10/30/2007
Scientists: AIDS Came to U.S. from Haiti in 1969
A genetic analysis of stored blood samples has led scientists to conclude that the AIDS Virus was carried to Haiti from Africa in 1966, and then to America in 1969, most likely by a single infected person.
University of Arizona evolutionary biologist Michael Worobey told Reuters: "That one infection would have become two, and then it doubles again and the two becomes four. So you have a period -- probably a fair number of years -- where you're dealing with probably fewer than a hundred people who are infected. And then, as with epidemic expansion, at some point the hundred becomes 200, you start getting into thousands, tens of thousands. And then quite rapidly you can be up into the hundreds of thousands of infections that were probably already there before AIDS was recognized in the early 1980s."
The scientists studied samples from five early Haitian immigrants and international data on 117 early AIDS patients to make their determination.
Reuters reports: "The researchers virtually ruled out the possibility that HIV had come directly to the United States from Africa, setting a 99.8 percent probability that Haiti was the steppingstone...Studies suggest the virus first entered the human population in about 1930 in central Africa, probably when people slaughtered infected chimpanzees for meat. AIDS has killed more than 25 million people and about 40 million others are infected with HIV."
Sphere: Related ContentPosted 8:12 AM EST by Andy in Africa, AIDS/HIV, Haiti, Health, News | Permalink
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and from the secret U.S. lab in Haiti to see "what if...."
Posted by: c.theory | Oct 30, 2007 8:57:39 AM
Okay, "C. Theory," nice try. Now go take your meds.
If we could get people in "third world" countries to stop eating bushmeat and putting everything in creation through their gullets, we might not have some of these diseases. A virus only has to go through one human to be ready for the rest of us.
Posted by: Isanity | Oct 30, 2007 9:12:05 AM
What about the case in St. Louis in 1959?
Posted by: Jason | Oct 30, 2007 10:15:27 AM
Okay, "Isanity," nice try. Now stop being a racist piece of shit.
Posted by: steven | Oct 30, 2007 10:25:07 AM
Try "GHESKIO"
Posted by: C.Theory | Oct 30, 2007 10:34:32 AM
While I don't care enough to look up the source material at this point, I feel impelled to say this:
1. Stories involving any specialized field, but particularly medicine and science, are routinely garbled by the hack reporters for generalized "news" services like Reuters and the AP.
2. How does one "virtually [rule] out the possibility that HIV had come directly to the United States from Africa"? The epistemologist would say, "how could you possibly determine something like that?"
3. Most importantly, who paid for this study and why? The crucial part for epidemiological prevention—how humans first contracted the virus[es] is no different than other studies concluded years ago. And his descriptionn of the geometric progression spread are even more redundant. Reasonable people wouldn't give a flying fuck about how many stamps were in the virus's passport, as it were. They would say, "Why are you wasting money on "nothing better to do" studies like this when research on better, less expensive treatments and a cure are still grossly underfunded. People are burning up with fevers and dying while Worobey fiddles. Write U of A and ask them why they aren't investing their time, staff, and monies into science that moves us forward. Though fewer now probably, there are probably still studies wasting money to determine why some are born gay while most are now. "Junk science" can still be very expensive, wasteful, irresponsible "science."
Posted by: Leland Frances | Oct 30, 2007 11:02:23 AM
Correction" "why some are born gay while most are not."
Posted by: Leland Frances | Oct 30, 2007 11:04:52 AM
I love how readily test results "show" the corelation between chimps and human AIDS(conveniently in third world countries). And nothing is said of polio vaccines versus monkeys in Africa, right about that same time, by European scientists, most of whom still believing that Africans are closer to chimps than the rest of humans were rushing to test a newly created vaccine. Does Nobel Prize winning scientist Dr James Watson, ring a bell?
Posted by: Shabaka | Oct 30, 2007 11:06:55 AM
There is indeed a lot of junk science out there. Our grant system of funding is largely a moneymaker for Universities, making scientists more like businessmen than researchers. Watson was always a jerk but it took a long time for people to notice--and he's not all that bright.
I'm not certain of the value of this study, though it falls under the rubric of prevention and public health policies.
The 1959 case involved a sailor who made ports of call in Africa, though I may be thinking of a Brit. Not sure about St. Louis.
Posted by: anon (gmail.com) | Oct 30, 2007 1:09:18 PM
Shabaka, Jonas Salk worked on Polio vaccines you're talking about, not Watson.
Still, it has nothing to do with HIV/AIDS.
There was some contamination with a monkey virus called SV-40 in both Salk and Sabin polio vaccines but it has no clear known effect on humans. It is *not* related to the simian pre-cursor to HIV.
Posted by: queendru | Oct 30, 2007 1:49:59 PM
Determining the source of an epidemic. This is "junk science" how? Do you not understand epidemiology, or are you confusing it with epistemology? Science can determine some amazing facts, even if you cannot understand "how could you possibly determine something like that?" Idiots are still saying such things about the earth's rotation around the sun.
Understanding how the virus entered the human population could lead to more knowledge on how to prevent it occurring again with a different virus, and it is even conceivable that it could lead closer to a cure.
But I guess Leland is not only a prolific "writer" (of comments, at least) but he is also a doctor and the arbiter of "appropriate" science.
ps - many of us WOULD like to know what determines human sexuality. You may not care, or may fear the knowledge. Then again, so do most religious anti-science people.
Posted by: Gregg | Oct 30, 2007 2:59:02 PM
We are not talking about Salk but Koprowski, a european doc who produced tons of polio vaccine in a program to immunise africans in the 50's and 60's. This is from the book The River from Edward Hooper, the most researched inquiry to date: SEE Edward Hooper, The River: A Journey Back to the Source of HIV and AIDS (Harmondsworth: Penguin; Boston: Little, Brown, 1999; revised edition, Penguin, 2000):
One theory of the origin of AIDS is that it developed from contaminated vaccines used in the world's first mass immunisation for polio. There are a number of reasons why this theory is plausible enough to be worthy of further investigation.
* The location coincides dramatically. The earliest known cases of AIDS occurred in central Africa, in the same regions where Koprowski's polio vaccine was given to over a million people in 1957-1960.
* The timing coincides. There is no documented case of HIV infection or AIDS before 1959. Centuries of the slave trade and European exploitation of Africa exposed Africans and others to all other diseases then known; it is implausible that HIV could have been present and spreading in Africa without being recognised.
* Polio vaccines are grown (cultured) on monkey kidneys which could have been contaminated by SIVs. Polio vaccines could not be screened for SIV contamination before 1985.
* Another monkey virus, SV-40, is known to have been passed to humans through polio vaccines. A specific pool of Koprowski's vaccine was later shown to have been contaminated by an unknown virus.
* In order for a virus to infect a different species, it is helpful to reduce the resistance of the new host's immune system. Koprowski's polio vaccine was given to many children less than one month old, before their immune systems were fully developed. Indeed, in one trial, infants were given 15 times the standard dose in order to ensure effective immunisation.
If this theory is correct, it has serious ethical, health and policy implications. In particular, it points to the danger of interspecies transfer of material through vaccinations, organ transplants, etc., which could lead to new variants of AIDS as well as other new diseases. As well, studying the theory may lead to insights about responding to AIDS and preventing new diseases.>>
Posted by: Themistocle | Oct 30, 2007 8:18:27 PM
OK, Greggy, if you would concentrate less on finding excuses to attack me, you might read more carefully. My comments were in response to the study as described which included, as I said, NO NEW information about how the "virus entered the human population."
What benefit is there from knowing from which country the epidemic came to the US? Shall we ban people from Haiti from ever entering the US again? There was discussion of that in the earliest days of the epidemic when Haitians were so identified as being among the endangered and "dangereous" populations that jokes arose such as, "The hardest thing is going to be to tell his wife he has AIDS. The second is to convince her he's Haitian," that is, not gay.
As for how the researchers could be certain that it came via Haiti and not Africa, the Reuters article adds,
"The findings are significant," added Robert Garry, a microbiologist at Tulane University. They indicate "an important lineage of subtype B HIV was present in Haiti, which eventually spread elsewhere," he added.
But he is not fully convinced that a Haitian origin is the only explanation for subtype-B strains in the Americas, however.
It is quite likely that other B lineages appeared in the Americas prior to and in all likelihood independently of the Haitian lineage, he said.
"It is possible that HIV made many incursions into the United States. Most of these likely never spread or spread cryptically for a while and burned out," he added."
Epistemology is the study of the "ability to know." And all we can "know" at any one time is what we can draw, as well as possible, from the evidence in front of us at any given moment. How many infections and related deaths that occured before doctors were "seeing" AIDS have gone unstudied? A man I knew in San Francisco with a "mysterious illness" died before there was even talk of "gay cancer" or "KS." Was it AIDS? I knew a gay pulmonary specialist in Houston in the early days who was confused about why a young patient had TB. He only found out after his patient died that he was gay, knowledge that would have made him look at him/treat him in a totally different way.
The case I believe some above are thinking of was the 1969 St. Louis death of "Robert R," a teenager. There is story of the Norwegian sailor who first showed symptoms in 1966 [but lived until '76 when his wife and daughter also died]. He had traveled all along the west coast of Africa as a teenage sailor, and is known to have caught gonorrhoea at 15 [probably from a woman in Doula, Cameroon. He also traveled to all six inhabited continents, which, I suppose, makes him another candidate for "Patient Zero" in the West. More from the "British Medical Journal" at:
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/315/7123/1689
The British sailor 1959 story appears to have been debunked, but the infection of a local tribesman in 1959 in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo was the earliest known case I could find.
Posted by: Leland Frances | Oct 30, 2007 8:41:38 PM
What is funny is the fact many ''scientists'' assume the following (as quoted from University of Arizona evolutionary biologist Michael Worobey in the article above ): > as if an infected person would reinfect only one other person instead of, say, 39. This is ludicrous. That says a lot about simplistic minds with PhDs, using superficial but far reaching assumptions. That's how some people - very convinced of their own conclusions - like Dr Bette Korber, date back the origin of the disease to the 1930's ''using the fastest supercomputer''. As anyone knows, the first axiom of computing is = garbage in, garbage out.
Posted by: Themistocle | Oct 30, 2007 10:37:44 PM
Some text was missing due to rejection of large quotation marks by the blog software:
What is funny is the fact many ''scientists'' assume the following (as quoted from University of Arizona evolutionary biologist Michael Worobey in the article above ): ''That one infection would have become two, and then it doubles again and the two becomes four. '' as if an infected person would reinfect only one other person instead of, say, 39. This is ludicrous. That says a lot about simplistic minds with PhDs, using superficial but far reaching assumptions. That's how some people - very convinced of their own conclusions - like Dr Bette Korber, date back the origin of the disease to the 1930's ''using the fastest supercomputer''. As anyone knows, the first axiom of computing is = garbage in, garbage out.
Posted by: Themistocle | Oct 30, 2007 10:41:17 PM
RE:
Scientists: AIDS Came to U.S. from Haiti in 1969
A genetic analysis of stored blood samples has led scientists to conclude that the AIDS Virus was carried to Haiti from Africa in 1966, and then to America in 1969, most likely by a single infected person.
HaitiUniversity of Arizona evolutionary biologist Michael Worobey told Reuters: "That one infection would have become two, and then it doubles again and the two becomes four...
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"A lunar eclipse occurs whenever the Moon passes through some portion of the Earth's shadow."
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Thank you for welcoming me.
Lucien BONNET
1-4390 Boulevard Samson
LAVAL, (QUÉBEC), CANADA
H7W 2G(
Tél.: (450) 687-8406
SEE: "Bill A Ri And There Was Light!"
in http://www.contact-canadahaiti.ca
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LETTER TO PRESIDENT ARISTIDE
Montreal, February 7, 1991
Rev. Father Jean Bertrand Aristide
President of the Republic of Haiti
National Palace
Port-au-Prince, Haiti
Mr. President:
The whole world has its eyes on you, on Haiti and its people.
Everyone expects you and your legitimate, democratically elected government to see to it that something happen in Haiti.
In March 1983, one of humanity’s most famous spokesmen, Pope John Paul II, came to our country and loudly proclaimed what each and every one of us had been whispering: “Something must change here.”
Today, more than ever, all the people of Haiti stands up, longing for something and working to make something happen.
And, beloved Haiti, History (which from now on rests in thy hands) tells thee: “It is now time to let people speak to thee of love.” Go thou, Haiti, go ahead and show us thy true countenance in a positive light. It is up to everyone to play his or her part in order to let thee regain thy mark of excellence. With this letter, I am communicating with Your Excellency, Mr. President, and with Our Excellency — We, the people.
You offer this country what it takes to be a “country”. Yes, let us say “something like a great people”.
Go thou, Haiti, go ahead, following in the footsteps of thy Prophet, who has now become thy statesman.
With this in mind, Mr. President, to whomelse could I entrust this letter sent to his Holiness Pope John Paul II when heset foot on Haitian soil for the first time, as well as its acknowledgment by the Vatican?
That letter to Pope John Paul II is intended to draw attention to the problem posed by anti-Black discrimination and its negative repercussions on the advancement of scientific progress in the West, and more precisely in the realm of optics.
In the Western world, according to Newton’s widely accepted theory, white is considered to be the synthesis of all colors. Actually, the opposite is true. White constitutes the analysis or “visible” decoding of light or color, whereas black is its synthesis or “invisible” composition.
In other words, darkness or blackness and, we might add, “Black Holes” (a scientific misnomer designating invisible stars or “Black Suns”) are a source of energy and light.
That basic raw material of light energy culminates, in its most radiant form, in the neutralization of all the colors of the spectrumin the form of so-called “white light”.
