From: weemba@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu (Matthew P Wiener)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban,soc.culture.african.american,sci.skeptic
Subject: Re: 1950's Darryle, damnit.
Date: 12 Nov 92 00:11:28 GMT
Reply-To: weemba@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu (Matthew P Wiener)
Followup-To: sci.skeptic
Organization: The Wistar Institute of Anatomy and Biology
In-reply-to: dem@engin.umich.edu (Darryle E Merlette)

In article <XrB=1k@engin.umich.edu>, dem@engin (Darryle E Merlette) writes:
>Even if AIDS appeared in the 50's (what evidence is there of this?)

The first known victim is probably a British sailor who died in 1962.
The diagnosis, of course, was made in the 80s.  Blood samples from
Africa taken in the 50s were also tested, and one 1959 sample came
up HIV+.

>>   If you could produce some of this evidence, please? 

>The London Times, May 11, 1987 ("Smallpox vaccine triggered Aids
>virus in Africa and Haiti") tells how the World Health Organization
>injected 100 million Africans (plus 14,000 Haitians working in Zaire)
>with AIDS infested smallpox vaccines. When the Haitians returned to
>Haiti, it spread there. That's why when AIDS was first publicized,
>being Haitian mysteriously made you "high risk".

This is your evidence?  This is a flat out lie.  The article is about an
unproven theory that smallpox vaccination provoked an already existing
subclinical HIV infection.  AIDS is a very unusual disease, involving a
still unknown cat-and-mouse game between the virus and the immune system.
The idea of the theory is that the immune reaction to vaccinia somehow
left the immune system in a vulnerable position for an HIV virus to make
its move.  The only evidence for this theory is the correlation between
AIDS levels and vaccination levels.  The newspaper did not mention any
alternative explanations: the greater medical infrastructure left by the
WHO vaccination campaign is able to detect more cases today, or perhaps
the campaign involved shared needles.

And because of the sensationalist nature of AIDS, even the most wacko
medical theories about its cause become front page news.  So what?  It's
certainly a long shot worth exploring, but it's _zero_ evidence for any
conspiracy theorizing.

By the way, do your conspiracy theories explain why the Africans mostly
have HIV-2, and Americans and Europeans have HIV-1?  HIV-1 is far and way
much more virulent as a killer than HIV-2.  If it's a conspiracy against
Africans, somebody blew it.

>July 1, 1969 the House Appropriations subcommittee hearings report has
>this to say: [regarding the next 5-to-10 years possibly involving the
>development

I haven't checked, but even taking your word, note the dates: 10 years
_after_ the earliest known case, the ability to develop *some* kind of
lethal microorganism is still in the future.

>BTW, this is my last public posting on this thread.

Great!  Maybe the idea of taking responsibility for your own body--as
in be extraordinarily careful regarding sex and drugs--will get through
to some potential victims, instead of more peddling of this conspiracy
nonsense.  I don't know: perhaps *you* are part of a conspiracy to get
blacks to think they have no hope, what with whitey out to get them by
any devious means possible, so they as might as well screw around to the
max, and surprise surprise, they get AIDS, like Magic!
-- 
-Matthew P Wiener (weemba@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban