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How the AIDS epidemic really began
NY Post ^ | 02/22/2015 | Stephen Lynch

Posted on 02/22/2015 1:28:28 PM PST by Kid Shelleen

In Randy Shilts’ history of AIDS, “And the Band Played On,” he tells the story of an Air Canada steward named Gaëtan Dugas, who suffered from what Dugas called “gay cancer” and infected 40 people or more with HIV. He was, Shilts wrote, “Patient Zero.” Modal TriggerDugas, through his extensive travels and unrepentant, unprotected sex even after he was diagnosed, undoubtedly helped spread AIDS. But was he the man who brought the disease to America?

In the new book, “The Chimp and the River: How AIDS Emerged from an African Rain Forest” (W.W. Norton), author David Quammen says no.

(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: aids; aidshistory; patientzero
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1 posted on 02/22/2015 1:28:28 PM PST by Kid Shelleen
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To: Kid Shelleen

Whoa! Amazing theory and very plausible.


2 posted on 02/22/2015 1:37:17 PM PST by bboop (does not suffer fools gladly)
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To: Kid Shelleen

Gaëtan Dugas?


3 posted on 02/22/2015 1:46:00 PM PST by ViLaLuz (2 Chronicles 7:14)
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To: Kid Shelleen

The question, of course, has always been how did Dugas get it?
Somewhere along the line, some African had sex with a chimpanzee...


4 posted on 02/22/2015 1:46:50 PM PST by Redbob (W.W.J.B.D.: "What Would Jack Bauer Do)
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To: Kid Shelleen

I knew a Lebanese Christian family who immigrated to New York via Haiti. The mother was tall, attractive, francophone, fluent in English and worked for Air France at JFK. The father was short, ugly and they lived apart, estranged, though he kept in contact with his children. The father retained business interests in Haiti, and traveled there occasionally. He died in the late 1970’s after a long illness, which baffled his doctors. I’ve always wondered if, ...


5 posted on 02/22/2015 1:48:29 PM PST by Lonesome in Massachussets (This is known as "bad luck". - Robert A. Heinlein)
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To: Redbob

Read the article. The supposition is that an African hunted a chimpanzee around 1908, and became infected.


6 posted on 02/22/2015 1:50:10 PM PST by Lonesome in Massachussets (This is known as "bad luck". - Robert A. Heinlein)
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To: Redbob
The question, of course, has always been how did Dugas get it?

Somewhere along the line, some African had sex with a chimpanzee...

Or ate raw chimp or got bitten by one or cut himself while slaughtering one or sat in the front row of a monkey knife fight or ...

7 posted on 02/22/2015 1:52:14 PM PST by KarlInOhio (Darth Obama on 529 plans: I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further.)
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To: Kid Shelleen

A gay friend died in Baltimore in 1975/6. He suffered from IDS for about 4 years. This was 5 or more years before AIDS was officially diagnosed in this population. Since then we have suspected he was an early undiagnosed case of AIDS.


8 posted on 02/22/2015 1:53:58 PM PST by Louis Foxwell (This is a wake up call. Join the Sultan Knish ping list.)
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To: Lonesome in Massachussets

It does make more sense than the one fruity flight attendant story.


9 posted on 02/22/2015 1:54:20 PM PST by Tijeras_Slim
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To: ViLaLuz
This is him. I saw a profile on 60 Minutes about him once.

He was an airline steward. He flew all over the world, and all over the US. Back then, the bath house rave parties in New York and San Francisco were going full swing. He had hundreds of "partners."

10 posted on 02/22/2015 1:55:09 PM PST by SkyPilot ("I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." John 14:6)
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To: Redbob

Read the article and that way you won’t end up saying something dumb


11 posted on 02/22/2015 2:00:49 PM PST by stuck_in_new_orleans
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To: ViLaLuz

Truth is stranger than fiction. A pulp writer could not have come up with a better name.


12 posted on 02/22/2015 2:01:28 PM PST by cdcdawg
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To: SkyPilot

Yuuuuuuuuuck!


13 posted on 02/22/2015 2:03:38 PM PST by ViLaLuz (2 Chronicles 7:14)
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To: Redbob

Probably through eating a chimpanzee.


14 posted on 02/22/2015 2:06:45 PM PST by Jonty30 (What Islam and secularism have in common is that they are both death cults)
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To: SkyPilot

The first Bug Hunter.


15 posted on 02/22/2015 2:08:01 PM PST by AppyPappy (If you are not part of the solution, there is good money to be made prolonging the problem.)
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16 posted on 02/22/2015 2:12:24 PM PST by RedMDer (Keep Free Republic Alive with YOUR Donations!)
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To: KarlInOhio
How the AIDs epidemic really began ..... Space Ghost found the venue, but AquaMan sold tickets and the Justice League `egged' the monkeys on. There's enough blame to go around. monkey knife fight photo: Monkey Knife Fight monkey_knife_fight.jpg
17 posted on 02/22/2015 2:14:35 PM PST by tumblindice (America's founding fathers: all armed conservatives.)
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To: Kid Shelleen

I once got brucellosis from cutting my finger while quartering a caribou I shot along the Kuskokwim River. The caribou blood mixed with my blood; I almost died from the disease. I can easily believe that this can happen.


18 posted on 02/22/2015 2:15:17 PM PST by redpoll
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To: Redbob
some African had sex with a chimpanzee...

That was the theory commonly offered back in the 1980s, but this indicates it was otherwise. Of course who would really know?

19 posted on 02/22/2015 2:16:09 PM PST by nascarnation (Impeach, convict, deport)
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To: Kid Shelleen

There was a case in 1959 in the UK and another in a black teenager in St Louis in 1969.

The Dugas story was possibly true but not the explanation for the epidemic.


20 posted on 02/22/2015 2:18:10 PM PST by Jim Noble (When strong, avoid them. Attack their weaknesses. Emerge to their surprise. .)
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