AIDS Virus Now Estimated To Be 100 Years Old

ChazeFroy writes "A new study estimates that the AIDS virus, HIV, started to circulate in the human population between 1884 and 1924, with a more focused estimate at 1908. This is much earlier than the previously-held estimate of 1930. 'The new result is "not a monumental shift, but it means the virus was circulating under our radar even longer than we knew," says Michael Worobey of the University of Arizona, an author of the new work.' The article also speculates that HIV first began to spread in Kinshasa, Congo."

Comments

Wait, what?

[DurendalMac]

But I thought it was made back in the 60/70s to wipe out gay and black people! You mean it wasn't the government or the Jews that did it? /loony

Re:Wait, what?

[smellsofbikes]

Not to be snide, but:
>How could a disease with such a long incubation period not be recognized for over a century?

I think you've answered your own question.

All you need is for the disease symptoms to take longer to show up than the average lifespan of the victims and you have a basically invisible disease.
Add doctors' general unwillingness to put 'cause of death: unknown' on death certificates, and put your disease in a place where young death from other diseases -- particularly cholera, yellow fever, and smallpox -- was completely rampant, and you have everything you need to make a disease run for fifty years invisibly.
In 1910, there were still widely-respected doctors arguing that bad air was responsible for malaria and yellow fever. The idea that a viral infection could stay latent for 15 years after contraction was completely out of their experience.

Re:Wait, what?

[Tubal-Cain]

Add doctors' general unwillingness to put 'cause of death: unknown' on death certificates, and put your disease in a place where young death from other diseases -- particularly cholera, yellow fever, and smallpox --

Actually, the cause of death wasn't unknown. They very clearly died of cholera/yellow fever/smallpox, and the patient had always been rather sickly. The doctors just didn't realize that there was a disease that caused the patient to be sickly all those years.

Re:Wait, what?

[archen]

I'm skeptical. How could a disease with such a long incubation period not be recognized for over a century

Keep in mind that AIDS doesn't actually kill you. Your immune system is defeated by AIDS and something else kills you. If you have the flu (which can be fatal), then die, the conclusion would probably be that the person died of the flu instead of that their immune system was compromised by some virus that stays dormant for years. Then add onto that the medical technology of the period, and what it was in Africa at that time.

Re:Wait, what?

[Mr. Slippery]

The interesting part is that the treatment model that accompanied the behavioral theory - i.e. "stop fucking people you aren't married/monogamous with" - would have had a BETTER societal outcome than the current treatment model.

It's not necessary to "stop fucking people you aren't married/monogamous with" to stop the spread of HIV. It's necessary to "stop fucking people whose HIV status you don't know" and "stop fucking without a condom".

Some of us just aren't wired for monogamy, and telling people "don't be what you are!" is always a piss-poor recommendation. Especially when it comes to basic drives like sex.

Get tested, ask your partners to get tested, and just wear it.

Re:Wait, what?

[Free the Cowards]

True but completely misses the point. The point being, unless you're aware of AIDS or you have access to a lot of different cases and are good at spotting abnormal patterns, AIDS deaths look like deaths from other diseases. In other words, AIDS could suddenly appear on the scene without being detected because, to doctors who would see AIDS deaths, it just looks like more of the same.

Re:Maybe Duesberg was right

[compro01]

HIV/AIDS simply requires certain circumstances (which didn't exist until relatively recently) to thrive effectively due to its specific limitations, such as its means of transmission.

A fire in a desert will not spread effectively, as there's nothing for it to burn and spread via, but a fire in a drought-ridden forest will thrive.

Re:Wait, read much?

[R2.0]

"I just find it too hard to believe that we could have the technology to invent something like this and nobody else could figure it out, no scientists involved with the creation got cold feet, etc. It seems too James Bondian."

Can you prove the Government DIDN'T custom build AIDS? No? Well there you go - the theory is fully supported.

Re:Wait, read much?

