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{{Short description|Rejected AIDS origin hypotheses}}
A number of ], man-made origin theories and alternative origin theories exist surrounding the worldwide ] epidemic. Some scientists and others have theorized that AIDS is a man-made disease. These theories generally state that the disease was meant to deliberately wipe out a certain segment of the population in an act of ] and/or was created as ] research. Others have theorized alternative natural or accidental origins for the disease.
{{About|hypotheses not currently accepted by the majority of the scientific community|the majority view within the scientific community|History of HIV/AIDS}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=March 2023}}


Various fringe theories have arisen to speculate about purported alternative origins for the ] (HIV) and the ] (AIDS), with claims ranging from it being due to accidental exposure to supposedly purposeful acts. Several inquiries and investigations have been carried out as a result, and each of these theories has consequently been determined to be based on unfounded and/or false information. HIV has been shown to have evolved from or be closely related to the ] (SIV) in West Central Africa sometime in the early 20th century. HIV was discovered in the 1980s by the French scientist ]. Before the 1980s, HIV was an unknown deadly disease.<ref>{{Cite journal | last1 = Sharp | first1 = P. M. | last2 = Bailes | first2 = E. | last3 = Chaudhuri | first3 = R. R. | last4 = Rodenburg | first4 = C. M. | last5 = Santiago | first5 = M. O. | last6 = Hahn | first6 = B. H. | doi = 10.1098/rstb.2001.0863 | title = The origins of acquired immune deficiency syndrome viruses: Where and when? | journal = Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences | volume = 356 | issue = 1410 | pages = 867–76 | year = 2001 | pmid = 11405934 | pmc = 1088480}}</ref>
'''Note that these theories have found little or no approval or consensus among the medical community.'''
{{TOC limit}}


==Discredited theories==
* ], President of ], and other prominent members of the ruling ] party have made numerous public statements to the effect that AIDS is caused by poverty and not HIV, and that people who supposedly die of AIDS have actually been poisoned through antiretroviral medication by white-owned drug companies that wish to experiment on Africans. Mbeki and others frequently interfered with government AIDS drug distribution programs through the legal system. Nonetheless, after massive public outcry, the ANC government announced in ] that it will begin distributing antiretroviral AIDS drugs to infected citizens.


===Smallpox vaccination theory===
⚫ * ], a biology professor at Humboldt University in the former East Germany, proposes that HIV was engineered at a US military laboratory in ], Maryland by splicing together two other viruses, ] and ]. According to his theory, the new virus, created between 1977 and 1978, was tested on prison inmates who had volunteered for the experiment in exchange for early release. It was through these prisoners that the virus was spread to the population at large, starting with the gay community. Segal was accused of being a Soviet ] agent by KGB defector ].
In 1987 there was some consideration given to the possibility that the "AIDS epidemic may have been triggered by the mass vaccination campaign which eradicated ]". An article<ref>{{Cite news | last = Wright | first = Pearce | title = Smallpox vaccine 'triggered Aids virus' | newspaper = ] | location = London | date = 11 May 1987}}<!-- FYI there are some unofficial copies of it on the web, or you can search and pay for the official version at {{cite web
|url=http://www.newsint-archive.co.uk/pages/free.asp
|title=The Times and The Sunday Times Archive – Sample Search
|accessdate=2009-05-23
|url-status=dead
|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20090913000403/http://www.newsint-archive.co.uk/pages/free.asp
|archivedate=13 September 2009
}} -->
</ref> in '']'' suggested this, attributing to an unnamed "adviser to WHO" the quote "I believe the smallpox vaccine theory is the explanation to the explosion of AIDS". It is now thought that the ] causes serious complications for people who already have impaired immune systems<!-- this is taken from ] -->, and the ''Times'' article described the case of a military recruit with "dormant HIV" who died within months of receiving it. But no citation was provided regarding people who did not previously have HIV. Currently several professional publications describe HIV as a ] for the smallpox vaccine—both for an infected person and their sexual partners and household members.<ref>
{{Cite journal | last1 = Maurer | first1 = DM | last2 = Harrington | first2 = B | last3 = Lane | first3 = JM | title = Smallpox Vaccine: Contraindications, Administration, and Adverse Reactions | journal = American Family Physician | volume = 68 | issue = 5 | pages = 889–96 | date = 1 September 2003 |url= https://www.aafp.org/afp/2003/0901/p889.html |pmid= 13678138 |access-date= 20 June 2010}}</ref><ref>{{cite web | title = Questions and Answers About Smallpox Contraindications and Screening | work = Emergency Preparedness and Response | publisher = Centers for Disease Control and Prevention | url = http://www.bt.cdc.gov/agent/smallpox/faq/screening.asp | access-date = 20 June 2010 | url-status = dead | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20100609100515/http://www.bt.cdc.gov/agent/smallpox/faq/screening.asp | archive-date = 9 June 2010 }}</ref> Some conspiracy theorists propose an expanded hypothesis in which the smallpox vaccine was deliberately contaminated with HIV.<ref>{{Cite news |last= Kalambuka |first= Angeyo |title= Kenya: Don't Discount Conspiracy Theories on Origin of Aids |newspaper= ] |location= Nairobi |date= 1 December 2009 |url= https://allafrica.com/stories/200912011055.html |access-date= 20 June 2010}}
</ref>


In contrast, a research article was published in 2010 suggesting that it might have been the actual eradication of smallpox and the subsequent "ending" of the mass vaccination campaign that contributed to the sudden emergence of HIV. The theory was the possibility that immunization against smallpox "might play a role in providing an individual with some degree of protection to subsequent HIV infection and/or disease progression."<ref>{{Cite journal | last1 = Weinstein | first1 = RS | last2 = Weinstein | first2 = MM | last3 = Alibek | first3 = K | last4 = Bukrinsky | first4 = MI | last5 = Brichacek | first5 = Beda | title = Significantly reduced CCR5-tropic HIV-1 replication in vitro in cells from subjects previously immunized with Vaccinia Virus | journal = BMC Immunology | volume = 11 | issue = 1 | page = 23 | publisher = BioMed Central | date = 18 May 2010 | issn =1471-2172 | pmid = 20482754 | pmc = 2881106 | doi = 10.1186/1471-2172-11-23 | doi-access = free }}</ref><ref>{{Cite news | last = Connor | first = Steve | title = Smallpox vaccine 'helped fight HIV' | newspaper = The Independent | location = London | date = 19 May 2010 | url = https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/smallpox-vaccine-helped-fight-hiv-1976451.html | access-date = 20 June 2010 }}</ref> Regardless of the effects of the smallpox vaccine itself, its use in practice in Africa is one of the categories of un-sterile ] that may have contributed to the spread and mutation of the immunodeficiency viruses.<ref name=Marx2001>{{Cite journal |vauthors=Marx PA, Alcabes PG, Drucker E |title=Serial human passage of simian immunodeficiency virus by unsterile injections and the emergence of epidemic human immunodeficiency virus in Africa |journal=Philos. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. B Biol. Sci. |volume=356 |issue=1410 |pages=911–20 |date=June 2001 |pmid=11405938 |pmc=1088484 |doi=10.1098/rstb.2001.0867 }}</ref>
* ] laureate ] reportedly believes that the biological agent causing AIDS is not natural. ""In fact it (the ] ]) is created by a scientist for biological warfare." .


===Hepatitis B vaccine (HBV) theory===
* ] ]: Some theorists argue the ] planted ] suggesting the CIA or other agencies created AIDS, in a plot to destabilize the Western world. They believe this claim was originally disseminated in the West by ] agents seeking to undermine the faith of citizens in their own government (see: ], ], ]). According to KGB defector ], the KGB originated the claim through an East German physicist, ], in the mid 1980s (see the Mitrokhin Archive, 1999 page 319). ] once purportedly stated his regrets that the KGB had planted and actively supported such stories in the Western world.


⚫ The dermatologist Alan Cantwell, in self-published books entitled ''AIDS and the Doctors of Death: An Inquiry into the Origin of the AIDS Epidemic'' (1988) and ''Queer Blood: The Secret AIDS Genocide Plot'' (1993), said that HIV is a ] developed by U.S. Government scientists. The virus was then introduced into the population through ] (via the ]) experiments performed on gay and bisexual men between 1978 and 1981 in major U.S. cities. Cantwell claims that these experiments were directed by ], and that there was an ongoing government cover-up of the origins of the AIDS epidemic. Similar theories have been advanced by Robert B. Strecker,<ref>Archived at {{cbignore}} and the {{cbignore}}: {{cite web |title=The Strecker Memorandum – AIDS is a man made disease |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BSZ1vSf1co |via=YouTube |access-date=27 June 2015}}{{cbignore}}</ref> Matilde Krim, and ].
* Some ] in the US believe that ] was invented by ]s as a way to destroy the black race. Such theories have been propagated for years, first by ]'s ], and by the ], as well as by a number of professors in various small colleges. Conspiracy theorist ] has made allegations that Jewish doctors have injected black babies with HIV.


===Oral polio vaccine (OPV) theory===
⚫ * Dr. ], author of ''AIDS and the Doctors of Death: An Inquiry into the Origin of the AIDS Epidemic'' and ''Queer Blood: The Secret AIDS Genocide Plot'', believes that HIV is a genetically modified organism developed by US Government scientists; that it was introduced into the population through ] experiments performed on gay and bisexual men between ]-] in ], ], ], ], ], and ]. Cantwell claims these experiments were directed by Dr. ]; and that there is an ongoing government and media ] regarding the origin of the AIDS epidemic. Similar theories have been advanced by Dr. ], ] and by ], author of ]


In the 1999 version of his ], ] proposed that early batches of the ] (OPV) grown in cultures of chimpanzee kidney cells, infected with a chimpanzee virus, were the original source of HIV-1 in Central Africa. A vial of the batch most strongly implicated by Hooper was found in storage in the UK, and analysis found no HIV/SIV sequences or chimpanzee cellular components, but did find traces of macaque mitochondria. Analysis of five samples of OPV in storage at the ], including one from a batch used in the Belgian Congo between 1958 and 1960, found no chimpanzee DNA.<ref name= Lancet>Sarah Ramsay 28 April 2001 ''The Lancet'' '''357''' (9265) p.1343 {{doi| 10.1016/S0140-6736(00)04536-0}}</ref> Other ] and ] studies also contradict the hypothesis, and ] regards it as disproven.<ref name=Science>{{cite journal |author=Hillis DM |title=AIDS. Origins of HIV |journal=Science |volume=288 |issue=5472 |pages=1757–1759 |year=2000 |pmid=10877695 |doi=10.1126/science.288.5472.1757|s2cid=83935412 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |author=Birmingham K |title=Results make a monkey of OPV-AIDS theory |journal=Nat Med |volume=6 |issue=10 |pages=1067 |year=2000 |pmid=11017114 |doi=10.1038/80356|s2cid=10860468 |doi-access=free }}</ref><ref name="cohen2">{{cite journal |author=Cohen J |title=AIDS origins. Disputed AIDS theory dies its final death |journal=Science |volume=292 |issue=5517 |pages=615a–615 |year=2001 |pmid=11330303 |doi=10.1126/science.292.5517.615a|s2cid=70625478 }}</ref><ref> ] website, Accessed 30 January 2007</ref> A 2004 article in the journal '']'' described the hypothesis as "refuted".<ref name="worobey">{{cite journal |vauthors=Worobey M, Santiago M, Keele B, Ndjango J, Joy J, Labama B, Dhed'A B, Rambaut A, Sharp P, Shaw G, Hahn B |title=Origin of AIDS: contaminated polio vaccine theory refuted |journal=Nature |volume=428 |issue=6985 |pages=820 |year=2004 |pmid=15103367 |doi=10.1038/428820a |bibcode=2004Natur.428..820W |s2cid=4418410 |doi-access=free }}</ref>
* ], a cancer virologist, AIDS expert, and the co-chairperson of the ], has also suggested that Dr. Wolf Szmuness' hepatitis B vaccination experiments of the late 70's caused the AIDS epidemic. Unlike Cantwell, however, she attributes this to accident rather than conspiracy.


===Additional theories===
* Dr. ], among others, believes that the ] created the AIDS epidemic by administering contaminated ] ] to people in ] countries--including African locations--between 1966 and 1977. Dr. ], famous for isolating HIV, lent conditional credence to this theory when he said, "the link between the World Health Organization ] program and the epidemic in Africa is an interesting and important hypothesis. I cannot say that it actually happened, but I have been saying for some years that the use of live vaccines such as that used for smallpox can activate a dormant infection such as HIV".
These theories generally attribute HIV's origin to the ] or its contractors:


====Created at Fort Detrick====
* Dr. ] postulates that AIDS was the culmination of ] research conducted by the U.S. Government (and later, by the ] government) throughout the ]. He believes AIDS was developed and proliferated for the primary purpose of wiping out ], ], and other social groups considered to be "excess population." Dr. Graves has also suggested that ] may be related to AIDS which was spread by contaminating soldiers with vaccines, and that an effective cure for AIDS has already been developed and patented but is being withheld. The evidence Graves cites that AIDS was developed in U.S. was based on a 1971 Special Virus Cancer Flow Chart that he obtained through the ]. Graves claims to have contracted AIDS, but was cured by a single injection of Tetrasilver Tetroxide (Ag404) - NOT ] (see US Patent #5,676,977 "Method of curing AIDS with tetrasilver tetroxide molecular crystal devices" held by Marantech - see www.marantech.com/testdata.htm for results of in vitro testing). Graves, however, admits his diagnosis may have been a false positive. However, the claims made in the patent have not been investigated by any mainstream scientific body.
⚫ ] (1911–1995), a professor at ] in then-], proposed that HIV was engineered at a U.S. military laboratory at ], by splicing together two other viruses, ] and ]. According to his theory, the new virus, created between 1977 and 1978, was tested on prison inmates who had volunteered for the experiment in exchange for early release. He further suggested that it was through these prisoners that the virus was spread to the population at large.


At the end of the ], former ] agents ] and ] independently revealed that the Fort Detrick hypothesis was a propaganda operation devised by the KGB's ] codenamed "]". This revelation was later supported by officer Günther Bohnensack of section X of East Germany's ].
* Dr. ] claims in his book ''Full Disclosure'', that he received top secret information that AIDS was made in the laboratory at ]. The virus was spread by putting the AIDS viruses into the smallpox eradication program by the ], and that AIDS did not exist before 1978. AIDS, he claims, was created for population control--especially of Blacks, Asians, and other colored people. The people who control the project were people known as the Olympians (another name for the ]), who are also supporting ]. Organizations such as ] are, according to Glum, complicit in the conspiracy by not testing blood properly. Glum reports that AIDS can be transmitted through kissing, mosquito bites and casual contact.


It is known that Segal was in close contact with Russian KGB officers and Mitrokhin mentioned him as a central asset of the operation.<ref name="Andrew 1999 319">{{Cite book |last=Andrew |first=Christopher |author2=Vasili Mitrokhin |title=The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB |publisher=Basic Books |year=1999 |isbn=0-465-00310-9 |page= |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/swordshieldmitro00andr/page/319}}</ref><ref name="spiegel.de">Johanna Lutterroth: . Spiegel Geschichte, 2012-06-26 (German)</ref> It is not entirely clear whether Segal pursued the hypothesis independently on his own accord or whether he was simply following orders. Segal himself always denied the latter and kept pursuing the hypothesis even after the operation had been canceled and the Cold War had ended.
: Glum claims a number of substances are valuable in preventing or treating aids: (1) ] extract taken in large amounts; (2) a ] called AL 271 or x-plaque;(3) ], an Indian folk medicine Glum claims can also treat ]; (4) an olive leaf extract (5) oleuropein; (6) allantoin.


====Conspiracy to decrease the population====
: Glum reports that ] tested a number of substances that can treat AIDS, but that the results have been suppressed. Much of Glum's evidence is based upon anecdotal claims, and critics have reported a complete absence of medical evidence to support his claims.
In ''Behold a Pale Horse'' (1991), radio broadcaster and author ] (1943–2001) proposed that ] was the result of a conspiracy to decrease the populations of ], ], and ].<ref name="Carroll">{{cite book |last=Carroll |first=Robert Todd |title=The Skeptic's Dictionary: A Collection of Strange Beliefs, Amusing Deceptions, and Dangerous Delusions |year=2003 |publisher=John Wiley & Sons, Inc. |location=Hoboken, New Jersey |isbn=9781118045633 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6FPqDFx40vYC |author-link=Robert Todd Carroll |access-date=17 January 2013 |page=175 |chapter=Illuminati |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6FPqDFx40vYC&pg=PA175}}</ref>


==Prevalence of conspiracy beliefs==
* Dr. ], author of ] and ], has advanced the theory that the AIDS virus was engineered by such US Government defense contractors as ] for the purposes of bio-warfare and "population control." Dr. Horowitz believes that Jews, blacks, and Hispanics are prime targets in these attempts at "population control." He cites the historical preoccupation with ] on the part of the American medical establishment as evidence of a greater conspiracy to commit genocide.
According to Phil Wilson, executive director of the Black AIDS Institute in Los Angeles, conspiracy theories are becoming a barrier to the prevention of AIDS since people start to believe that no matter what measures they take, they can still be prone to contracting this disease. A 2005 study suggests this makes them less careful when engaging in practices that put them at risk because they believe there is no point.<ref name=Fears2005>{{cite news |last1=Fears |first1=Darryl |title=Study: Many Blacks Cite AIDS Conspiracy |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A33695-2005Jan24.html |newspaper=] |access-date=12 June 2017 |date=25 January 2005}}</ref> "Nearly half of the 500 African Americans surveyed said that HIV is man-made. More than one-quarter said they believed that AIDS was produced in a government laboratory, and 12 percent believed it was created and spread by the CIA&nbsp;... At the same time, 75 percent said they believed medical and public health agencies are working to stop the spread of AIDS in black communities."<ref name=Fears2005 />


==Prominent endorsers of discredited theories==
Other conspiracy theorists claim that the US Government has an established history of performing experiments on its own citizens without their knowledge or consent. They argue that the ] and ] demonstrate a willingness and capability to mount a large scale, covert biowarfare campaign. Conspiracy theorists of this persuasion sometimes attempt to bolster their cases for one conspiracy theory by appeals to the existence of other conspiracies, such as ].


=== Nation of Islam ===
⚫ {{AIDS}}
The ] endorses the view that governments and pharmaceutical companies have pursued genocidal racist policies including the creation and spread of HIV. Consequently, the group called for a boycott of U.S.-sponsored vaccination programs for children. Leonard Horowitz has been cited as influential in the boycott decision.<ref>Knight, Peter, '''', p. 202 {{isbn|9780415189781}}</ref>

=== Wangari Maathai ===
The 2004 ] laureate and environmental activist ] was asked by a ] interviewer if she stood by a previous alleged claim that "AIDS is a biological weapon manufactured by the developed world to wipe out the black race". Maathai responded, "I have no idea who created AIDS and whether it is a biological agent or not. But I do know things like that don't come from the moon.&nbsp;... I guess there is some truth that must not be too exposed."<ref>{{cite magazine |author=Faris, Stephan |title=10 Questions: Wangari Maathai |magazine=] |date=10 October 2004 |url=http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,713166,00.html |access-date=2007-03-19}}</ref> Maathai subsequently issued a written statement in December 2004: "I neither say nor believe that the virus was developed by white people or white powers in order to destroy the African people. Such views are wicked and destructive."<ref> {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111006082858/http://greenbeltmovement.org/a.php?id=30 |date=6 October 2011 }}.</ref>

=== Manto Tshabalala-Msimang ===
In 2000 ] ] received criticism for distributing the chapter from Cooper's book discussing this theory to senior South African government officials.<ref name="BBC News">{{cite news |title=SA Government steps into Aids row |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/924927.stm |access-date=17 January 2013 |publisher=BBC News |date=14 September 2000}}</ref> ], a longtime critic of AIDS denialists, criticized Tshabalala-Msimang for lending legitimacy to Cooper's theories and disseminating them in Africa.<ref name=Nattrass>{{cite book |last=Nattrass |first=Nicoli |title=The AIDS Conspiracy: Science Fights Back |year=2012 |publisher=Columbia University Press |location=New York |isbn=9780231149129 |pages=, 23–27 |url=https://archive.org/details/aidsconspiracysc0000natt |url-access=registration |author-link=Nicoli Nattrass |access-date=17 January 2013}}</ref>

==See also==
* ]
* ]
** ]
* ]
* ]
* ]
* ]
* ]
* ]

==References==
{{reflist}}


==External links== ==External links==
* {{cite web |url=https://www.straightdope.com/21342103/is-aids-a-manmade-disease |title=Is AIDS a manmade disease? |author=Cecil Adams |date=4 June 1993}}
*

*
{{Conspiracy theories}}
*

*
⚫ {{HIV and AIDS}}
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Latest revision as of 10:29, 19 June 2024

Rejected AIDS origin hypotheses This article is about hypotheses not currently accepted by the majority of the scientific community. For the majority view within the scientific community, see History of HIV/AIDS.

