# Why doesn't anyone believe that HIV is manmade? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 29, 2001, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-anyone-believe-that-hiv-is-manmade/78799 "2001-08-29T20:50:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![serack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/da6949/32.png) [@serack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/serack)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2001, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-anyone-believe-that-hiv-is-manmade/78799/1 "2001-08-29T20:50:49Z")
Everything just seems too convenient about HIV. It popped up out of NOWHERE just when gays were increasing their visibility, it just HAPPENED to attack the U.S.'s most undesirable populations (gays, blacks, and drug users) during the very right-wing Reagan era, it’s so mutative that it’s been impossible to develop a vaccine for it, and its decimating the population of a continent that’s hardly respected (just the black Africans, mind you, not the Arabs or the white South Africans). How can this virus NOT be manmade? ---
**Author:** ![andros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2001, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-anyone-believe-that-hiv-is-manmade/78799/2 "2001-08-29T20:52:49Z")
How can the Universe NOT have been created by God? How can Bubonic Plague NOT have been the work of Centaurians? ---
**Author:** ![Maeglin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2001, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-anyone-believe-that-hiv-is-manmade/78799/3 "2001-08-29T20:53:42Z")
That isn’t exactly how we frame inquiries around here, **serack**. If you wish to articulate some sort of premise, you need to supply enough evidence to support the truth of such a premise. Simply lining up circumstantial and attendant truths does not magically transfer the burden of proof to those who believe you are full of malarky. So if you think AIDS is engineered, show us the money. ---
**Author:** ![andros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2001, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-anyone-believe-that-hiv-is-manmade/78799/4 "2001-08-29T20:55:31Z")
Oh, and please make sure you know what viruses are, what they do, and how HIV fits into the body of viral knowledge. Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![Moirai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/96bed5/32.png) [@Moirai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moirai)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2001, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-anyone-believe-that-hiv-is-manmade/78799/5 "2001-08-29T21:08:13Z")
Um, **serack** , you said some rather interesting things there. The comment about Africa being a “hardly respected” continent (but just the black African part, mind you, not the white or Arab parts) stand out. Or did you mean that the black Africans themselves are “hardly respected?” And of course, calling gays, blacks and drug users our most undesireable societal members. Hmmm. Who might have engineered this plague? The Jewish Conspiracy? The One World Government? Anita Bryant? This is no way to introduce yourself to the SDMB. Listen to **andros** and **Maeglin** and try it again. ---
**Author:** ![Danimal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bb73d2/32.png) [@Danimal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Danimal)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2001, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-anyone-believe-that-hiv-is-manmade/78799/6 "2001-08-29T21:15:44Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by serack \* > \*\*Everything just seems too convenient about HIV. It popped up out of NOWHERE just when gays were increasing their visibility, it just HAPPENED to attack the U.S.'s most undesirable populations (gays, blacks, and drug users) during the very right-wing Reagan era, it’s so mutative that it’s been impossible to develop a vaccine for it, and its decimating the population of a continent that’s hardly respected (just the black Africans, mind you, not the Arabs or the white South Africans). How can this virus NOT be manmade? \*\* Not that I’m saying anything that everybody but **serack** doesn’t already know, but the reason no one believes HIV is manmade is that no human knows how to make a virus. We’re just beginning to learn how to duplicate organisms that already exist; we’re a long ways from creating ones that don’t exist yet. The thing I actually want to address is that, when AIDS first cropped up in the early '80s, very few black people actually were contracting it. (Haitians, for reasons unknown to me, were the only black people who suffered from it much). As late as the early '90s, there was a tragic belief among America’s black population that AIDS was “whitey’s disease”; a misconception that has cost many young blacks their health or their lives. ---
**Author:** ![Triskadecamus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b19c9b/32.png) [@Triskadecamus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Triskadecamus)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2001, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-anyone-believe-that-hiv-is-manmade/78799/7 "2001-08-29T21:19:20Z")
HIV is older than viral medicine. HIV was first identified in the late seventies, but was present in the population before that. All available evidence supports the most likely first introduction of the strain of HIV which has caused epidemic outbreaks of AIDS to have occurred no later than the late 1940s, and probably fifteen years or so before that. In other words, back before viral engineering was possible. Viral infection by deliberate vectors into the target populations would have been impractical even if it were available, since so very few people were identifiable by sexual preference at that time. Race based attack were already implemented in a much more straightforward manner at considerably lower cost. There was no need for the Aryan Super Masters to use means more indirect than a cotton hood. Pipe dream conspiracy theories as such fun. ## Tris “He who fights too long against dragons becomes a dragon himself; and if you gaze too long into the abyss, the abyss will gaze into you.” ~ Friedrich Nietzsche ~ ---
