# AIDS in US Undoubtedly Came from Haiti? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 8, 2007, 12:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aids-in-us-undoubtedly-came-from-haiti/425648 "2007-11-08T12:14:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Jinx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Jinx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jinx)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2007, 12:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aids-in-us-undoubtedly-came-from-haiti/425648/1 "2007-11-08T12:14:48Z")
Did any Dopers hear a enws announement that those who track pathogens (the CDC or NIH, perhaps, but I can’t recall) determined AIDS came into the US via one individual coming from Haiti? How could they possibily have determined this? ---
**Author:** ![Testy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c37758/32.png) [@Testy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Testy)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2007, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aids-in-us-undoubtedly-came-from-haiti/425648/2 "2007-11-08T13:05:42Z")
[QUOTE=Jinx] Did any Dopers hear a enws announement that those who track pathogens (the CDC or NIH, perhaps, but I can’t recall) determined AIDS came into the US via one individual coming from Haiti? How could they possibily have determined this? [/QUOTE] **Jinx** I read the report. My understanding is that some Haitians were working in some African country, contracted HIV, and brought it back to Haiti with them and from there it came to the US. As far as how they determined it, I have no idea. I do know that there are many strains of HIV and researchers can track them from country to country so maybe that was it. Regards Testy ---
**Author:** ![DSYoungEsq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c6cbf5/32.png) [@DSYoungEsq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSYoungEsq)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2007, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aids-in-us-undoubtedly-came-from-haiti/425648/3 "2007-11-08T21:48:19Z")
[A Reuters story on the issue](http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN2954500820071029?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews&rpc=22&sp=true) They looked at old blood samples for evidence of HIV; turns out it’s been in the US since 1969 or thereabouts. The article has information on how the study was conducted. ---
**Author:** ![Jinx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Jinx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jinx)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2007, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aids-in-us-undoubtedly-came-from-haiti/425648/4 "2007-11-13T23:25:34Z")
Wow. that’s really amazing that they can track that! Hmm, maybe they can find my long-lost TV remote, too! 😉 ---
**Author:** ![jk1245](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/49beb7/32.png) [@jk1245](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jk1245)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2007, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aids-in-us-undoubtedly-came-from-haiti/425648/5 "2007-11-13T23:52:44Z")
Interesting article. Wonder how the case of [Robert R](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_R.) fits in? He claimed he never had left the Midwest and that he had been showing symptoms since '66. At any rate, he died of full blown AIDS in '69, which is when this study says HIV first entered the US. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2007, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aids-in-us-undoubtedly-came-from-haiti/425648/6 "2007-11-14T00:15:05Z")
When the AIDS epidemic first gained news, it was often reported that the most at risk groups were homosexuals, hemophiliacs, and Haitians. I don’t think anyone suggested back then that it originated in Haiti, just that for some reason, that group tended to show it more often than the general population. ---
**Author:** ![jk1245](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/49beb7/32.png) [@jk1245](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jk1245)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2007, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aids-in-us-undoubtedly-came-from-haiti/425648/7 "2007-11-14T00:23:16Z")
Just downloaded and read the original article from PNAS, and the date ranges are 1962-1970 - movement from Africa to Haiti 1966-1972 - movement from Haiti to the US, and quickly the rest of the world The most startling claim is that ALL HIV cases in USA, Canada, Argentina,Colombia, Brazil, Ecuador,Netherlands, France, UK,Germany, Estonia, Gabon,South Africa, South Korea,Japan, Thailand, and Australia likely evolved from a single Haitian carrier (not to say that that carrier had sex with everyone under the sun, but that the virus they carried was the source). ---
**Author:** ![emmaliminal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7bcc69/32.png) [@emmaliminal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/emmaliminal)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2007, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aids-in-us-undoubtedly-came-from-haiti/425648/8 "2007-11-14T00:40:29Z")
[QUOTE=jk1245] …(not to say that that carrier had sex with everyone under the sun, but that the virus they carried was the source). [/QUOTE] True – and even more so, one of the folks quoted in the Reuters article that \*\*DSYoungEsq \*\*linked to almost charmingly assumes relatively chaste behavior on the part of early carriers: [QUOTE=Michael Worobey, a University of Arizona evolutionary biologist] “That one infection would have become two, and then it doubles again and the two becomes four,” Worobey said. “So you have a period – probably a fair number of years – where you’re dealing with probably fewer than a hundred people who are infected. And then, as with epidemic expansion, at some point the hundred becomes 200, you start getting into thousands, tens of thousands…” [/QUOTE] Given what I remember about painfully bigoted media speculation in the early 80s about how it was those slutty, slutty gays who caused it to spread so quickly, this is refreshing. As explained, carriers need only have shared the virus with one new person apiece to explain the epidemiological timeline. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2007, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aids-in-us-undoubtedly-came-from-haiti/425648/9 "2007-11-14T03:51:17Z")
jk1245 writes: \> Wonder how the case of Robert R fits in? He claimed he never had left the \> Midwest and that he had been showing symptoms since '66. \> \> At any rate, he died of full blown AIDS in '69, which is when this study says HIV \> first entered the US. There are various possibilities. One is that someone from Africa who was HIV positive visited the U.S. and had sex with Robert R. That person then returned to Africa without passing the virus on to anyone else. Robert R. didn’t pass the virus on to anyone else before dying. The fact that all the current cases on AIDS in the U.S. are derived from a single person coming from Haiti to the U.S. doesn’t mean that there couldn’t be other isolated cases of people before 1969 bringing the HIV virus to the U.S. where the virus didn’t get passed on to anyone who currently has it. ---
**Author:** ![ChrisBooth12](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e95f7d/32.png) [@ChrisBooth12](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ChrisBooth12)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2007, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aids-in-us-undoubtedly-came-from-haiti/425648/10 "2007-11-14T05:03:21Z")
Wasnt there some sailor who caught it in like 57 and had a sample of his blood saved because doctors did not know what it was