Samples Collected From Wildlife In Thailand
While its true that most emerging diseases affecting humans come from wildlife, its often human behavior that is to blame for the spillover. Humans are tearing down forests and hunting, eating, and selling wild animals at unprecedented rates. Each exotic animal shipped across the ocean to be sold as a pet is an sveacasino opportunity for a new pathogen to take root in a new continent. Each tree ripped from its roots increases interactions between humans and wild animals, and thus the odds that viruses will find new populations to infect.
But the good news is: If were the ones causing the problem, were the ones who can stop it.
At EcoHealth Alliance, were striving toward a world where pandemics like the one caused by HIV/AIDS are a thing of the past. Join us.
The Origins Of Aids: Did Scientists Inadvertently Cause The Aids Epidemic 2003
Distributed by National Film Board of Canada, 1123 Broadway, Suite 307, New York, NY 10010 800-542-2164 Produced by Galafilm Productions Inc., Multimedia France Productions, Pathe Archives, Les Films de la Passerelle, RTBF, and Produce+Directed by Peter Chappell and Catherine PeixVHS, color, 43 min.
Bioethics, Biology, Ethics, Health Sciences, History, Science
Date Entered: 02/28/2006
Through the investigation of how AIDS began, this highly persuasive film encourages viewers to take a hard look at the often unsafe practices used by the scientific community when creating vaccines. The film explores two theories for the emergence of AIDS. The first is the Hunter Theory, in which humans are believed to have contracted the Simian Immunodeficiency Virus , a virus that is closely related to HIV, through the hunting and handling of chimpanzees. The second is the theory made visible by Edward Hooper, author of the book, The River, which attempts to link the spread of AIDS to the distribution of the CHAT oral polio vaccine.
Hoopers theory was debated by the Royal Society in London, causing a great stir among the scientific community. Despite the fact that no definitive evidence was found to back Hoopers theory, the investigation helped draw attention to the ethics of the scientific community and the safety precautions they fail to take.
Awards
Is There Only One Type Of Hiv
No, there are actually two types of HIV: HIV-1 and HIV-2, and they have slightly different origins.
HIV-1 is closely related to the strain of SIV found in chimps. While HIV-2 is closely related to the strain of SIV found in sooty mangabeys monkeys. The crossover of HIV-2 to humans is believed to have happened in a similar way as HIV-1 .
HIV-2 is far more rare, and less infectious than HIV-1, so it infects far fewer people. It is mainly found in a few West African countries, such as Mali, Mauritania, Nigeria and Sierra Leone.
To complicate things further, HIV is also classified by four main groups of viral strain , each of which has different genetic make-up. HIV-1 Group M is the strain that has caused the majority of HIV infections in the world today, meaning it is the dominant strain.
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When Did Hiv Enter The Population
By looking at the genome sequences of different viruses over time, researchers can calibrate a molecular clock based on the rate of sequence change, or mutations. Scientists can then use this to infer the rate of evolution and thus determine approximately when the most recent common ancestor existed.
Using this technique, researchers estimated that HIV-1 group M originated in 1908 and group O in 1920. HIV-2 groups A and B originated a bit later approximately in 1940 and 1945, respectively.
Case Definition For Epidemiological Surveillance
According to a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 2008, a team led by Robert Shafer at Stanford University School of Medicine discovered that the gray mouse lemur has an endogenouslentivirus in its genetic makeup. This suggests that lentiviruses have existed for at least 14 million years, much longer than the currently known existence of HIV. In addition, the time frame falls in the period when Madagascar was still connected to what is now the African continent the said lemurs later developed immunity to the virus strain and survived an era when the lentivirus was widespread among other mammals. The study was hailed as crucial, as it fills the blanks in the origin of the virus, as well as in its evolution, and could be important in the development of new antiviral drugs.
In 2010, researchers reported that SIV had infected monkeys in Bioko for at least 32,000 years. Previous to this time, it was thought that SIV infection in monkeys had happened over the past few hundred years. Scientists estimated that it would take a similar amount of time before humans adapted naturally to HIV infection in the way monkeys in Africa have adapted to SIV and not suffer any harm from the infection.
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Causes Of Hiv Infection
HIV is found in the body fluids of an infected person. This includes semen, vaginal and anal fluids, blood and breast milk.
It’s a fragile virus and does not survive outside the body for long.
HIV cannot be transmitted through sweat, urine or saliva.
The most common way of getting HIV in the UK is through having anal or vaginal sex without a condom.
Other ways of getting HIV include:
- sharing needles, syringes or other injecting equipment
- transmission from mother to baby during pregnancy, birth or breastfeeding
The chance of getting HIV through oral sex is very low and will be dependent on many things, such as whether you receive or give oral sex and the oral hygiene of the person giving the oral sex.
The Role Of The Right To Privacy
All people have a God-given right to privacy. This right covers legitimate relationships, such as those between husbands and wives, doctors and patients, attorneys and clients and clergy and penitents. However, American courts have ruthlessly mined the Constitution to illicitly expand the right to privacy to include abortion, infanticide, euthanasia, pornography and now, ersatz homosexual marriage.
This expanded right to privacy is not simply some theoretical construct that has little or no application in real-life situations. Homosexual groups have used it to cripple government efforts to curb the very disease that is killing them by the thousands every year.
Organized gays have blocked blood screening for HIV, fought the closing of homosexual bathhouses, advocated for the legalization of both male and female prostitution, shut down contact tracing and sexual partner notification, opposed criminalizing the deliberate infection of another person with HIV-AIDS, and promoted the use of condoms, which have a six to eight percent failure rate.4
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Aids: Origin Of Pandemic ‘was 1920s Kinshasa’
Health editor, BBC News website
The origin of the Aids pandemic has been traced to the 1920s in the city of Kinshasa, in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo, scientists say.
An international team of scientists say a “perfect storm” of population growth, sex and railways allowed HIV to spread.
A feat of viral archaeology was used to find the pandemic’s origin, the team report in the journal Science.
They used archived samples of HIV’s genetic code to trace its source, with evidence pointing to 1920s Kinshasa.
Their report says a roaring sex trade, rapid population growth and unsterilised needles used in health clinics probably spread the virus.
Meanwhile Belgium-backed railways had one million people flowing through the city each year, taking the virus to neighbouring regions.
Experts said it was a fascinating insight into the start of the pandemic.
HIV came to global attention in the 1980s and has infected nearly 75 million people.
It has a much longer history in Africa, but where the pandemic started has remained the source of considerable debate.
Origin And Distribution Of Sivgor
Tetherin function and virus specific antagonism in different primate hosts. Mechanism of restricted virion release by tetherin two alternative models are shown Viral antagonists of tetherin and their sites of interaction . Vpu associates with the trans-membrane domain of tetherin, Nef targets the cytoplasmic domain, and Env interacts either with the extracellular or the cytoplasmic domain . Antitetherin function in HIV-1 and HIV-2 and their immediate simian precursors. SIVcpz acquired vpu and nef genes from different sources, the SIVgsn/mus/mon and SIVrcm lineages, respectively. During adaptation in chimpanzees, Nef evolved to become an effective tetherin antagonist. SIVgor and SIVsmm also use Nef to counteract tetherin. After transmission to humans, SIVcpz, SIVgor, and SIVsmm Nef were unable to antagonize human tetherin because of a deletion in its cytoplasmic domain. HIV-1 group M adapted by regaining Vpu-mediated antitetherin activity. The Nef and Vpu proteins of HIV-1 groups O and P remained poor tetherin antagonists. The Vpu of HIV-1 group N gained modest antitetherin activity, but lost the ability to degrade CD4. HIV-2 group A adapted by gaining Env-mediated antitetherin activity whether HIV-2 groups BH gained antitetherin function has not been tested. Proteins that are active against tetherin are highlighted in red, and those that are inactive are shown in gray .
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A Timeline Of Hiv And Aids
The HIV.gov Timeline reflects the history of the domestic HIV/AIDS epidemic from the first reported cases in 1981 to the presentwhere advances in HIV prevention, care, and treatment offer hope for a long, healthy life to people who are living with, or at risk for, HIV and AIDS.
View a timeline of the current Ending the HIV Epidemic initiative. Please visit HIVHistory.org for a timeline of the global and domestic response to the HIV epidemic.
Tracing The Origin Of Hiv
There exists an overwhelming amount of evidence to suggest that HIV arose from cross-species transmission of closely related viruses that are found naturally in various primate hosts in Africa.
By looking at the genomes of these viruses, which are collectively known as simian immunodeficiency viruses , and comparing them with those of the different types of HIV we can see that the SIVs are the closest relatives of HIV. Furthermore, geographical correlations exist between SIVs in their different hosts and HIV.
HIV-1 and HIV-2 have different origins as they arose from independent transmission events. Closely related SIVs have been found in monkeys called sooty mangabeys in Western Africa, which is the only region that HIV-2 is endemic in. Therefore, scientists conclude that HIV-2 has its origins in SIV infected sooty mangabeys.
HIV-1 is a little more complicated, but each different group arose from a single transmission event. M and N have been traced back to SIV infected chimpanzees , but the closest relatives of O and P have been found in gorillas.
Image credit: Chi King, via Wikimedia Commons.
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Disproportionate Funding For Aids Research
Contrary to the high-profile posturing by Hay and many others, the facts show that federal expenditures on AIDS research, education and prevention per person are much greater than for any other killer, including all heart diseases, strokes or cancers, even though the latter diseases cause many more deaths. As syndicated investigative journalist Michael Fumento has noted:
A death is a death. We are getting less return for the money than if we left it in the research of cancer and other diseases. People will die of those diseases because of the shifting of money to AIDS. We will never know their names, and no one will ever knit them a quilt or block the Golden Gate Bridge for them.7
One indicator of the priorities our country sets on health care is the amount of money spent on disease prevention relative to the impact that disease has on the general population in terms of deaths, lost days of productivity due to sickness, and other measures.
AIDS now claims an extremely high and disproportionate share of limited research and preventions funds. During the decade 2011-2020, annual National Institutes for Health expenditures per death for HIV/AIDS were 232 times that for heart disease, 211 times greater than stroke, 49 times that for lung diseases, and 49 times that for cancer.8
AIDS deaths have decreased by more than two-thirds since its peak in 1996, but federal funding has more than doubled during this time.11
Why Do Some People Say Hiv Started In The Usa In The 1980s
Because this is when people first became aware of HIV, and it was when HIV was officially recognised as a new health condition. But HIV had actually been around for decades by then.
In 1981, rare diseases, such as Kaposi’s Sarcoma and a lung infection called PCP, were being reported among gay men in New York and California. Scientists began to suspect that an unidentified infectious ‘disease’ was the cause.
At first, the âdiseaseâ was called all sorts of names relating to the word âgay’. It wasn’t until mid-1982 that scientists realised it was also spreading among other populations, such as haemophiliacs and people who inject drugs. In September that year, they named it Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome .
In 1983, scientists at the Pasteur Institute in France identified the virus linked to AIDS, which they called Lymphadenopathy-Associated Virus . Scientists at the USA National Cancer Institute confirmed this virus was the cause of AIDS and called it HTLV-III. LAV and HTLV-III were later acknowledged to be the same. A few years later, the virus was renamed as HIV.
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Who Benefits From Preexposure Prophylaxis
People who may benefit from preexposure prophylaxis include anyone who:
- is in a relationship with an HIV-positive person who has a detectable viral load
- has sex with men and women
- regularly has sexual partners of unknown HIV status, especially if they inject drugs
- has had anal sex without a condom or barrier method in the past 6 months
- has contracted a sexually transmitted infection in the past 6 months
- has injected drugs, been in drug treatment, or shared needles in the past 6 months
Pop Culture Opens Up Conversations
In 1985, actor Rock Hudson became the first major public figure to announce he had AIDS. Before he died that same year, he donated $250,000 to help establish the organization later known as amfAR, the Foundation for AIDS Research. Friend and actress Elizabeth Taylor was the national chairperson until her death in 2011.
