From: weemba@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu (Matthew P Wiener)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.african.american
Subject: Re: Mweene Islands vs. Normal Islands
Date: 17 Dec 92 19:34:43 GMT
Reply-To: weemba@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu (Matthew P Wiener)
Organization: The Wistar Institute of Anatomy and Biology
In-reply-to: M.Titahmboh@lut.ac.uk (Mana TitahMboh)

In article <1992Dec17.141021.8700@lut.ac.uk>, M.Titahmboh@lut (Mana TitahMboh) writes:
>|> My point is that is not contradictory to claim that HIV was very rare in
>|> the fifties and sixties and that it then exploded in the seventies.  The
>|> first idea that fits this is monkey -> isolated people.  It is probably
>|> not the correct resolution.

>Does this hypothesis come from a statistical study or is it just a
>"plausible-sounding" thought?

It comes from a _very_ plausible thought: you don't find similar viruses
in two different species without a crossover.  Human -> monkey is very
unlikely--monkeys don't go around handling human blood, and the virus
seems to be new in humans, but not in monkeys.  In particular, it is not
lethal except for one African -> Asian cross-species infection.  Monkeys
could have had the virus for thousands of years, and mutating over the
centuries until it reached a form which happens to be human lethal.
Most of the time, crossovers occurred and had no effect.

My own belief is that isolation is not very relevant.  There are many HIV
strains which are *not* infectious.  The virus evolves inside infected
people.  Because the immune system is still responding during the early
stages, the surviving viruses become deadlier and deadlier.  HIV-2 (which
is similar to SIV_agm) produces only a mild form of AIDS.  So I have a
vision of a change from SIV_agm -> HIV-2 -> HIV-1 that was mostly harmless
along the way, and the one strain that turned out to be slow and lethal
arose just as modern transportation and gay liberation and intravenous
drug addicts made it possible to explosively spread the virus.

>|> That's part of it.  Note that `promiscuity' is definitely a loaded word,
>|> and it assumes Western mainstream heterosexuality as a standard of proper
>|> activity--polygamy is common in Africa.

>I pointed out the view that promiscuity influences the *spread*, not that it
>*causes* AIDS.

I agree.  But as long as an argument is being presented that theory X is
bogus since it wouldn't account for the later spread, I have to discuss
mechanisms of spreading.

>*	        As for polygamy, it did not start recently and cannot be viewed
>as a key factor.

It just means there are more contacts.  I brought it up since Westerners
tend to consider polygamy as a form of promiscuity, which is nonsense.

>                 On the other hand, promiscuity as results from
>prostitution would not explain it either way for you could argue that
>the europeans/americans coud have brought it over and infected the
>prostitutes just as you could argue vice versa!

You are half right.  A good deal of the world epidemic today is due to
the Americans.  This isn't even debatable--country after country can trace
their epidemic to a specific "patient zero" who picked it up in America,
and their rising caseload is following the American numbers on time delay.

But in terms of origins, this doesn't fit.  Where did the original American
or Europeans get it from?  The zoo?  Why was the initial European explosion
seen among Zairians in Europe?

>|> HIV probably started its explosive spread from many of several factors.
>|> A rise in STDs imported from Europe would have made the virus easier to
>|> transmit sexually.  A rise in blood transfusions (for anemia, malaria,
>|> etc) would have given the virus a kickstart.  Convenient transportation
>|> is probably a major factor in the later explosion--HIV-1 is clustered
>|> along the routes from Mombasa and Dar es Salaam. 

>True, but this does not imply that the virus started there, it just
>explains ,i@ we take it as such, how the spread carried.

I agree that there is no proof of where the virus started.  Just that the
African origin idea is not a tissue of self-contradictions and reality
denials, as some have been claiming.

>|> I haven't looked up the details of the WHO smallpox vaccination
>|> campaign, and in particular, whether there was a potential problem
>|> with shared needles.

I've been asking around, and people tell me "no way" would they have taken
any precautions.  It was not a perceived risk.

>|> I've been rereading Randy Shilts AND THE BAND PLAYED ON, and he tells us
>|> that one of the first European cases was a Portuguese sailor/driver who
>|> had been in Angola during the war.  I had mentioned Zaire -> Cuba as a
>|> possibility, and this led Mr Mweeme, to misremember his history of the
>|> region.  Not only had Zaire been involved in backing one of the Angolan
>|> factions, Angola at one point had invaded southern Zaire.

>Did the poor sailor just go to Angola and back home? If so, how come the
>Portuguese colonists[?] did not -or did they?- get infected given that they
>spent more time in that country?

Even though Angola did not have South Africa's sex laws, I don't think
white/black sex was all that common.  But considering that the Portuguese,
their country, their former colonies, and west sub-Saharan Africa, are
the major areas where HIV-2 is found, the answer is yes, the colonists
got it too.

>                                 The "possibility" is certainly a
>"possibility" but no more than that and would might sharing with us
>what you based that conjecture on?

It's just a historical possibility that would fit the known facts.  Mr
Mweene and/or Mr Mukasa seem to have the impression that I'm pushing the
idea that gay black Africans had something to do with the early history.

>|> As long as Cuba keeps its records shut to the outside world, my
>|> idea will remain unverifiable.  One other likely route from Africa
>|> to America turns out to have been the American Bicentennial of all
>|> things.  _ALL_ the initial American cases in the 80s turned out
>|> had been in NYC (together) for the Tall Ships 4 July celebration,
>|> along with sailors from fiftysome countries.

>Were these fifty some countries african countries? I personally doubt
>that a load of africans would go over to "celebrate" the American
>Bicentennial!

It's standard diplomacy.  There are a number of African countries that
have maintained ties with the US over the years.  Unless there was some
particular point that needed to be boycotted over, I expect Mobutu would
have sent some Zairians.  I'll look it up.

>	       Even if these ships had come over from africa could not
>they have carried the desease back rather than forth?

That is a possibility.  Note though, the virus had already begun to show
up in the US and Africa by then anyway, so it's definitely not the original
vector.  But it may have been one of the sources of the later explosion.
Nobody knows.

>|> He mentions another minor detail that accords with an African origin.
>|> HTLV-1 is found in a very limited location--those parts of Japan that
>|> had been visited by Portuguese explorers from Africa many centuries ago.

>Again could they not have brought the desease to africa rather than
>taken it thence?

You would expect it to show up in more of Japan.  The past two days,
I've been doing more reading on HTLV-1.  The above was just the original
detection.  HTLV-1 has since been found in Afro-Caribbean populations,
but more curiously also the Ainu people of northern Japan, who had no
Portuguese connection.  So the origin of HTLV-1 is a mystery--I withdraw
the comment.  Without an animal origin to focus on, there isn't a place
to pin it down to.

>		  And how come this stayed so quiet over the centuries?

It's not so lethal as HIV.  It causes leukemia in some people.  And since
it's a retrovirus, it probably has mutated a lot over time.  It could have
been a harmless virus for several centuries, and no one would have noticed.
-- 
-Matthew P Wiener (weemba@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu)