OPV AIDS hypothesis
Encyclopedia
The oral polio vaccine (OPV) AIDS hypothesis argues that the AIDS
pandemic
originated from live polio vaccine
s prepared in chimpanzee
tissue cultures and then administered to up to one million Africans between 1957 and 1960 in experimental mass vaccination campaigns.
Data from molecular biology
and phylogenetic studies contradict the OPV AIDS hypothesis; consequently, scientific consensus
regards the hypothesis as disproven. The journal Nature
has described the hypothesis as "refuted".
s are used throughout the world to combat poliomyelitis
. The first polio vaccine, developed by Jonas Salk
, is an inactivated poliovirus
vaccine (IPV), consisting of a mixture of three wild, virulent strains of poliovirus, grown in a type of monkey kidney
tissue culture (Vero cell line), and made noninfectious by formalin treatment. The second vaccine, an oral polio vaccine (OPV), is a live-attenuated vaccine, produced by the passage of the virus through non-human cells at a sub-physiological temperature. The passage of virus produces mutations within the viral genome, and hinders the virus's ability to infect nervous tissue.
Both vaccines have been used for decades to induce immunity
to polio, and to stop the spread of the infection. However, OPV has several advantages; because the vaccine is introduced in the gastrointestinal tract, the primary site of poliovirus infection and replication, it closely mimics a natural infection. OPV also provides long lasting immunity, and stimulates the production of polio neutralizing antibodies in the pharynx
and gut. Hence, OPV not only prevents paralytic poliomyelitis, but also, when given in sufficient doses, can abort a threatening epidemic. Other benefits of OPV include ease of administration, low cost and suitability for mass vaccination campaigns.
, Hilary Koprowski
and H. R. Cox
. A poliovirus type 1 strain called SM was reported in 1954. A less virulent version of the SM strain was reported by Koprowski in 1957. The name of the vaccine strain was “CHAT” after "Charlton", the name of the child who was the donor of the precursor virus. The Sabin, Koprowski and Cox vaccines "were clinically tested in millions of individuals and found to be safe and effective". Because monkey trials found fewer side effects with the Sabin vaccine, in the early 1960s, the Sabin vaccine was licensed in the USA and its use supported by the World Health Organization.
Between 1957 and 1960, Koprowski's vaccine was administered to roughly one million people in the Belgian territories, now the Democratic Republic of the Congo
, Rwanda
and Burundi
. In 1960, Koprowski wrote in the British Medical Journal, "The Belgian Congo trials have enlarged considerably and ... more vaccination campaigns organized in several provinces of the Belgian Congo are raising the number of vaccinated individuals into the millions."(p. 90) Koprowski and his group also published a series of detailed reports on the vaccination of 76,000 children under the age of 5 (and European adults) in the area of Leopoldville (now Kinshasa
) in Belgian Congo from 1958–1960; these reports begin with an overview, next a review of safety and efficacy, then a 21-month follow-up and final report.
methods were used to amplify the virus at local production facilities. Biologic products, chiefly kidney cells for cultures and blood serum for media, were sometimes harvested from local primates and used in the production process if wild or captive populations of appropriate species were available. In South Africa
, African green monkey tissue was used to amplify the Sabin vaccine. In French West Africa
and Equatorial Africa
, baboons were used to amplify a vaccine from the Pasteur Institute. In Poland, the CHAT vaccine was amplified using Asian macaques.
about a "bombshell story" on OPV and AIDS. Curtis published an article on the OPV AIDS hypothesis in Rolling Stone
in 1992. In response, Hilary Koprowski sued Rolling Stone and Tom Curtis for defamation. The magazine published a clarification which praised Koprowski and stated:
Rolling Stone was ordered to pay $1 USD in damages whilst incurring around $500,000 USD in legal fees for its own defense.
A few scientists, notably the biologist W.D. Hamilton, thought the hypothesis required serious investigation, but they received little support from the scientific community.
Journalist Edward Hooper
detailed the hypothesis in his 1999 book, The River. Hooper further expanded on his allegations in a 2000 meeting in London, at the Royal Society
, although these claims were later rebutted by some of the scientists who were present at the meeting. In 2001, Hilary Koprowski responded by making a detailed rebuttal of the points made in the book, also in a talk to the Royal Society. In 2004, the Origin of Aids, a French TV documentary strongly supportive of the OPV hypothesis, appeared on several television stations around the world.
In 2003, Edward Hooper published additional statements that he believed supported his hypothesis in an article in the London Review of Books
. These included accounts of in interview with Jacques Kanyama, a virology technician at the lab in Stanleyville (the Laboratoire Médical de Stanleyville (LMS)) responsible for testing the CHAT vaccine and performing the initial set of vaccinations, who was reported to have said that batches of CHAT had been produced on site by Paul Osterrieth. In addition, Philip Elebe, a microbiology technician, was claimed to have said that tissue cultures were being produced from Lindi chimpanzees. Osterrieth has denied these claims and stated that this work would not have been possible in this laboratory, stating that:
In his book, Hooper also stated that Gaston Ninane was involved in using chimpanzee cells to produce vaccine in Congo. Ninane responded to this allegation by stating that he could "categorically deny" ever having tried to make tissue cultures from chimpanzee cells. The people involved in vaccine production and distribution from America state that no vaccine was prepared locally in Congo and that only the CHAT vaccine from America was used. Barbara Cohen, the technician who was responsible for running the American laboratory that produced this vaccine stated:
.
In an August 1992 letter published in Science
, Koprowski himself repudiated the OPV AIDS hypothesis, pointing to multiple errors of fact in its assertions. In October 1992, Science ran a story titled "Panel Nixes Congo Vaccine as AIDS source," describing the findings of an independent panel which found each proposed step in the OPV-AIDS hypothesis "problematic". The story concluded:
The oldest confirmed sample of human tissue that shows the presence of HIV-1 is an archival sample of plasma collected from an anonymous donor in the city of Leopoldville, Belgian Congo (now Kinshasa
) in 1959. Initial phylogenetic analyses, published in 1999, led the researchers to hypothesise that HIV-1 entered "into the African population not long before 1959."
In 2000, the Royal Society
held a meeting to discuss data on the origin of AIDS
; the OPV AIDS hypothesis was a central topic of discussion. At this meeting, three independent labs released the results of tests on the remaining stocks of Koprowski's vaccine, which Edward Hooper had demanded in The River. The tests confirmed Koprowski's contention that his vaccine was made from monkey, rather than chimpanzee, kidney, and found no evidence of SIV or HIV contamination. Additional epidemiologic and phylogenetic data was presented at the conference which undermined other aspects of the OPV AIDS hypothesis. According to a report in Science, Hooper "did not challenge the results; he simply dismissed them." Brian Martin
, a proponent of the OPV AIDS hypothesis, argued at the conclusion of the conference that if other AIDS-origin hypotheses were scrutinized in such detail, they would prove equally unsatisfying.
In 2001, three articles published in Nature
examined various aspects of the OPV-AIDS hypothesis, as did an article published in Science
. In every case, the studies' findings argued strongly against any link between the polio vaccine and AIDS. The evidence cited included multiple independent studies that dated the introduction of HIV-1 to humans as occurring between 1915 and 1941, probably in the 1930s. These results were confirmed by a later study using samples from the 1960s that also found that the epidemic began between 1908 and 1930, and a study that showed that although recombination amongst viruses makes dating less precise, it does not significantly bias estimates in either direction (it does not introduce a systematic error
).
The author of one of the studies, evolutionary biologist Edward Holmes of Oxford University, commented in light of the new evidence: "Hooper's evidence was always flimsy, and now it's untenable. It's time to move on." An accompanying editorial in Nature concluded:
The possibility that chimpanzees found near Kisangani in the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Stanleyville) were, indirectly, the true source of HIV-1 was directly addressed in a 2004 study published in Nature. Here, the authors found that while SIV was present in chimpanzees in the area, the strain of SIV infecting these chimpanzees was phylogenetically distinct from all strains of HIV, providing direct evidence that these particular chimps were not the source of HIV in humans.
Edward Hooper responded to these studies by either denying their relevance to the OPV hypothesis, disputing their accuracy, or asserting the existence of a "large organised cover-up" or other conspiracy.
and UN to achieve poliomyelitis eradication
worldwide through use of the oral polio vaccine of Albert Sabin
, which is thought to be safe and effective by virtually all medical authorities. If this long-term public-health goal could be achieved, poliomyelitis
would follow smallpox
as the second eradicated infectious human disease. The OPV AIDS hypothesis relates only to the historical origin of AIDS, and its proponents have accepted the safety of the modern polio vaccines, but rumors based on a misunderstanding of the hypothesis exist, and those rumors are blamed in part for the recent failure to eliminate polio in Nigeria
.
By 2003, cases of poliomyelitis had been reduced to just a small number in isolated regions of West Africa
, with sporadic cases elsewhere. However, the disease has since resurged in Nigeria
and in several other nations of Africa, which epidemiologists trace to refusals by certain local populations to allow their children to be administered the Sabin oral vaccine. The expressed concerns of local populations often relate to fears that the vaccine might induce sterility, and it seems that debate over the OPV-AIDS hypothesis has fueled additional fears. Since 2003, these fears have spread among some in the Muslim community, with Datti Ahmed, of the Supreme Council for Sharia in Nigeria stating that:
Polio has also resurged in areas of Pakistan, India and Bangladesh.
AIDS
Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus...
pandemic
Pandemic
A pandemic is an epidemic of infectious disease that is spreading through human populations across a large region; for instance multiple continents, or even worldwide. A widespread endemic disease that is stable in terms of how many people are getting sick from it is not a pandemic...
originated from live polio vaccine
Polio vaccine
Two polio vaccines are used throughout the world to combat poliomyelitis . The first was developed by Jonas Salk and first tested in 1952. Announced to the world by Salk on April 12, 1955, it consists of an injected dose of inactivated poliovirus. An oral vaccine was developed by Albert Sabin...
s prepared in chimpanzee
Chimpanzee
Chimpanzee, sometimes colloquially chimp, is the common name for the two extant species of ape in the genus Pan. The Congo River forms the boundary between the native habitat of the two species:...
tissue cultures and then administered to up to one million Africans between 1957 and 1960 in experimental mass vaccination campaigns.
Data from molecular biology
Molecular biology
Molecular biology is the branch of biology that deals with the molecular basis of biological activity. This field overlaps with other areas of biology and chemistry, particularly genetics and biochemistry...
and phylogenetic studies contradict the OPV AIDS hypothesis; consequently, scientific consensus
Scientific consensus
Scientific consensus is the collective judgment, position, and opinion of the community of scientists in a particular field of study. Consensus implies general agreement, though not necessarily unanimity. Scientific consensus is not by itself a scientific argument, and it is not part of the...
regards the hypothesis as disproven. The journal Nature
Nature (journal)
Nature, first published on 4 November 1869, is ranked the world's most cited interdisciplinary scientific journal by the Science Edition of the 2010 Journal Citation Reports...
has described the hypothesis as "refuted".
Background: polio vaccines
Two vaccineVaccine
A vaccine is a biological preparation that improves immunity to a particular disease. A vaccine typically contains an agent that resembles a disease-causing microorganism, and is often made from weakened or killed forms of the microbe or its toxins...
s are used throughout the world to combat poliomyelitis
Poliomyelitis
Poliomyelitis, often called polio or infantile paralysis, is an acute viral infectious disease spread from person to person, primarily via the fecal-oral route...
. The first polio vaccine, developed by Jonas Salk
Jonas Salk
Jonas Edward Salk was an American medical researcher and virologist, best known for his discovery and development of the first safe and effective polio vaccine. He was born in New York City to parents from Ashkenazi Jewish Russian immigrant families...
, is an inactivated poliovirus
Poliovirus
Poliovirus, the causative agent of poliomyelitis, is a human enterovirus and member of the family of Picornaviridae.Poliovirus is composed of an RNA genome and a protein capsid. The genome is a single-stranded positive-sense RNA genome that is about 7500 nucleotides long. The viral particle is...
vaccine (IPV), consisting of a mixture of three wild, virulent strains of poliovirus, grown in a type of monkey kidney
Kidney
The kidneys, organs with several functions, serve essential regulatory roles in most animals, including vertebrates and some invertebrates. They are essential in the urinary system and also serve homeostatic functions such as the regulation of electrolytes, maintenance of acid–base balance, and...
tissue culture (Vero cell line), and made noninfectious by formalin treatment. The second vaccine, an oral polio vaccine (OPV), is a live-attenuated vaccine, produced by the passage of the virus through non-human cells at a sub-physiological temperature. The passage of virus produces mutations within the viral genome, and hinders the virus's ability to infect nervous tissue.
Both vaccines have been used for decades to induce immunity
Immunity (medical)
Immunity is a biological term that describes a state of having sufficient biological defenses to avoid infection, disease, or other unwanted biological invasion. Immunity involves both specific and non-specific components. The non-specific components act either as barriers or as eliminators of wide...
to polio, and to stop the spread of the infection. However, OPV has several advantages; because the vaccine is introduced in the gastrointestinal tract, the primary site of poliovirus infection and replication, it closely mimics a natural infection. OPV also provides long lasting immunity, and stimulates the production of polio neutralizing antibodies in the pharynx
Pharynx
The human pharynx is the part of the throat situated immediately posterior to the mouth and nasal cavity, and anterior to the esophagus and larynx. The human pharynx is conventionally divided into three sections: the nasopharynx , the oropharynx , and the laryngopharynx...
and gut. Hence, OPV not only prevents paralytic poliomyelitis, but also, when given in sufficient doses, can abort a threatening epidemic. Other benefits of OPV include ease of administration, low cost and suitability for mass vaccination campaigns.
Oral polio vaccine
Oral polio vaccines were developed in the late 1950s by several groups, including those led by Albert SabinAlbert Sabin
Albert Bruce Sabin was an American medical researcher best known for having developed an oral polio vaccine.-Life:...
, Hilary Koprowski
Hilary Koprowski
Hilary Koprowski is a Polish virologist and immunologist, and inventor of the world's first effective live polio vaccine.-Life:...
and H. R. Cox
H. R. Cox
Herald Rea Cox was an American bacteriologist. Born in Terre Haute, Indiana, he graduated from Indiana State Normal School, now Indiana State University, in 1928 before obtaining his doctorate from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health....
. A poliovirus type 1 strain called SM was reported in 1954. A less virulent version of the SM strain was reported by Koprowski in 1957. The name of the vaccine strain was “CHAT” after "Charlton", the name of the child who was the donor of the precursor virus. The Sabin, Koprowski and Cox vaccines "were clinically tested in millions of individuals and found to be safe and effective". Because monkey trials found fewer side effects with the Sabin vaccine, in the early 1960s, the Sabin vaccine was licensed in the USA and its use supported by the World Health Organization.
Between 1957 and 1960, Koprowski's vaccine was administered to roughly one million people in the Belgian territories, now the Democratic Republic of the Congo
Democratic Republic of the Congo
The Democratic Republic of the Congo is a state located in Central Africa. It is the second largest country in Africa by area and the eleventh largest in the world...
