# AIDS in the 1950's and 60's. **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 26, 2019, 7:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aids-in-the-1950s-and-60s/840840 "2019-09-26T07:13:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2019, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aids-in-the-1950s-and-60s/840840/41 "2019-09-28T01:45:16Z")
> [@ralfy](#): > > [OPV AIDS hypothesis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OPV_AIDS_hypothesis) “The River” is a fascinating book. However, its premise is wrong and has been debunked. The OTHER parts of the book are good, I have to admit. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2019, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aids-in-the-1950s-and-60s/840840/42 "2019-09-28T02:00:05Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > How widespread was the use of injected drugs? In Spain (and I expect we weren’t the only ones) at the beginning the biggest transmission vector was shared needles, we had lots of addicts and former addicts dying of AIDS, people who’d managed to “kick the horse back” only to die of the plague before they got to see their children grown; one of the biggest measures taken was therefore making needles available no questions asked. But in 1850, heroin hadn’t even been discovered yet. Syringes were also a new invention, used by very few people - and one of the inventors became a morphine addict, as did his wife, who is the first documented case of a person who died from injectable drug abuse. > **[The History of the Syringe | Omnisurge](https://omnisurge.co.za/the-history-of-the-syringe/)** > > Syringes are pretty basic, standard items that are used daily in the medical industry. Their design is simple, and effective. Vaccination could also potentially have spread it; there’s the Bundaberg disaster in prewar Australia, and also a group of soldiers got hepatitis in WWII after being immunized. This was where some of the early anti-vaxers’ ideas came from. > **[Toxic shock syndrome toxin-1, not α-toxin, mediated Bundaberg fatalities -...](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26432699/)** > > The 1928 Bundaberg disaster is one of the greatest vaccine tragedies in history. Of 21 children immunized with a diphtheria toxin-antitoxin preparation contaminated with Staphylococcus aureus, 18 developed life-threatening disease and 12 died within... (Sorry about using an abstract; most of the stories about it are behind paywalls.) Didn’t know until I read this that over 50,000 soldiers got hepatitis from tainted yellow-fever vaccine, something that was also experimental at the time! :eek: I had heard that it was a small outbreak. > **[Unlicensed Vaccines and Bioweapon Defense in World War II](https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/1842844)** > > Joel Schofer presented well the ethical controversy surrounding use of unapproved agents for chemical and biological warfare defense in Operation Desert Storm.1 Such dilemmas are not new, however, nor the risks purely ethical or medically... ---
**Author:** ![LaughingSnowman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/laughingsnowman/32/422_2.png) [@LaughingSnowman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LaughingSnowman)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2019, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aids-in-the-1950s-and-60s/840840/43 "2019-09-28T20:40:29Z")
It’s claimed that HIV was originally spread to humans by consuming slaughtered primates, but I often wonder if it wasn’t originally spread by bestiality instead. I’m sick I guess :D. ---
**Author:** ![susan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/susan/32/17537_2.png) [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2019, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aids-in-the-1950s-and-60s/840840/44 "2019-09-28T23:45:59Z")
> [@LaughingSnowman](#): > > It’s claimed that HIV was originally spread to humans by consuming slaughtered primates, but I often wonder if it wasn’t originally spread by bestiality instead. I’m sick I guess :D. Transmission wasn’t by consumption, but butchering, which may include blood-to-blood contact if the hunter cut himself. Please be aware that “Africans got AIDS when they had sex with monkeys” is considered to be a racist trope. What I tell my students who insist on this story is “Try to have sex with a chimp. Go ahead. Report back if you’re still alive.” Then I show a couple of videos of chimpanzee attacks. Examples: [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/6inhUFpQnOo/maxresdefault.jpg "Chimp Attack Survivor Charla Nash Opens Up About Face Transplant Setback | TODAY") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6inhUFpQnOo) [![](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Xf8CPrDGQac/hqdefault.jpg?sqp=-oaymwEmCOADEOgC8quKqQMa8AEB-AH-BIAC6AKKAgwIABABGGYgZihmMA8=&rs=AOn4CLBwTwPh9NyDzKeLhI2iEcvUV-5pZA "Chimp Attacks Texas Student: Andrew Oberle Fighting for His Life After 6-Hour Surgery") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xf8CPrDGQac) [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/co5RHqs4pZw/hqdefault.jpg "Chimp Attack") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=co5RHqs4pZw) ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2019, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aids-in-the-1950s-and-60s/840840/45 "2019-09-29T01:04:28Z")
I head that the bushmeat theory goes back to the 1920s – that some think that’s around the time that SIV\* mutated into HIV. \*Simian ---
