Consumerism

My original post today was to be about how the corporations have reduced the middle class worldwide to mere instruments (of consumption) for amassing wealth, while the proletariat is left none the wiser.

That's what I was thinking when in the shower where people generally think clearest due to the increased ambient oxygen in the air. That lasted until the UPS guy delivered my newest toy - a pair of Grado SR80 headphones. I word - WOW! Didn't think anything could sound like that! So word up ye fellow creatures...join me in the bliss of consumerism, and my conclusion today is - tis all ok if its a great product, and this one sure is!

Ok so today is world AIDS day, and I've decided to explore a little into the origins of this most terrible disease.

Everyone knows about AIDS, yet it is appalling to note how little people know about its origins. Here are a couple of popular theories that might be your answer to the question: How did AIDS originate?

It is widely agreed upon that HIV has its origins in SIV (Simian Immunodeficiency Virus) which is prevalent in Chimpazees. So we just need to theorize how SIV jumped from chimps to humans.

Cut Hunter Theory
Tribes in Africa have been known to hunt chimpanzees for meat. On one such hunt, a hunter or group of hunters were injured while cutting chimpanzee meat which led to chimpanzee blood to mix with their own, and thus they were infected.

Perverted Hunter Theory
One hunter, from the group above, disobeyed all laws of human attraction, and had sex with a chimp hottie who happenned to be infected with SIV...ironically a hard-on isn't all he got.

Before we dive into the analysis of the above:
1. AIDS is fairly recent. The first case was noted the 1959.
2. HIV wasn't isolated until much later.
3. SIV has been around for much much longer, and humans and Chimpanzees have lived around each other for 10s of thousands of years.

While the above theories are plausible, it cannot by any stretch of the imagination explain how HIV is prevalent worldwide with 40 million people infected. Mathematically and probabilistically we cannot arrive at a reasonable progression which can lead us from a few infected in the late 1950s in Africa, to 40 million infected today in every corner of the globe.


Oral Polio Vaccine Theory
In the 50s Polio was the scourge of humanity and every researcher in the field was racing to find the vaccine that would save the world. Hilary Koprowski was one of these scientists. He worked at the Wistar Institute in Philadelphia, and was banned from doing further polio research because he tested his vaccine on school kids in NY (which led to serious sideeffects). This did not stop the man. He teamed up with some Belgian scientists and went to the Belgian Congo (Zaire), and continued his research with plentiful servile human lab subjects.

A brief primer on vaccine preparation at the time -
Kidney cells are taken from lower monkeys (Macaques usually), and are cultured in blood serum (also from the monkey), so they they remain a living mass of cells. The polio (or any other virus for that matter), is introduced into this tissue substrate, and it proceeds to infect and multiply amongst the living cells. This infected tissue is then attenuated (weakened) and the result is an Attenuated Live Vaccine (for the virus that you introduced into the substrate). Sadly, with all the improvements in biotechnology, the way vaccines are made today isn't much different from the process described above.

Koprowski discovered that he could manufacture vaccines in large quantities by capturing local chimpanzees from the sourrounding forests, and use their kidneys to make the tissue substrate. He proceeded to set up a huge facility in Leopoldville where chimps were systemetically captured and killed to make tissue substrate. This was far easier and cheaper than importing macaque monkeys from India or the Philippines. Sadly for humanity, these chimpanzees were infected with SIV (SIV in chimps is harmless, they natuarally develop antibodies, and successfully cure themselves of SIV).

In 1958, 1.8 million people were vaccinated with Koprowski's polio vaccine in and around Leopoldville. A few years later, the first cases of AIDS were discovered, in and around the exact spots where the vaccinations had taken place.

The above is a paraphrased summary of the book called "The River" by Edward Hooper which was subsequently made into a highly controversial documenraty movie called The Origins of AIDS. What I've mentioned above is backed up by evidence in the form of written accounts, archival video tape, taped interviews with Koprowski's colleagues and subordinates, interviews with the locals who worked in the labs, and interviews with Chimpanzee hunters who were employed by these labs.

What I'm about to dive into now is unsubstantiated. It is speculation, and remains to be proven.

Koprowski had struck the goldmine of vaccine production with the chimpanzee tissue substrate mechanism. He communicates with Wistar and Wistar starts producing vaccines with Koprowski's substrates. One such vaccine they work on is the Hepatitis C vaccine. In the late 70s massive TV campaigns are run informing the public about the dangers of Hepatitis C emphasising that the gay community is particularly suceptible. Several vaccination clinics are conducted, and thus AIDS starts in the US, as a gay man's disease in Philadelphia.