Wow. Tesla rays, cold war germ warfare, I don’t know. There is a book which is quite controversial, called The River, which chronicled the invention of the polio vaccine.and the trials which took place along the Congo river. Apparently, the first polio vaccines were cultured in monkey kidneys, from the local region. Some of these monkeys had what came to be known as simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV). This was known, supposedly, yet the vaccine was made with this kidney substrate for quite some time, with the possibility that infected kidneys were used, it mutated, they used it anyway, mainly in poor countries and this caused the spread of HIV.
Thanks to immunization, polio like smallpox may soon be eradicated. But did the trials of early polio vaccines trigger AIDS? The central thesis of Edward Hooper’s new book, The River, is that they did. Hooper argues that both AIDS viruses, HIV-1 and HIV-2, first infected humans via contaminated oral poliovirus vaccines (OPV). He claims these vaccines were grown in kidney cell cultures derived in the 1950s from chimpanzees and sooty mangabeys, respectively, that were infected with simian immunodeficiency viruses (SIVs). Although this notion has been explored before, no one previously has researched the history of polio vaccine trials and early AIDS cases so exhaustively. Hooper builds up layer upon layer of circumstantial evidence and plausible conjecture, until he declares: “The reader must make up his mind or her mind. I have made up mine.” Yet after having read his 858 pages of text and 175 pages of notes and references, I remain undecided on the origins of HIV.
The thing about a cure for AIDS is, it is the end stage of HIV which is a retro virus that infects cells and mutates, shutting down the immune system in the long term. What a normal person would shake off like a cold, could cause a person with AIDS to have a stay in hospital, as a result of the deterioration of the immune system. This also makes it very hard to come with a vaccine, apparently, as the virus mutates in the body.
On the plus side, the treatments have improved greatly from the time this surfaced, and it’s not necessarily the death sentence it once was. Availability.to said treatments, is another matter altogether. Drug companies have deep, deep pockets, and stacks of fancy public relations companies and lawyers to protect them, if they want to keep something quiet, they will.