In 1987, Princess Diana also made international headlines after she shook hands with an HIV-positive man.
Pop culture icon Freddie Mercury, singer for the band Queen, passed away from AIDS-related illness in 1991. Since then, many other public figures have revealed that theyre HIV-positive, including:
- tennis star Arthur Ashe
- former basketball star and entrepreneur Magic Johnson
- Pedro Zamora, a cast member on MTVs The Real World: San Francisco
- actor Charlie Sheen, who announced his status on national television in 2015
- hairstylist and television personality Jonathan Van Ness
- actor and singer Billy Porter
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Natural History Of Sivcpz Infection
Initially, SIVcpz was thought to be harmless for its natural host. This was because none of the few captive apes that were naturally SIVcpz infected suffered from overt immunodeficiency, although in retrospect this conclusion was based on the immunological and virological analyses of only a single naturally infected chimpanzee . In addition, SIV-infected sooty mangabeys and African green monkeys showed no sign of disease despite high viral loads in blood and lymphatic tissues , leading to the belief that all naturally occurring SIV infections are nonpathogenic. However, the sporadic prevalence of SIVcpz, along with its more recent monkey origin, suggested that its natural history might differ from that of other primate lentiviruses. To address this, a prospective study was initiated in Gombe National Park, Tanzania, the only field site where SIVcpz infected chimpanzees are habituated and so can be observed in their natural habitat.
Where Did Hiv Come From A Look At The Origins Of The Pandemic Of Our Time
A chimpanzees virus has killed 35 million humans.
That virus, commonly known as HIV, is the defining pandemic of our time. More than 35 million people have been killed by the virus to date. But the virus itself didnt get its start in humans.
HIV/AIDS is, like the vast majority of emerging viruses infecting people, zoonotic in nature. The AIDS crisis, as we generally think of it, began in the 1980s. First as a mysterious illness primarily infecting gay men in urban areas in the United States. But thats not really the beginning. Before the diseases first mention in 1982 in the New York Times, people had been dying of AIDS for at least a decade, though probably not much longer. In Africa, HIVthe virus that causes AIDShad jumped from chimpanzees to humans sometime early in the 20th century.
To date, the earliest known case of HIV-1 infection in human blood is from a sample taken in 1959 from a man whod died in Kinshasa in what was then the Belgian Congo.
Its this fact which keeps me awake at night. Imagine, for a moment, that the HIV virus in that 1959 sample had been studied and identified. If, in the 1950s, the scientific community realized the potential harm this new virus could unleash. What could we have done? What therapies could we have developed before it became one of the deadliest pandemics in human history? Would we have a cure by now?
That work takes several forms, including:
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The Evolution Of Research And Treatment
In September 1985, President Ronald Reagan called AIDS research a top priority for his administration. This came amidst criticism that government funding was inadequate and not enough had been done to find a treatment or cure. This was Reagans first public statement about AIDS.
Zidovudine, commonly known as AZT, was introduced in 1987 as the first treatment for HIV. Scientists also developed treatments to reduce transmission during pregnancy.
In 1995, President Bill Clinton hosted the first White House Conference on HIV and AIDS, and called for a vaccine research center. This center later opened in 1999.
Throughout the years, the government has continued to fund HIV- and AIDS-related:
- systems of care
- treatment
- studies and research
In 1996, in Vancouver, researchers at the 11th International Conference on AIDS introduced the concept of highly active antiretroviral therapy . This regimen requires people with HIV to take a combination of at least three medications daily. HAART, which is commonly known as antiretroviral therapy, became the new treatment standard in 1997.
Between 1996 and 1997, deaths from HIV in the United States, largely as a result of HAART.
Also in 1997, the FDA approved Combivir. Combivir combines the drugs zidovudine and lamivudine into a single medication, making HIV medications easier to take.
The FDA continues to approve HIV medical products, regulating:
- product approval