**Author:** ![ralfy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ralfy/32/600_2.png) [@ralfy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralfy)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2019, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aids-in-the-1950s-and-60s/840840/46 "2019-09-29T02:17:32Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > “The River” is a fascinating book. However, its premise is wrong and has been debunked. The OTHER parts of the book are good, I have to admit. That’s what it says in the wiki entry. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2019, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aids-in-the-1950s-and-60s/840840/47 "2019-09-29T02:53:25Z")
> [@LaughingSnowman](#): > > It’s claimed that HIV was originally spread to humans by consuming slaughtered primates, but I often wonder if it wasn’t originally spread by bestiality instead. I’m sick I guess :D. I figured out the cut-hunter theory a decade before I read it anywhere. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2019, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aids-in-the-1950s-and-60s/840840/48 "2019-09-29T04:40:44Z")
There are quite a few _this persons dropping dead for no reason_ in medical literature, from the 60’s. Which are now thought off as AIDS. I read a rather sad story of one street living teenager in the US, I think from St Louis, who came with some mystery illness in the 60’s. The doctor who treated him said that if he knew then what he knew now, he would have identified him as an AIDS sufferer. Although I believe some have dispute that since he had never travelled abroad. His tissues were never tested. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2019, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aids-in-the-1950s-and-60s/840840/49 "2019-09-29T04:49:43Z")
[quote=“susan, post:44, topic:840840”] Transmission wasn’t by consumption, but butchering, which may include blood-to-blood contact if the hunter cut himself. Please be aware that “Africans got AIDS when they had sex with monkeys” is considered to be a racist trope. What I tell my students who insist on this story is “Try to have sex with a chimp. Go ahead. Report back if you’re still alive.” Then I show a couple of videos of chimpanzee attacks. Examples: [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/6inhUFpQnOo/maxresdefault.jpg "Chimp Attack Survivor Charla Nash Opens Up About Face Transplant Setback | TODAY") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6inhUFpQnOo) [Chimp Attacks Texas Student: Andrew Oberle Fighting for His Life After 6-Hour Surgery - YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xf8CPrDGQac) [/QUOTE] Dave Chappelle. [![]( " - YouTube") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wo2HMVE_fBk) ---
**Author:** ![susan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/susan/32/17537_2.png) [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2019, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aids-in-the-1950s-and-60s/840840/50 "2019-09-29T05:03:16Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > Dave Chappelle. > [https://youtu.be/Wo2HMVE\_fBk](https://youtu.be/Wo2HMVE_fBk) Absolutely! ---
**Author:** ![LaughingSnowman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/laughingsnowman/32/422_2.png) [@LaughingSnowman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LaughingSnowman)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2019, 8:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aids-in-the-1950s-and-60s/840840/51 "2019-09-29T08:48:19Z")
Some guy out in the bush tranquilizing a chimp and going balls deep wouldn’t be impossible. I’ve read of primates being chained up in brothels and being used sexually. Back in the day (Rome I believe) they would douse a womans vagina with female chimp urine to get the male chimp excited enough to sexually assault them. Who’s to say that patient zero wasn’t a female? ---
**Author:** ![Myglaren](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f1d935/32.png) [@Myglaren](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Myglaren)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2019, 9:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aids-in-the-1950s-and-60s/840840/52 "2019-09-29T09:16:20Z")
> [@Kent\_Clark](#): > > Yes, they were. When I was a kid syringes were made of glass and designed to be reusable. The needles would eventually blunt or break, but even they could be used many times. Naturally, in a doctor’s office or hospital, syringes would be run through a sterilizer before reuse, but they also weren’t very tightly accounted for. It wouldn’t be too hard for a hospital worker to take a few home. It was very easy to buy glass syringes in the late fifties and early sixties, just in any chemists (pharmacy). I used to buy them for oiling parts of our miniature railway rolling stock. Needles were available separately. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2019, 11:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aids-in-the-1950s-and-60s/840840/53 "2019-09-29T11:35:04Z")
> [@LaughingSnowman](#): > > Some guy out in the bush tranquilizing a chimp and going balls deep wouldn’t be impossible. I’ve read of primates being chained up in brothels and being used sexually. Back in the day (Rome I believe) they would douse a womans vagina with female chimp urine to get the male chimp excited enough to sexually assault them. Who’s to say that patient zero wasn’t a female? You read about this. Right. ---