**Author:** ![bernse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@bernse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bernse)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2001, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-anyone-believe-that-hiv-is-manmade/78799/8 "2001-08-29T21:37:33Z")
[slight hijack] When was the first death that was **confirmed** to be caused by AIDS (either at the time of death or later on). How about the first death that AIDS is **suspected** to have caused? Is it really the 40s or earlier as mentioned above? ---
**Author:** ![lucwarm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e19adc/32.png) [@lucwarm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lucwarm)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2001, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-anyone-believe-that-hiv-is-manmade/78799/9 "2001-08-29T21:45:13Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by serack \* > \*\*Everything just seems too convenient about HIV. It popped up out of NOWHERE just when gays were increasing their visibility, it just HAPPENED to attack the U.S.'s most undesirable populations (gays, blacks, and drug users) during the very right-wing Reagan era, it’s so mutative that it’s been impossible to develop a vaccine for it, and its decimating the population of a continent that’s hardly respected (just the black Africans, mind you, not the Arabs or the white South Africans). How can this virus NOT be manmade? \*\* I just love the way that there’s “something for everyone” in your post - Reagan, racism, a conspiracy theory, and the HIV/AIDS question. I give it 9.0 on the troll-o-meter. |--------x-| ---
**Author:** ![Triskadecamus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b19c9b/32.png) [@Triskadecamus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Triskadecamus)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2001, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-anyone-believe-that-hiv-is-manmade/78799/10 "2001-08-29T23:26:51Z")
> [@](#): > > When was the first death that was confirmed to be caused by AIDS (either at the time of death or later on). From “The origin of AIDS” by Tom Curtis" > [@](#): > > Gallo discussed the case of a Norwegian seaman who visited an east African coastal city in the mid-Sixties, became sick with an AIDS-like illness in 1966 and died in 1976 at age thirty after infecting his wife and a daughter, who died shortly thereafter. The family’s blood-serum specimens were tested in the mid-Eighties and were positive for HIV. Other cases from earlier reports cannot be verified since tissue samples are not available. ## Tris “It is impossible to defeat an ignorant man in argument.” ~ William G. McAdoo ~ ---
**Author:** ![wevets](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9a140/32.png) [@wevets](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wevets)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2001, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-anyone-believe-that-hiv-is-manmade/78799/11 "2001-08-30T00:03:19Z")
Just wanted to second what Danimal said, and add that there’s a big misconception out there that biological warfare is conducted the same way as conventional warfare, with weapons that are manufactured from raw materials (guns, tanks, etc.). Instead the whole essence of biological warfare is using the destructive capacities of pre-existing diseases and parasites, designed and manufactured by nature (well, reproducing themselves really, just an anthropomorphication of nature here), to wreak havoc upon the “enemy.” Since no one is known to have ever built a virus (and it is beyond the technological capabilities of anyone as far as the public knows), it is extremely unlikely that the HIV is engineered. This does not exclude the use of HIV for biological warfare, from human use of a naturally occurring virus. Is there any evidence of biological warfare here? ---
**Author:** ![serack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/da6949/32.png) [@serack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/serack)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2001, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-anyone-believe-that-hiv-is-manmade/78799/12 "2001-08-30T00:10:34Z")
Well I don’t see the need for such rudeness. Sorry for being IGNORANT but I thought asking a question was a good way to gain knowledge. I thought there were some interesting coincedences and I wanted to know why they’re not considered. Maybe I should have posted this in General Questions? ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2001, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-anyone-believe-that-hiv-is-manmade/78799/13 "2001-08-30T00:32:36Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by serack \* > \*\* Maybe I should have posted this in General Questions? \*\* Probably. It’s pretty much expected that when you start a thread in GD, you’d better have your ducks all lined up in a row, and be ready to cite reliable data to support your position. And asking someone to come along and prove a negative for you > [@](#): > > How can this virus NOT be manmade? is like throwing gas on a fire in GD. GQ or IMHO offer a lot more latitude. And don’t take it personally. When you visit a site where great intellects and great egos mingle freely, anything goes. ---