, Rwanda
Rwanda
Rwanda or , officially the Republic of Rwanda , is a country in central and eastern Africa with a population of approximately 11.4 million . Rwanda is located a few degrees south of the Equator, and is bordered by Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo...
and Burundi
Burundi
Burundi , officially the Republic of Burundi , is a landlocked country in the Great Lakes region of Eastern Africa bordered by Rwanda to the north, Tanzania to the east and south, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the west. Its capital is Bujumbura...
. In 1960, Koprowski wrote in the British Medical Journal, "The Belgian Congo trials have enlarged considerably and ... more vaccination campaigns organized in several provinces of the Belgian Congo are raising the number of vaccinated individuals into the millions."(p. 90) Koprowski and his group also published a series of detailed reports on the vaccination of 76,000 children under the age of 5 (and European adults) in the area of Leopoldville (now Kinshasa
Kinshasa
Kinshasa is the capital and largest city of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The city is located on the Congo River....
) in Belgian Congo from 1958–1960; these reports begin with an overview, next a review of safety and efficacy, then a 21-month follow-up and final report.
Vaccine production
In the 1950s, before dangers inherent to the process were well controlled, seed stocks of vaccines were occasionally transported to distant regions, then standard tissue cultureTissue culture
Tissue culture is the growth of tissues or cells separate from the organism. This is typically facilitated via use of a liquid, semi-solid, or solid growth medium, such as broth or agar...
methods were used to amplify the virus at local production facilities. Biologic products, chiefly kidney cells for cultures and blood serum for media, were sometimes harvested from local primates and used in the production process if wild or captive populations of appropriate species were available. In South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
, African green monkey tissue was used to amplify the Sabin vaccine. In French West Africa
French West Africa
French West Africa was a federation of eight French colonial territories in Africa: Mauritania, Senegal, French Sudan , French Guinea , Côte d'Ivoire , Upper Volta , Dahomey and Niger...
and Equatorial Africa
Equatorial Africa
Equatorial Africa is an ambiguous term that is sometimes used to refer to tropical Africa, or the region of Sub-Saharan Africa traversed by the equator....
, baboons were used to amplify a vaccine from the Pasteur Institute. In Poland, the CHAT vaccine was amplified using Asian macaques.
Development of hypothesis
In 1987, Blaine Elswood contacted journalist Tom CurtisTom Curtis
Tom Curtis may refer to:* Tom Curtis , College Football Hall of Fame player* Tom Curtis , English soccer player* Tom Curtis...
about a "bombshell story" on OPV and AIDS. Curtis published an article on the OPV AIDS hypothesis in Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
in 1992. In response, Hilary Koprowski sued Rolling Stone and Tom Curtis for defamation. The magazine published a clarification which praised Koprowski and stated:
Rolling Stone was ordered to pay $1 USD in damages whilst incurring around $500,000 USD in legal fees for its own defense.
A few scientists, notably the biologist W.D. Hamilton, thought the hypothesis required serious investigation, but they received little support from the scientific community.
Journalist Edward Hooper
Edward Hooper
Edward Hooper is a British journalist best known for his book, The River, which investigates the origins and early epidemiology of AIDS and makes a case for the OPV AIDS hypothesis, which states that the AIDS virus was accidentally created by scientists testing an experimental polio vaccine...
detailed the hypothesis in his 1999 book, The River. Hooper further expanded on his allegations in a 2000 meeting in London, at the Royal Society
Royal Society
The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, known simply as the Royal Society, is a learned society for science, and is possibly the oldest such society in existence. Founded in November 1660, it was granted a Royal Charter by King Charles II as the "Royal Society of London"...
, although these claims were later rebutted by some of the scientists who were present at the meeting. In 2001, Hilary Koprowski responded by making a detailed rebuttal of the points made in the book, also in a talk to the Royal Society. In 2004, the Origin of Aids, a French TV documentary strongly supportive of the OPV hypothesis, appeared on several television stations around the world.
London Review of Books
The London Review of Books is a fortnightly British magazine of literary and intellectual essays.-History:The LRB was founded in 1979, during the year-long lock-out at The Times, by publisher A...
