

Note how every couple of years a new flu strain spreads across the
continent.  It only takes weeks!  By contrast AIDS is difficult to
catch and slow to spread.

What is intriguing to my mind is how a virulent autoimmune disease should
appear just as the science of autoimmuity was starting up.  We are 
really lucky it happened now, and not 50 or 150 years ago.

>Is this just a folklore thing?  
>
>It's interesting to consider the implications of the above.  If it
>were true, the yank government would be liable for deaths left, right
>and center.  Hell, I believe the american government kept denying
>Agent Orange caused cancer until there were very few people left who
>had used agent orange so that when they pay off came, it was cheaper
>than if they admitted it right from the start.

There are dozens of conspiracy theories regarding US bio weapons 
research, anti-cancer research, even anti-animal-diseases research,
somehow being the "genesis" of AIDS.  People don't like to accept
that the simplest explanation is the probably truth -- it just
recently evolved into a quick-spreading virus.

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