IIRC, syphilis was found among the dead at Pompeii, so the canard about Europe getting it from the Indians was removed some time ago.
Never, ever, should you go against a canard that impugns white Europeans and their descendants.
> It may be that, or it may be the fact that if you say you’ve found hard evidence of pre-Colombian syphilis you get a lot of publicity for your otherwise fairly pedestrian documentary. None of this conjecture has passed peer review as yet though, so it’s perfectly possible like the many previous examples of “pre-Colombian syphilis” victims, it’s not going to stand up to rational academic scrutiny.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/28b1xf/did_syphilis_exist_in_pompeii/
> This article discusses the presentation of scientific finding via documentary and absent the process of peer-review. We use, as an example, PBS’s Syphilis Enigma, in which researchers presented novel evidence concerning the origin of syphilis that had never been reviewed by other scientists. These “findings” then entered the world of peer-reviewed literature through citations of the documentary itself or material associated with the documentary. Here, we demonstrate that the case for pre-Columbian syphilis in Europe that was made in the documentary does not withstand scientific scrutiny. We also situate this example from paleopathology within a larger trend of “science by documentary” or “science by press conference,” in which researchers seek to bypass the peer review process by presenting unvetted findings directly to the public.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3413456/