AIDS virus invaded U.S. from Haiti: study

[Lone_Star_Dem]

Source: Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The AIDS virus invaded the United States in about 1969 from Haiti, carried most likely by a single infected immigrant who set the stage for it to sweep the world in a tragic epidemic, scientists said on Monday.

Michael Worobey, a University of Arizona evolutionary biologist, said the 1969 U.S. entry date is earlier than some experts had believed.

The timeline laid out in the study led by Worobey indicates that HIV infections were occurring in the United States for roughly 12 years before AIDS was first recognized by scientists as a disease in 1981. Many people had died by that point.

"It is somehow chilling to know it was probably circulating for so long under our noses," Worobey said in a telephone interview.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSN2954500820071029

[whistle]

1. Ronald Reagan refused to admit that AIDS even existed

...and therefore provided no national heath policy or programs to prevent the spread of the illness until it became apparent that an AIDS epidemic had in fact begun toward the end of the Reagan presidency. So it took the government 20 years to begin HIV prevention education, and then only reluctantly and with half measures and far too little funding.

[Hieronymus]

2. Sadly, you're right.

[NoGodsNoMasters]

3. Ronald Reagan was a vampire.

This is such a shameful thing, it's a story that needs to be told. How the government watched this thing grow, especially in the gay community,and sat on they're hands. There were definitely those in the CDC or the executive branch probably both, who thought of this terrible disease as a solution as opposed to a problem. It boggles the mind how many people could've been saved. (Including a Mr. Freddie Mercury,.....sorry, I'm a huge Queen fan.)

[0007]

6. So is Condoleezza

Warning enter upon your own risk

?v=1&c=ViewImages&k=2&d=17A4AD9FDB9CF1939057D9939C83F106AE993268386015D85A5397277B4DC33E

[happyslug]

4. Reagan was ahead of the rest of the US when it came to AIDS.

While I do not like Ronnie for many reasons(Especially his record on Taxation, Labor and the environment), his policy toward AIDS was ahead of the rest of the Country. When AIDS hit in 1981 it was first observed in the homosexual community. Standard Policy of the time period to any new sexually transmitted disease was to isolate the individual and locate all sexual partners of anyone affected. This had been done for Syphilis and Gonorrhea for decades. Do to pressure from the Homosexual community the Government did NOT do its standard policy and treated AIDS as a potential Civil Rights problem NOT a Health problem. The county wanted it treated like a Health problem, isolation of anyone who had it and forcing people to tell who they had sex with (With Criminal sanctions imposed if you did NOT give out who you had had sex with).

The government instead of treating AIDS as a Sexual transmitted disease, treated it as a potential Civil Right Violation. People who had sex, were NOT asked who they had sex with, they were NOT jailed to prevent the spread of AIDS, and were NOT even asked NOT to have sex even after it was determined Sex is how the disease was spread. They are people in the Health Professional (i.e. about the spread of disease NOT its cure) who still would like the law to require you to give out the names of everyone you had sex with and even be permitted to give out people's names so that the fact he or she had AIDS could be plastered all over the place (So that people who had sex with the affected person could seek out help and help prevent the Disease from being spread). The Homosexual community opposed these practices and the Federal Government under Reagan agreed with their opposition. This was the main reason AIDS spread so fast after 1981, was this concern about the CiviL Rights of the Homosexual Community.

As to a cure, AIDS is difficult. They have only been one Viral infection ever "Curd", that was rabies. While it is now down to three shots, for almost 100 years it was 21 shoots over 21 days in the stomach, one shot per day. We have had vaccines, but vaccines do NOT cure, they prevent a person from getting a viral infection. Rabies vaccines worked as a "Cure" do to the nature of Rabies. It took several weeks for Rabies to grow to the level to affect someone. During that time period you could develop an immunity by having the 21 shots (Now 3 shots).

AIDS is different, it is a constantly mutating decease. In the 1980s it was thought that AIDS had two forms, one was minor and helped spread the AIDS the other the true killer. It would take time, but it was thought that the minor AIDS virus mutated to the KILLER type. In the 1990s the true nature of AIDS came to light. AIDS was a constantly changing virus. As it mutated from one version to the next, the body would have to develop new antibodies to the new form of AIDS. Thus the body and the AIDS virus went into a see-saw battle. AIDS would affect a body, the body would develop antibodies to that version of AIDS. Then AIDS would mutate, and the body had to develop new anti-bodies. This would go on and on. Sometimes the body would win and defeat AIDS (Rare but does happen) but most times AIDS slowly gets the upper hand against the Antibodies. This weakens the body to other diseases (most people do NOT technically dies of AIDS, some other diseases is the actual killer, but these are diseases people do not normally catch let alone die off except the body is so weaken by AIDS that the person dies from these relatively minor decease).

Anyway back to Ronald Reagan and AIDS. Under Reagan, the Government did a lot a BASIC research on AIDS. The US even looked into the 50 year British project to cure the Common colds for ways to defeat AIDS (The British Project to find a cure for the common cold was de-funded in the 1980s so Britain could transfer the funds to AIDS research, but the basic idea of how virus spread and mutated was first extensively research in the British project to find a cure for the Common Cold). The chief result of the British research was the common cold was NOT that common (in the sense the Common Cold was a constantly changing Virus, whose defeat by the body is still unknown do to the complexity of the cold Virus and its constantly changing form). This type of Basic research for AIDS was done under Reagan. This basic Research lead to most of the treatments we have today for AIDS victims. Thus to blame Reagan for NOT doing anything on AIDS is wrong, he did a lot. The bad points was his refusal to treat AIDS as a Disease, instead treating it as a Civil Rights Problem, the good points is the basic research he funded giving us a better idea of how AIDS works.

As to a cure, the problem is we have NEVER found a cure for any Viral infection (Even Rabies is a vaccine that works AFTER you are exposed to the Virus, do to the slow speed Rabies affects people NOT do to any actual real cure for Rabies). The efforts at a Vaccine have all failed do to the nature of AIDS to mutate so that the it is a constantly changing. We have some to various dead ends on AIDS research (Through you will NOT hear anyone said that, let AIDS research grant end like the British Common COld research needed in the 1980s do to similar problems, i.e. the more they found out about the Disease, the less it looks like we will ever find a "cure"). More research is needed, but a Cure is unlikely. Thus the problem can be traced ot Reagan and his refusal to take the heat and treat AIDS as a disease, but how would the Homosexual Community reacted to a traditional approach to a new Sexually transmitted disease? A disease that first appeared in the Homosexual community?? No Reagan did what he could given the nature of the Country at that time. Reagan did a lot of harm to the US, but AIDS was not one of them.

[pinto]

7. Re: Some of your assertions:

AIDS has always been a reportable disease under CDC guidelines. You're thinking of the exclusion of HIV infection, which was excluded, in a political/public health compromise, with the intent to *encourage* testing specifically among populations that were leery to be tested - men who have sex with men and injection drug users.

The gay community was never monolithic in it's stand on the issue, there was plenty of debate on both approaches - a standard STD approach, as in other sexually transmitted diseases, and the one that was eventually adopted.

(aside) It should be noted that HIV infection was undiagnosable before 1985 - there was no anti-body test. AIDS was diagnosed when people presented with any number of rare, life threatening infections.

STD laws vary from state-to-state. In my state, people with sexually transmitted diseases of any kind, have not been 'isolated', 'put in jail' or such based on the infection itself. They have been treated, when possible, and voluntary 'contract tracing' carried out to notify and treat their sexual partners - without disclosing the source of infection. Each county's Public Health officer (an MD) has always had the legal right to disclose exposure against the will of a source patient in certain instances - primarily when the source patient refuses to and an individual at risk is clearly identified. It's been used in some instances, though rarely needed. Also, in some instances, a judge - and only a judge - can order testing and notification of contacts in some instances, primarily sexual assault crimes.

