[Calpernia]

This is a bit long, but have any of you heard about this? Is this propaganda?

[SIDENET]

My thoughts about the author of the article.

[Doctor Stochastic]

It's not so much propaganda as a solicitation to buy the guy's book.

[dufekin]

I understand that HIV existed in Leopoldville (of the Belgian Congo, now Kinshasa, capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo) in 1958. The Belgian government recently tested blood samples (apparently required for residency or some such) from that era and found a couple HIV-positive people. The prevailing theory is that it initially spread from other primates via consumption of infected flesh in the 1930s.

As for Ebola and Marburg, dramatic changes in culture and demographics put people in areas previously uninhabited (deep jungle, for example, fleeing invading armies). Or perhaps some previously harmless virus mutated. It happens all the time. These diseases are (as I understand; I'm not a virologist) members of a group of viruses to which humans lack immunity because so few infect or cause illness in humans.

Perhaps the method of spread of the Asian influenza might be instructive. The Chinese government ordered the use of a human antibiotic in chicken water. Although the antibiotic proved utterly ineffective in birds, it effectively helped people recover from the 1997 Hong Kong flu. Now the virus is immune to the antibiotic.

[Velveeta]

Bump for closer read later.