Guess what came to America from Haiti some years ago?
Study shows AIDS came to the U.S. via Haiti, and earlier than thought
By Jia-Rui Chong, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
A genetic analysis of 25-year-old blood samples has outlined a new map of the AIDS virus’ journey out of Africa, showing that today’s most widespread subtype first emerged in Haiti in the 1960s and arrived in the U.S. a few years later.
The analysis fills in a gap in the history of the virus, whose migration has been known in only a sketchy form from its origin in Africa in the 1930s to its first detection in Los Angeles in 1981.
Dr. Michael Gottlieb, an assistant clinical professor of medicine at UCLA and one of the original discoverers of AIDS, said the analysis placed the virus in the U.S. nearly a decade earlier than previously believed.
“It’s pretty clear evidence for Haiti as a steppingstone,” he said. “The suggestion that the infection was further below our radar than I’d previously suspected is kind of unnerving.”
The analysis, published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, focused on a variety of HIV known as subtype B, which is the most prevalent form in most countries outside of Africa.
Michael Worobey, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Arizona and senior author of the study, analyzed five blood samples collected in 1982 and 1983 from Haitian AIDS patients in Miami. The samples had been stored in a freezer by the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Worobey and colleagues looked at two viral genes and compared their sequences with virus samples from around the world.
As a baseline, the used virus samples from Central Africa that are considered some of the earliest forms of HIV.
Because viruses are constantly mutating, the researchers could construct a rough timeline of development by measuring how much the genes in later samples had drifted away from their ancestral forms.
The team found that the Haitian samples were genetically the most closely related to the African virus, indicating that they were the earliest to branch off.
Statistically, the researchers found a 99.7% certainty that HIV subtype B originated in Haiti as opposed to elsewhere, Worobey said. (more…)
Yes, there will be idiots out there that will try to pin the whole thing on Haitians. Just remind them that AIDS is a disease where oftentimes its victims have multiple sexual partners–something that cannot be blamed on Haitians.
In any event, this is a very interesting find.
Before this, they said Africa. Before that, they said it was a gay Frenchman.
What. Ever.
Comment by DarkStar | October 30, 2007
No, they are maintaining that AIDS did originate in Africa. According to this article it made it here bay way of Haiti.
Comment by Duane | October 30, 2007
Comment by Sophia | November 12, 2007
Comment by Sophia | November 12, 2007
A 1998 analysis of the plasma sample from 1959 has suggested that HIV-1 was introduced into humans around the 1940s or the early 1950s; much earlier than previously thought. Other scientists have dated the sample to an even earlier period - perhaps as far back as the end of the 19th century.
In January 2000, the results of a new study presented at the 7th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections, suggested that the first case of HIV-1 infection occurred around 1930 in West Africa . The study was carried out by Dr Bette Korber of the Los Alamos National Laboratory. The estimate of 1930 (which has a 15 year margin of error) was based on a complex computer model of HIV’s evolution. If accurate, it means that HIV was in existence before many scenarios (such as the OPV and conspiracy theories) suggest.
Comment by Sophia | November 12, 2007
It is likely that we will never know who the first person was to be infected with HIV, or exactly how it spread from that initial person. Scientists investigating the possibilities often become very attached to their individual ‘pet’ theories and insist that theirs is the only true answer, but the spread of AIDS could quite conceivably have been induced by a combination of many different events. Whether through injections, travel, wars, colonial practices or genetic engineering, the realities of the 20th Century have undoubtedly had a major role to play. Nevertheless, perhaps a more pressing concern for scientists today should not be how the AIDS epidemic originated, but how those it affects can be treated, how the further the spread of HIV can be prevented and how the world can change to ensure a similar pandemic never occurs again.
Comment by Sophia | November 12, 2007
All i have to say is that this person made it seem like AIDS came from from Haiti. Even though im not haitian, i dont think you should say its from them because im in school right now studing about AID’s and HIV so please learn your facts.
Comment by Tanya | December 22, 2007
umm who ever believe that shit is dumb….aids could have came from a lab in america to kill or control the american population seeing that if the population grows excessively it will cause a deep economic recession,the american government don’t want that…and they could have spread it to africa seeing that it is the richest continent on the face of the earth in terms gold, diamond and all that shit to cripple the african people so that when americans and others alike go to africa to rob the country the africans are to sick and dieing that the least of it’s worries is the robbery of it’s land….also haiti was the first black independent country(also kicked the FRENCH ASS AND If it wasn’t for haiti America would still consit of 13 colonies and be speaking FRENCH right now.. and americans resent that shit(because a little island filled with a few Black slaves did what a huge land filled with a shit load people of european ancestry couldn’t do) so they do whatever they can to demoralize the country of haiti…hmm just a thought, the point is find a fuckin cure
Comment by kkat | January 30, 2008