**Author:** ![tracer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tracer/32/20578_2.png) [@tracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tracer)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2001, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-anyone-believe-that-hiv-is-manmade/78799/14 "2001-08-30T00:46:12Z")
andros wrote: > [@](#): > > How can Bubonic Plague NOT have been the work of Centaurians? Silly, everybody knows that Alpha Centaurians are short, furry creatures. They’d be just **way** too cute and cuddly to engineer a nasty disease. Now, the Klingons, on the other hand… ---
**Author:** ![Laughing\_Lagomorph](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/6bbea6/32.png) [@Laughing\_Lagomorph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Laughing_Lagomorph)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2001, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-anyone-believe-that-hiv-is-manmade/78799/15 "2001-08-30T01:18:49Z")
wevets said: Since no one is known to have ever built a virus (and it is beyond the technological capabilities of anyone as far as the public knows), it is extremely unlikely that the HIV is engineered. While I agree that HIV could not have been engineered, there are such things as man-made viruses. They are used in research, gene therapy, for example. They are not made “from the ground up”, of course, but are usually put together using recombinant DNA technology from parts of other viruses, plus whatever gene sequences you are interested in expressing in the target organism. This technology has really only taken off in the last 10-15 years or so, and was certainly not available in the 1940s, or even the late 70s/early 80s (for the virus to have started spreading in the Reagan era, it would have had to have been made several years before that). ---
**Author:** ![Cyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a88e4f/32.png) [@Cyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cyn)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2001, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-anyone-believe-that-hiv-is-manmade/78799/16 "2001-08-30T01:42:52Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by serack \* > \*\*Sorry for being IGNORANT but I thought asking a question was a good way to gain knowledge…Maybe I should have posted this in General Questions? \*\* I’m sorry you’re being ignorant, too. You\* are\* just asking a question and stating your opinion that blacks and gays and drug users are undesirables, not debating. And while you state that HIV is decimating a continent that some do not respect, I cannot respect you. How can HIV not be manmade? If it were’nt made by man. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2001, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-anyone-believe-that-hiv-is-manmade/78799/17 "2001-08-30T01:46:05Z")
“It popped up out of NOWHERE just when gays were increasing their visibility” Leaving the viral arguments to those who know more than I do, I think you may be mixing cause and effect on this one. AIDS forced the gay community to make itself more visible and political as a survival measure. It took years to get federal funding for AIDS research, which was finally brought about by (among other factors) gays finally getting a strong enough lobby that politicians had to pay attention. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2001, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-anyone-believe-that-hiv-is-manmade/78799/18 "2001-08-30T01:51:57Z")
BTW, **Cyn** I think that **serack** is inferring motives on the theoretical manufacturers of HIV, not calling blacks, gays, and addicts undesireable himself. If _he_ thought they were undesireable, he likely wouldn’t be complaining about Ronald Reagan manufacturing a plague to kill them all. Pointing out that Africa, and sub-Saharan Africa in particular, haven’t been “respected” by America or Europe is certainly accurate, if understated. ---
**Author:** ![serack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/da6949/32.png) [@serack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/serack)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2001, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-anyone-believe-that-hiv-is-manmade/78799/19 "2001-08-30T02:36:18Z")
## Leaving the viral arguments to those who know more than I do, I think you may be mixing cause and effect on this one. AIDS forced the gay community to make itself more visible and political as a survival measure. It took years to get federal funding for AIDS research, which was finally brought about by (among other factors) gays finally getting a strong enough lobby that politicians had to pay attention. But Stonewall, along with the revoking of many laws incrimating gays for merely having sex, and Anita Bryant happened right before AIDS and both propelled gays into mainstream consiousness. Also, anyone determined could have found out about the many gay ghettoes by that time to seek out a confirmed gay person to infect. The fact that so many gays were closeted made a sexually transmitted virus a much more practical and efficient way to get rid of them. And yes, of course I was infering that the conspiratores viewed gays, blacks, and drug abusers as undesirables, rather than thinking so myself. Sorry about any misunderstanding (maybe I should have used quotation marks). ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2001, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-anyone-believe-that-hiv-is-manmade/78799/20 "2001-08-30T03:20:15Z")
> [@](#): > > I think you may be mixing cause and effect on this one. AIDS forced the gay community to make itself more visible and political as a survival measure. Umm, The Stonewall riots (and the formation of the Gay Pride movement) date to July, 1969. AIDS did not come into the public consciousness (with several groups of homosexuals _opposing_ dissemination of news about it) until 1983. It is simply not true that “AIDS forced the gay community to make itself more visible and political.” For cause and effect, you need a bit better grasp of history. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-anyone-believe-that-hiv-is-manmade/78799.md?page=2)