Therefore “absolute blackness”, the absorption of all the colors, is a divisible component of light. Needless to say, Newton’s theory gives only a partial interpretation of the notion of light, by excluding black. Our contribution aims at demonstrating that the black color is not only an integral part of the color process, but its true synthesis. Light is therefore shown to be a divisible whole comprising an intensity or color scale in which black is the invisible or “absorbed” form of the energy in question.
Allow me, Mr.President, in order to support my statement concerning Black Holes and radiation, to pose a question asked by Hubert Reeves, doctor of nuclear astrophysics and scientific consultant to NASA:
What would have become of the sun, if it were plunged into a high temperature radiance like the one that existed at the beginning of the universe? [our translation]
Instead of emitting light, it would absorb it and, in the end, it would be completely reabsorbed into the cosmic fluid.
The cosmic fluid, your Excellency, is what, due to an “optical mistake”, is called “darkness” or the “blackness of space”. We are talking about the electromagnetic flux, that immeasurable ocean in which the planets and stars are bathed, like the sea which links all the continents together. Darkness is thus “the sea of space”.
What would have happened if, instead of an ordinary star like the “White Sun”, a Black Hole or “Black Sun” were injected into that primordial radiation?
According to Einsteinian physics, a Black Hole is a place where gravity is so formidably intense that nothing can escape it, not even visible light. Such a hole should suck in and absorb radiation and increase its own mass: E=MC2, always.
But after Einstein came Bohr, Heisenberg, and Quantum Physics; from then on, nothing was the same as before.
The Einsteinian version of the Black Hole is equivalent to a statement that the matter inside the Black Hole is definitely there to stay, in that volume of space. Let us quote Hubert Reeves: “Such an absolute statement is thus contrary to the “quantum spirit”, affirming that nothing is definitely localized in one place. There is always a probability of escape. If the enclosing wall is too high, a tunnel will be dug; if the prisoners are patient, they will escape. One has only to wait.” [our translation]
According to that principle, Black Holes “evaporate”. Matter constantly escapes as radiation. Black Holes “shine”! Their surfaces behave like those of any body heated to a certain temperature and that radiation endlessly feeds that marvelous “cosmic fluid” which, wrongly and in bad faith, people keep calling “darkness”.
Nigra sum “sed” formosa. Yes, but should we not say instead, I am black “and” comely? Darkness, which is both source and vehicle of light, does not have to defend itself for being the beautiful and infinitely discreet raw material of the universe. Darkness is the mother of the universe.
Also, beautiful and discreet art thou, Haiti. Discreet, yes, but never outshone! Just like the Black Virgin who inspires and sheds her love on thee from the hilltop and even beyond Cité Soleil (Sun City).
Our purpose was to offer a more constructive approach aiming at correcting the abusive traditional, so-called scientific, theories of optics. That is why, Your Excellency, we wrote to that authentic witness to the signs of this age, His Holiness Pope John Paul II, the prophet of the new era.
Congratulations, Your Excellency, and congratulations to Our Excellency, the people, for having made it possible for this day to mark the beginning of our “new independence”.
Lucien Bonnet
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Le Cosmos, un grand trou noir?
Image de milliers de galaxies formant le cosmos captée par le télescope spatial Hubble et transmise par l'Agence spatiale européenne.
Photo AFP
Agence Science-Presse
La solution à l’énergie sombre, cette mystérieuse énergie qui imprégnerait l’ensemble du cosmos, réside peut-être dans le fait que notre cosmos est en fait... un trou noir.
Le physicien Jae-Weon Lee, de l’Institut d’études avancées de Corée du Sud, compare «l’événement-horizon», cette limite encerclant le trou noir, à l’intérieur de laquelle rien ne peut s’échapper, pas même la lumière, aux limites observables de notre Univers: tout ce qui se trouve au-delà de cet horizon nous est à jamais caché.
Avec son équipe, il a calculé l’énergie qui serait générée lorsque deux particules «corrélées» (c’est-à-dire immuablement liées l’une à l’autre, en vertu d’une théorie propre à la physique quantique qu’il serait trop long d’expliquer ici), lorsque ces deux particules donc, sont séparées par l’événement-horizon: le résultat de ce calcul, affirment ces chercheurs, correspond à la quantité d’énergie nécessaire pour expliquer que l’expansion du cosmos soit en train d’accélérer plutôt que de ralentir —un phénomène encore inexpliqué, mais que les cosmologistes attribuent à cette mystérieuse énergie sombre.
Posted by: Lucien BONNET | Oct 31, 2007 10:05:28 AM
Oh, they're gonna' love you here, Monsieur Bonnet.
Posted by: Derrick from Philly | Oct 31, 2007 10:23:50 AM