. These included accounts of in interview with Jacques Kanyama, a virology technician at the lab in Stanleyville (the Laboratoire Médical de Stanleyville (LMS)) responsible for testing the CHAT vaccine and performing the initial set of vaccinations, who was reported to have said that batches of CHAT had been produced on site by Paul Osterrieth. In addition, Philip Elebe, a microbiology technician, was claimed to have said that tissue cultures were being produced from Lindi chimpanzees. Osterrieth has denied these claims and stated that this work would not have been possible in this laboratory, stating that:
In his book, Hooper also stated that Gaston Ninane was involved in using chimpanzee cells to produce vaccine in Congo. Ninane responded to this allegation by stating that he could "categorically deny" ever having tried to make tissue cultures from chimpanzee cells. The people involved in vaccine production and distribution from America state that no vaccine was prepared locally in Congo and that only the CHAT vaccine from America was used. Barbara Cohen, the technician who was responsible for running the American laboratory that produced this vaccine stated:
Scientific investigation
The OPV AIDS hypothesis has been examined and criticized by members of the scientific and medical communities as being unsupported or directly contradicted by available data, and inconsistent with HIV epidemiologyEpidemiology
Epidemiology is the study of health-event, health-characteristic, or health-determinant patterns in a population. It is the cornerstone method of public health research, and helps inform policy decisions and evidence-based medicine by identifying risk factors for disease and targets for preventive...
.
In an August 1992 letter published in Science
Science (journal)
Science is the academic journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and is one of the world's top scientific journals....
, Koprowski himself repudiated the OPV AIDS hypothesis, pointing to multiple errors of fact in its assertions. In October 1992, Science ran a story titled "Panel Nixes Congo Vaccine as AIDS source," describing the findings of an independent panel which found each proposed step in the OPV-AIDS hypothesis "problematic". The story concluded:
The oldest confirmed sample of human tissue that shows the presence of HIV-1 is an archival sample of plasma collected from an anonymous donor in the city of Leopoldville, Belgian Congo (now Kinshasa
Kinshasa
Kinshasa is the capital and largest city of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The city is located on the Congo River....
) in 1959. Initial phylogenetic analyses, published in 1999, led the researchers to hypothesise that HIV-1 entered "into the African population not long before 1959."
In 2000, the Royal Society
Royal Society
The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, known simply as the Royal Society, is a learned society for science, and is possibly the oldest such society in existence. Founded in November 1660, it was granted a Royal Charter by King Charles II as the "Royal Society of London"...
held a meeting to discuss data on the origin of AIDS
AIDS origin
AIDS is caused by the Human immunodeficiency virus , which originated in non-human primates in Sub-Saharan Africa and was transferred to humans during the late 19th or early 20th century....
; the OPV AIDS hypothesis was a central topic of discussion. At this meeting, three independent labs released the results of tests on the remaining stocks of Koprowski's vaccine, which Edward Hooper had demanded in The River. The tests confirmed Koprowski's contention that his vaccine was made from monkey, rather than chimpanzee, kidney, and found no evidence of SIV or HIV contamination. Additional epidemiologic and phylogenetic data was presented at the conference which undermined other aspects of the OPV AIDS hypothesis. According to a report in Science, Hooper "did not challenge the results; he simply dismissed them." Brian Martin
Brian Martin (professor)
Brian Martin teaches in the interdisciplinary area of Science, technology, and society at the University of Wollongong in Australia, where he became a professor in 2007. He was president of Whistleblowers Australia from 1996 to 1999 and remains their International Director.Martin received his PhD ...
, a proponent of the OPV AIDS hypothesis, argued at the conclusion of the conference that if other AIDS-origin hypotheses were scrutinized in such detail, they would prove equally unsatisfying.