**Author:** ![Grim\_Render](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a87d85/32.png) [@Grim\_Render](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grim_Render)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2019, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aids-in-the-1950s-and-60s/840840/54 "2019-09-29T13:01:40Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > I head that the bushmeat theory goes back to the 1920s – that some think that’s around the time that SIV\* mutated into HIV. > \*Simian Can’t remember where I came across it, but I have seen speculation that SIV made the species jump into HIV at the start of the previous century, during Leopold 2s atrocity in Congo. ---
**Author:** ![Ann\_Hedonia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ann_hedonia/32/319_2.png) [@Ann\_Hedonia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ann_Hedonia)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2019, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aids-in-the-1950s-and-60s/840840/55 "2019-09-29T14:02:44Z")
This Wikipedia article lists the names of several men who contracted unexplained illness in the 1950. It is now thought that they had AIDS. Including one case in 1959 where the virus was identified via preserved samples. > **[Timeline of early HIV/AIDS cases](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_early_HIV/AIDS_cases)** > > HIV/AIDS was recognised as a novel illness in the early 1980s. An AIDS case is classified as "early" if the death occurred before 5 June 1981, when the AIDS epidemic was formally recognized by medical professionals in the United States. > All known subgroups of HIV-1 and HIV-2 are thought to have entered humans as distinct cross-species transmissions of Simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) from primates. These early cases never reached the critical mass needed for an epidemic. AIDS is not incredibly contagious and these early patients quite possibly may have never infected anyone ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2019, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aids-in-the-1950s-and-60s/840840/56 "2019-09-29T19:37:46Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > There are quite a few _this persons dropping dead for no reason_ in medical literature, from the 60’s. Which are now thought off as AIDS. > I read a rather sad story of one street living teenager in the US, I think from St Louis, who came with some mystery illness in the 60’s. The doctor who treated him said that if he knew then what he knew now, he would have identified him as an AIDS sufferer. Although I believe some have dispute that since he had never travelled abroad. > > His tissues were never tested. [Robert Rayford](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Rayford) It’s speculated that he may have been a child prostitute. Given his age, he most likely acquired it from being molested as a child. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2019, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aids-in-the-1950s-and-60s/840840/57 "2019-09-29T21:55:55Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > [Robert Rayford](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Rayford) It’s speculated that he may have been a child prostitute. Given his age, he most likely acquired it from being molested as a child. ☹ One wonders what the person who gave it to him died from, and how it was explained, whether it was through sexual abuse, or even maternal transmission which isn’t impossible. I recently did a CE about the transmission and treatment of pediatric AIDS, and it said that most new cases in children in the U.S. are from international adoption. ---
**Author:** ![susan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/susan/32/17537_2.png) [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2019, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aids-in-the-1950s-and-60s/840840/58 "2019-09-29T23:25:26Z")
If I remember correctly, mother-to-child (“vertical”) transmission without prevention/intervention is about 25% including vaginal birth and breast feeding. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2019, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aids-in-the-1950s-and-60s/840840/59 "2019-09-30T01:35:31Z")
**[Moderating]** > [@LaughingSnowman](#): > > Some guy out in the bush tranquilizing a chimp and going balls deep wouldn’t be impossible. I’ve read of primates being chained up in brothels and being used sexually. Back in the day (Rome I believe) they would douse a womans vagina with female chimp urine to get the male chimp excited enough to sexually assault them. Who’s to say that patient zero wasn’t a female? You may have gotten this board mixed up with Penthouse Letters. Here’s a hint: It’s not. You are hereby directed to keep your sexual fantasies out of General Questions. I strongly recommend that you also keep them out of other forums here, but that’s up to those moderators. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2019, 5:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aids-in-the-1950s-and-60s/840840/60 "2019-09-30T05:47:09Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > One wonders what the person who gave it to him died from, and how it was explained, whether it was through sexual abuse, or even maternal transmission which isn’t impossible. > > I recently did a CE about the transmission and treatment of pediatric AIDS, and it said that most new cases in children in the U.S. are from international adoption. IIRC, he reported that his grandfather had similar symptoms a few years earlier. Which has led some speculation that Gramps was the abuser although that is conjecture at best. I have wondered if the timeline of the disease spread was pushed back 30 years, would it have been identified more quickly? These days it pretty much every confounding case in Caracas is shared worldwide by doctors in near Real time. All these cases isolated for over a decade, went by unremarked or published in journals with limited circulation at least compared to modern boards. (The MERS virus was identified within days as the Saudi doctors out its cases history on a public medical board). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aids-in-the-1950s-and-60s/840840.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aids-in-the-1950s-and-60s/840840.md?page=4)