The opinion piece in last Thursday's Daily Observer, "AIDS Lab-Made for Population Control" by columnist Mark Wignall, echoing one Cecil Gutzmore, continues to spread the elaborate conspiracy theory and bigoted venom asserting that "HIV/AIDS was made in the lab, in the US, as a means of controlling the non-white population of the world."

The accusations are outrageous as well as terribly sad. Of even more concern is that the Observer has not clearly stated the qualifications of either person to act as medical authorities. Mr Wignall is a writer of varied interests.

Mr Gutzmore is an assistant lecturer at the Institute of Caribbean Studies, UWI Mona. To our knowledge, neither of them has a medical degree to act as an expert, nor, apparently, enough training to tell an epidemiologist from a snake oil salesman.
As far as cross-species infection is concerned, it is a reality - witness swine flu - whether Mr Wignall considers it "bunkum" or not.

Readers are invited to consider the referenced facts set forth below about the origins of the pandemic as understood by leading/recognised experts in the international effort to defeat the scourge of HIV/AIDS, as well as information on other subjects mentioned by Mr Wignall.

The origins of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS

When AIDS was first recognised, its origins were a mystery. But there is now strong scientific evidence that the AIDS virus originated as a subspecies of a virus that commonly infects the western equatorial African chimpanzee, Pan troglodytes troglodytes.

An article in the February 4, 1999 issue of Nature, "Origin of HIV-1 in the chimpanzee Pan troglodytes troglodytes" explained how scientists used mitochondrial DNA analysis to determine that "all HIV-1 strains known to infect man" were closely related to a simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) found in the chimpanzee.

The article also notes that the natural range of this particular type of chimpanzee "coincides precisely with the areas of HIV-1 group endemicity". The less common HIV-2, which also causes AIDS, was determined to be related to a virus infecting another African primate, the sooty mangebey.

Dr Beatrice Hahn of the University of Alabama and her colleagues made this discovery after analysing frozen blood and tissue samples from four chimpanzees, including a lab chimp named Marilyn, which had died in 1985. Modern tests for HIV reactivity were not available at that time, and Marilyn's tissue and blood samples were rediscovered only in 1998, making the new analysis possible.

Dr Hahn and her colleagues estimate that SIV may have existed in Pan troglodytes troglodytes chimpanzees for as long as several hundred thousand years. Although it cannot be known with certainty how the virus gained a foothold in humans, hunting chimpanzees for food could have provided a source for transmission from chimpanzees to humans.

Other scientific discoveries place the oldest known human case of HIV as occurring in 1959. A February 5, 1998 article in Nature, "An African HIV-1 sequence from 1959 and implications for the origin of the epidemic", reported that a plasma sample obtained in early 1959 from an adult Bantu male living in what is now Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRG) had tested positive for HIV-1.

In 2000, scientists at the Los Alamos National Laboratory used their powerful supercomputers to analyse the relationships among various strains of HIV-1. Their calculations showed that the main HIV-1 virus probably established itself in humans in about 1930, as explained in an article in the June 8, 2000 issue of Science, "Timing the Ancestor of the HIV-1 Pandemic Strains".

Thus, although a simian immunodeficiency virus appears to have existed for very long periods of time in Pan troglodytes troglodytes chimpanzees, it did not lead to a pandemic in humans before the 20th century. The beginnings of modernisation and urbanisation in western equatorial Africa in the early 1900s may have contributed to the rise of the AIDS pandemic.

Between 1900 and 1961, the population of what is now Kinshasa, DRC increased approximately 100 times, from a few thousand in 1900 to 420,000 in 1961.

This exponential growth in urbanisation and related dislocations of traditional rural life may have led to conditions that were conducive to the spread of AIDS. Such possibilities are explored at greater length in an article "Origin of HIV Type 1 in Colonial French Equatorial Africa?" published in the journal AIDS Research and Human Retroviruses (volume 16, number 1, 2000, pp. 5-8).