Various fringe theories have arisen to speculate about purported alternative origins for the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), with claims ranging from it being due to accidental exposure to supposedly purposeful acts. Several inquiries and investigations have been carried out as a result, and each of these theories has consequently been determined to be based on unfounded and/or false information. HIV has been shown to have evolved from or be closely related to the simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) in West Central Africa sometime in the early 20th century. HIV was discovered in the 1980s by the French scientist Luc Montagnier. Before the 1980s, HIV was an unknown deadly disease.

Discredited theories

Smallpox vaccination theory

In 1987 there was some consideration given to the possibility that the "AIDS epidemic may have been triggered by the mass vaccination campaign which eradicated smallpox". An article in The Times suggested this, attributing to an unnamed "adviser to WHO" the quote "I believe the smallpox vaccine theory is the explanation to the explosion of AIDS". It is now thought that the smallpox vaccine causes serious complications for people who already have impaired immune systems, and the Times article described the case of a military recruit with "dormant HIV" who died within months of receiving it. But no citation was provided regarding people who did not previously have HIV. Currently several professional publications describe HIV as a contraindication for the smallpox vaccine—both for an infected person and their sexual partners and household members. Some conspiracy theorists propose an expanded hypothesis in which the smallpox vaccine was deliberately contaminated with HIV.

In contrast, a research article was published in 2010 suggesting that it might have been the actual eradication of smallpox and the subsequent "ending" of the mass vaccination campaign that contributed to the sudden emergence of HIV. The theory was the possibility that immunization against smallpox "might play a role in providing an individual with some degree of protection to subsequent HIV infection and/or disease progression." Regardless of the effects of the smallpox vaccine itself, its use in practice in Africa is one of the categories of un-sterile injections that may have contributed to the spread and mutation of the immunodeficiency viruses.

Hepatitis B vaccine (HBV) theory

The dermatologist Alan Cantwell, in self-published books entitled AIDS and the Doctors of Death: An Inquiry into the Origin of the AIDS Epidemic (1988) and Queer Blood: The Secret AIDS Genocide Plot (1993), said that HIV is a genetically modified organism developed by U.S. Government scientists. The virus was then introduced into the population through hepatitis B (via the hepatitis B vaccine) experiments performed on gay and bisexual men between 1978 and 1981 in major U.S. cities. Cantwell claims that these experiments were directed by Wolf Szmuness, and that there was an ongoing government cover-up of the origins of the AIDS epidemic. Similar theories have been advanced by Robert B. Strecker, Matilde Krim, and Milton William Cooper.

Oral polio vaccine (OPV) theory

In the 1999 version of his OPV AIDS hypothesis, Edward Hooper proposed that early batches of the oral polio vaccine (OPV) grown in cultures of chimpanzee kidney cells, infected with a chimpanzee virus, were the original source of HIV-1 in Central Africa. A vial of the batch most strongly implicated by Hooper was found in storage in the UK, and analysis found no HIV/SIV sequences or chimpanzee cellular components, but did find traces of macaque mitochondria. Analysis of five samples of OPV in storage at the Wistar Institute, including one from a batch used in the Belgian Congo between 1958 and 1960, found no chimpanzee DNA. Other molecular biology and phylogenetic studies also contradict the hypothesis, and scientific consensus regards it as disproven. A 2004 article in the journal Nature described the hypothesis as "refuted".

Additional theories

These theories generally attribute HIV's origin to the US government or its contractors:

Created at Fort Detrick

Jakob Segal (1911–1995), a professor at Humboldt University in then-East Germany, proposed that HIV was engineered at a U.S. military laboratory at Fort Detrick, by splicing together two other viruses, Visna and HTLV-1. According to his theory, the new virus, created between 1977 and 1978, was tested on prison inmates who had volunteered for the experiment in exchange for early release. He further suggested that it was through these prisoners that the virus was spread to the population at large.

