AIDS origin scenario, polio vaccines and bad practices, how valid?

Factual Questions
1

So I read about a new scenario for the AIDS origin that I’m wondering how it stacks up. This isn’t a conspiracy theory scenario where some clandestine group intentionally created/released AIDS. It’s an attempt to help explain why AIDS broke out in the areas of Africa where it originated and why it popped onto the world stage so prolifically when it did, something that is still not fully explained as I understand.

The proposed scenario is this: during the 1950s the United Nations had embarked on a mass polio vaccination program in Africa. The center of the program was the Belgian Congo (Congo, Rwanda, Burundi). The program was supposed to rely on doctors in the United States to make all the vaccines, using macaque monkeys in the US. However, when initial shipments of vaccines were received, local efforts may have used local tissue sources to boost and stretch the supplies to make them go further, using green monkeys or chimpanzees. There is evidence that scientists in French Equatorial Africa used baboon cultures this way.

The interesting fact is that this program occurs in exactly the region where AIDS is believed to have originated, it occurs right in the timeframe when the origin theory is in place. It also addresses the weakness of the “bushmeat” theory, in that bushmeat was a longstanding practice, so why did it suddenly create such a dramatic risk?

Sources (I haven’t read them, these were references from where I encountered the claim)

Hooper, Edward. The River: A Journey to the Source of HIV and AIDS. New York, Back Bay/Little Brown, 2000.

Porter, Roy. “Tissue Wars,” London Review of Books 22:5, 2 March 2000.

I’m curious how this all stacks up. I read up on Wikipedia on AIDS origins, but this wasn’t addressed.

2

Nature article that refutes the claim

3

This is all bullshit, and may have originated with Cold War era Soviet propoganda.

4

By the time AIDS emerged, the Soviets were too busy with their own problems to worry about propaganda.

5

That is not close to true. I attended a monthly meeting of federal government officials involved with HTLV-III/LAV in Washington in the mid-1980s and remember well how upset the representatives of a Virginia-based agency were about the latest Soviet disinformation campaign.

6

There was a theory that unsanitary reuse of needles and other medical supplies in the mid-1900’s may have helped spread what could have been a localized and occasional sickness in central Africa into a much wider epidemic.

However, considering how much AIDS spreads now in Africa, all on its own without the help of needles, I don’t think it is necessary to blame western medicine. And, we can’t blame one particular race - once it got the foothold, it spread equally well in other countries and continents until public health concerns switched into high gear.

7

I do believe that reuse of needles and other medical supplies has contributed to a lot of the spread of AIDS in Africa and other Third World regions.

And I have read “The River”. It’s an interesting story, but has largely been debunked.

This book came out a couple years ago. It postulates that HIV crossed into the human population sometime between 1880 and 1920, in southern Cameroon, most likely via an injury while butchering a monkey for dinner.

8

A long article expressing this theory was first published in “Rolling Stone Magazine” in the March, 1992 issue.

The magazine was sued and the theory has since been debunked.

9

Articles with a concise overview of this debunked theory:

Regardless of convincing refutations (they’re all in on the coverup, you know :eek:), the theory still has traction among antivaxers and conspiracy theorists in general.

10

Thanks to everyone. This is the material I needed.