[Shirakawasuna]

You cite Horowitz as a reliable source? Have you ever even heard the man speak? Anyone with *any* rudimentary knowledge of HIV can see through his BS, when they're not laughing at his ignorance and fearing that people will actually listen to him. Just to see what happens what happens when an undergraduate science student can do with his ignorance, when he isn't acting like a raving lunatic, check Infidel Guy's interview with him and SA Smith: http://media.libsyn.com/media/infidelguy/Show14_Origins_of_HIV.mp3

I'm not interested in the inevitable flamewar of debunking each and every one of Horowitz's unsubstantiated rants, but let's just start at some basics hints: the guy sells trinkets and water, a certified kook deluding people, quite likely away from real, effective treatments for HIV. Oh, and it doesn't stop with HIV, he's full-blown antivaccinationist. If anyone is further interested, you can easily go out there and read the many takedowns or hey, I don't know, actually read up on HIV itself and have a truly educated opinion!

Viral vs Bacterial Diseases

[bcwright]

You are basically correct that most of those early victims would have died of other, well-known diseases. In addition there were (and still are) a lot of poorly-understood tropical diseases circulating in the affected population, which would have been almost exclusively native Africans living in great poverty in often remote areas of the continent. It would not have registered high on anyone's radar - everyone knew there were a lot of obscure diseases circulating there, but they didn't affect anyone in the "developed" world and nobody had the tools to track them down or treat them in any event; antibiotics were still decades in the future.

However the specific examples of smallpox and yellow fever would probably not have been the most likely secondary infections to cause death. These two diseases are viral diseases, and most of the opportunistic infections that characterize AIDS are bacterial or fungal.

Nevertheless your main point - that the secondary infections would have been mistakenly believed to be the primary infections - is well-taken, it's just that the secondary infections would have been primarily things like cholera, tuberculosis, pneumonia, and so forth.

Re:Wait, read much?

[bcwright]

This is the problem with most "vast conspiracy theories" about just about any topic. The problem is that the success of any conspiracy is usually inversely proportional to both the number of individuals involved and the technical difficulty of achieving its goals. Do you really think that any large governmental body (pick your favorite villain country, it doesn't matter) is both able to cover its tracks so well that nobody (except for the conspiracy theorists, of course, but they always have an infinite supply of tinfoil) is able to see through the ruse, and able to command such fanatic loyalty that thousands or even millions of individuals are sworn to silence for decades?! These are the same people who brought you such monumental successes as the Watergate break-in, the Katrina relief effort, the Maginot line, etc, etc.

Rather what governments are good at (to the extent that they're good at anything) are massive commitments of resources, getting things done by sheer brute force, but often not in a timely or efficient manner. As one person I know says about government, "even a blind squirrel finds the occasional acorn."

Re:What new diseases have crossed over recently?

[Free the Cowards]

Now is the time for a new Apollo program, but in the biological sciences. Now is the time to pick a family of viruses, like influenza, and learn to attack it, not just by public health and immunization measures, but directly through its genetic, biochemical and biological characteristics.

Would this be a program where we focus a good chunk of the national GDP on curing the flu, finally cure it in twelve people, and then never do it again?

In theory, maybe. In practice, absolutely not.

[jbeach]

It would be great if changing people's behaviors were anywhere near that easy. But changing peoples' behaviors is just about the most difficult thing you can try. And especially when you're talking about sex - it's wired directly into the brain, body and mind. So this whole notion of "stop fucking" is in direct conflict with millions of years of hardware **and** software.

For a similar situation, consider how harmful drug addiction is, and how "simple" it is to get off drugs: just stop buying them and taking them. But drugs plug into a lot of the exact same brain and body hardware and software as sex does. As a result, we've found, "Just Say No" doesn't really solve the problem.

I mean hell, a majority of us Americans can't even stop from eating too much. We all consciously know how to lose weight: eat less, exercise more. Doesn't mean we do it - because far more than our conscious mind is involved in that decision.