At the end of the Cold War, former KGB agents Vasili Mitrokhin and Oleg Gordievsky independently revealed that the Fort Detrick hypothesis was a propaganda operation devised by the KGB's First Chief Directorate codenamed "Operation INFEKTION". This revelation was later supported by officer Günther Bohnensack of section X of East Germany's Main Directorate for Reconnaissance.

It is known that Segal was in close contact with Russian KGB officers and Mitrokhin mentioned him as a central asset of the operation. It is not entirely clear whether Segal pursued the hypothesis independently on his own accord or whether he was simply following orders. Segal himself always denied the latter and kept pursuing the hypothesis even after the operation had been canceled and the Cold War had ended.

Conspiracy to decrease the population

In Behold a Pale Horse (1991), radio broadcaster and author Milton William Cooper (1943–2001) proposed that AIDS was the result of a conspiracy to decrease the populations of blacks, Hispanics, and homosexuals.

Prevalence of conspiracy beliefs

According to Phil Wilson, executive director of the Black AIDS Institute in Los Angeles, conspiracy theories are becoming a barrier to the prevention of AIDS since people start to believe that no matter what measures they take, they can still be prone to contracting this disease. A 2005 study suggests this makes them less careful when engaging in practices that put them at risk because they believe there is no point. "Nearly half of the 500 African Americans surveyed said that HIV is man-made. More than one-quarter said they believed that AIDS was produced in a government laboratory, and 12 percent believed it was created and spread by the CIA ... At the same time, 75 percent said they believed medical and public health agencies are working to stop the spread of AIDS in black communities."

Prominent endorsers of discredited theories

Nation of Islam

The Nation of Islam endorses the view that governments and pharmaceutical companies have pursued genocidal racist policies including the creation and spread of HIV. Consequently, the group called for a boycott of U.S.-sponsored vaccination programs for children. Leonard Horowitz has been cited as influential in the boycott decision.

Wangari Maathai

The 2004 Nobel Peace Prize laureate and environmental activist Wangari Maathai was asked by a Time magazine interviewer if she stood by a previous alleged claim that "AIDS is a biological weapon manufactured by the developed world to wipe out the black race". Maathai responded, "I have no idea who created AIDS and whether it is a biological agent or not. But I do know things like that don't come from the moon. ... I guess there is some truth that must not be too exposed." Maathai subsequently issued a written statement in December 2004: "I neither say nor believe that the virus was developed by white people or white powers in order to destroy the African people. Such views are wicked and destructive."

Manto Tshabalala-Msimang

In 2000 South Africa's Minister of Health Manto Tshabalala-Msimang received criticism for distributing the chapter from Cooper's book discussing this theory to senior South African government officials. Nicoli Nattrass, a longtime critic of AIDS denialists, criticized Tshabalala-Msimang for lending legitimacy to Cooper's theories and disseminating them in Africa.

See also

References

  1. Sharp, P. M.; Bailes, E.; Chaudhuri, R. R.; Rodenburg, C. M.; Santiago, M. O.; Hahn, B. H. (2001). "The origins of acquired immune deficiency syndrome viruses: Where and when?". Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 356 (1410): 867–76. doi:10.1098/rstb.2001.0863. PMC 1088480. PMID 11405934.
  2. Wright, Pearce (11 May 1987). "Smallpox vaccine 'triggered Aids virus'". The Times. London.
  3. Maurer, DM; Harrington, B; Lane, JM (1 September 2003). "Smallpox Vaccine: Contraindications, Administration, and Adverse Reactions". American Family Physician. 68 (5): 889–96. PMID 13678138. Retrieved 20 June 2010.
  4. "Questions and Answers About Smallpox Contraindications and Screening". Emergency Preparedness and Response. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Archived from the original on 9 June 2010. Retrieved 20 June 2010.
  5. Kalambuka, Angeyo (1 December 2009). "Kenya: Don't Discount Conspiracy Theories on Origin of Aids". Daily Nation. Nairobi. Retrieved 20 June 2010.
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