Thus, it is clear that:
. HIV-1, the virus that caused the AIDS pandemic, could not be man-made because direct evidence shows that AIDS has existed in humans at least since 1959 and scientific analysis shows that it was probably present some 75 years ago, which is long before humans had the means to genetically engineer microbes.

. HIV-1 is very closely related to a similar virus found in equatorial West African chimpanzees.

. The scientific evidence indicates that the HIV-1 virus resulted from cross-species transmission, which is known to occur in other human diseases, including influenza, plague, tuberculosis, and many other diseases, especially since this species of virus has a strong predilection for frequent mutation, making adoption to humans relatively easy.

. Social and economic conditions in western equatorial Africa changed dramatically in the 20th century, which could explain why the AIDS pandemic emerged at this time and not previously.

National Security Study Memorandum 200

The 1974 National Security Study Memorandum 200 (NSSM 200) has been the source of frequent misinformation since it was declassified in 1989. The full study is available for all to examine at http://www.africa2000.com/SNDX/nssm200all.html.

Mr Wignall's claim that the goal of NSSM was to keep other countries from becoming industrialised so that the United States could control their resources is totally wrong. The goal of NSSM 200 was the exact opposite - to help less developed countries develop more quickly by lessening the drag that excess population places on economic growth.

NSSM 200 was undertaken out of concerns that, at then-current growth rates, world population would grossly exceed the then-estimated 8-12 billion maximum survival capacity of the planet. The report warned that, "rapid population growth creates a severe drag on rates of economic development", the "intensification of severe unemployment and underemployment" and the "possibility of massive famines in certain parts of the world, especially the poorest countries".

The goal of US policy was to avoid these adverse outcomes.
NSSM 200 made policy recommendations for US international family planning assistance in a way that was fully respectful of other countries.

The memo ordering the study, signed by then-National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger, explicitly stated "the objective of the United States is to work closely with others, rather than seek to impose our views on others".

The document viewed the World Population Plan of Action and the resolutions consensually adopted by 137 nations at the August 1974 UN World Population Conference as providing "an excellent framework for developing a worldwide system of population/family planning programmes".

The theme throughout NSSM 200 is one of supplying information on family planning that can be used by others in a responsible, voluntary way in order to minimise the adverse effects that excess population growth would have on all countries.

Len Horowitz

Len Horowitz is a former dentist who believes in bizarre conspiracy theories. Horowitz thinks that Hitler, the Masons, the Central Intelligence Agency, large drug companies, the Rockefellers, Henry Kissinger, European royalty, and others are involved in a gigantic satanic conspiracy to control the world through disease.

(For Horowitz's confused views, see http://www.bariumblues.com/flu_conspiracy.htm).

Horowitz sells health care products that he claims will counteract the effects of these alleged poisons. He also sells a book, Healing Codes For The Biological Apocalypse, which he says is based on "divine revelations", that claims to decipher secret codes hidden in the Bible.

According to him, it "reveals the divine musical tones destined to be sung by the gathering critical mass of '144,000' people required to establish 1,000 years of world peace". (http://hiddenmysteries.com/xcart/product.php?productid=16417)

Boyd Graves

In 2002, the General Accounting Office investigated the charges made by Boyd Graves that the National Cancer Institute Special Virus Cancer Programme (SVCP) created the AIDS virus.

The purpose of the SVCP, which began in 1964, was to find viruses in human cancer cells and develop means to block their effects and thereby reduce cancer growth.

As noted elsewhere, the HIV virus first appeared in humans in the first half of the 20th century, long before the SVCP began. They concluded, "there is no evidence that SVCP created the AIDS virus". (http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d02809r.pdf)

The Real Problem - Defeating the Virus

There is no disputing the fact that HIV/AIDS constitutes a serious threat to human health, or that it poses an elevated risk in certain areas of the world.

The US Government has committed US$15 billion worldwide over the next five years to combat the disease through research, education and treatment on a global scale. We continue, and will continue, to fight this catastrophic disease. We invite all to join us.

Trousers in Denim

Cream of the 'Crop'

Cheeky's World