[aristeides]

Don't we know from blood in blood banks that there were sporadic cases of AIDS decades before the 1980's?

[Judith Anne]

One of the things I remember reading recently is that poor farmers who donate blood to supplement their income were routinely subjected to HIV infected needles. There's a lot of HIV in rural areas of China directly related to the practice of selling blood with dirty collection technique.

So I wouldn't be surprised to learn that SARS has been transmitted that way. In whatever way the virus can get around, it does so in China...

[CathyRyan]

I think a sailor's blood from 57 was test and was positive and someone posted here that some blood from 49 tested positive. IIRC

[vetvetdoug]

They found analagous AIDS virus in individuals that died as far back as 1959. The tissue was in a pathologist's office on a slide from that date. It was very sporadic then, unfortunately, the homosexual lifestyle was a disease amplifier. Now its entrenched in both homosexual and heterosexual populations.