Other states' laws may differ.

The primary reason HIV spread so fast in the early 80's, before an anti-body test was developed - was that people with early HIV infection had *no symptoms* and were largely unaware of infection.

Just some clarifications - the history is not as black and white as you may assume. Thanks for your post.

[happyslug]

5. No mention of the Immunity rates.

Scientific American had an article on AIDs about ten year ago (if not longer, it has been a while since I read the articles) and it pointed out a 5-10 % immunity rates among the White population. With rates going higher the further north and east you go in Europe. This implies a Eastern European source for the Disease, for you only develop an immunity if your ancestors were exposed to the disease. They also mention the first case of AIDS on record, a 1959 British case involving A British Sailor whose only trip was to Leningrad (The person die din 1959, but his Doctor kept samples for future references if someone came to him with a similar disease and in the mid 1980s remembered the case the tested the samples for AIDS, and it came up positive, the oldest case I have heard of).

If you tract Small Pox in North and South America in the 1500s, you see a similar development, people who have been exposed to Small pox for centuries (i.e. the White community) tended to have much higher survival rates then those population without any previous exposure (i.e. the Native Americans). Some historians have estimated that 80-90% of Native Americas died of Small Pox in the 1500s (and this was BEFORE the white Settlement of what is now the US). The reason was complex. Whites had developed a limited immunity, and White Culture has developed in ways to minimize the spread of Small Pox (Whites lived in Individual homes, not one single house as did the Native Americans AND Medieval Europeans). The same with AIDS, Whites in Northern Europe tend to be less sexually active outside of Marriage (Cultural development that may have been a result of Exposure to AIDS), in addition to the increase immunity rates.

On the other hand the Black Community of Africa, would be like South America to Small pox, a Country whose members have absolutely NO physical immunity AND no cultural immunity. Thus AIDS could spread like wildfire in Africa.

Since AIDs is so widespread in Africa it is assumed it is an African developed Disease, but the Russian sent in a lot of Technical support in the 1960s and 1970s to various african Countries. With the Russians could have come one of more versions of AIDS (AIDS is also big in Southeast Asia, another area of widespread Russian "support" in the 1960s and 1970s). Thus I lean to the Russia being the Source of AIDs, kept in check in Russia do to the poor medical services under both Czarist and Communist governments (AIDS victim died quickly and the cause listed as something else), by the restrictions on INTERNAL movement (Under the Czar and under Stalin who re-introduced the concept of an "internal" Passport), Cultural restrictions forbidding any sexual act outside of Marriage (Through under the Czar Prostitutes were registered and taxed) And the limited immunity developed over centuries of exposure to AIDs itself. Now the first reported Russian cases are post American report of AIDS, but that may be do to the fact the Russians only started to look for AIDS after it was found in the West.

All told, I lean to Russia. The fact Russia has been a closed country, with limitation of how far most of its citizens could move about since about 1600 easily explaining why AIDS did NOT go directly from Russia to the West. AIDs may have just been some local disease in just one part of Russian and until "released" in the 1960s contained. I have NOT read anything that would exclude an Russian Source for AIDs and the African alternative does NOT explain why AIDs did not SPREAD from African to the rest of the World Before the 1970s.

[tritsofme]

9. Interesting theory that I have never heard before.

Thanks.

[jaksavage]

8. Haiti was a site of CIA labs

Culturing a deadly swine flu in monkey brains, which they planned to release in Cuba to wipe out that food source. But it got away from them, infected Haiti and Haitians and in 1978 or so we sent Natl Guard there to shoot every last pig in Haiti, to try and put the genie back in the bottle.

The other site of these experiments was Angola.

Both sites identified as the original AIDs clusters.

Thanks CIA, thanks GHWB, thanks facist, elitist, racist, imperial empire.