In 2001, three articles published in Nature
Nature (journal)
Nature, first published on 4 November 1869, is ranked the world's most cited interdisciplinary scientific journal by the Science Edition of the 2010 Journal Citation Reports...
examined various aspects of the OPV-AIDS hypothesis, as did an article published in Science
Science (journal)
Science is the academic journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and is one of the world's top scientific journals....
. In every case, the studies' findings argued strongly against any link between the polio vaccine and AIDS. The evidence cited included multiple independent studies that dated the introduction of HIV-1 to humans as occurring between 1915 and 1941, probably in the 1930s. These results were confirmed by a later study using samples from the 1960s that also found that the epidemic began between 1908 and 1930, and a study that showed that although recombination amongst viruses makes dating less precise, it does not significantly bias estimates in either direction (it does not introduce a systematic error
Systematic error
Systematic errors are biases in measurement which lead to the situation where the mean of many separate measurements differs significantly from the actual value of the measured attribute. All measurements are prone to systematic errors, often of several different types...
).
The author of one of the studies, evolutionary biologist Edward Holmes of Oxford University, commented in light of the new evidence: "Hooper's evidence was always flimsy, and now it's untenable. It's time to move on." An accompanying editorial in Nature concluded:
The possibility that chimpanzees found near Kisangani in the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Stanleyville) were, indirectly, the true source of HIV-1 was directly addressed in a 2004 study published in Nature. Here, the authors found that while SIV was present in chimpanzees in the area, the strain of SIV infecting these chimpanzees was phylogenetically distinct from all strains of HIV, providing direct evidence that these particular chimps were not the source of HIV in humans.
Edward Hooper responded to these studies by either denying their relevance to the OPV hypothesis, disputing their accuracy, or asserting the existence of a "large organised cover-up" or other conspiracy.
Current oral polio-vaccine campaign in Africa
The claims of the OPV-AIDS hypothesis disrupted the longstanding effort of the WHOWho
Who may refer to:* Who , an English-language pronoun* who , a Unix command* Who?, one of the Five Ws in journalism- Art and entertainment :* Who? , a 1958 novel by Algis Budrys...
and UN to achieve poliomyelitis eradication
Poliomyelitis eradication
The global eradication of poliomyelitis is a public health effort to eliminate all cases of poliomyelitis infection around the world. The global effort, begun in 1988 and led by the World Health Organization, UNICEF and The Rotary Foundation, has reduced the number of annual diagnosed cases from...
worldwide through use of the oral polio vaccine of Albert Sabin
Albert Sabin
Albert Bruce Sabin was an American medical researcher best known for having developed an oral polio vaccine.-Life:...
, which is thought to be safe and effective by virtually all medical authorities. If this long-term public-health goal could be achieved, poliomyelitis
Poliomyelitis
Poliomyelitis, often called polio or infantile paralysis, is an acute viral infectious disease spread from person to person, primarily via the fecal-oral route...
would follow smallpox
Smallpox
Smallpox was an infectious disease unique to humans, caused by either of two virus variants, Variola major and Variola minor. The disease is also known by the Latin names Variola or Variola vera, which is a derivative of the Latin varius, meaning "spotted", or varus, meaning "pimple"...
as the second eradicated infectious human disease. The OPV AIDS hypothesis relates only to the historical origin of AIDS, and its proponents have accepted the safety of the modern polio vaccines, but rumors based on a misunderstanding of the hypothesis exist, and those rumors are blamed in part for the recent failure to eliminate polio in Nigeria
Nigeria
Nigeria , officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a federal constitutional republic comprising 36 states and its Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. The country is located in West Africa and shares land borders with the Republic of Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, and Niger in...
.
By 2003, cases of poliomyelitis had been reduced to just a small number in isolated regions of West Africa
West Africa
West Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of the African continent. Geopolitically, the UN definition of Western Africa includes the following 16 countries and an area of approximately 5 million square km:-Flags of West Africa:...
, with sporadic cases elsewhere. However, the disease has since resurged in Nigeria
Nigeria
Nigeria , officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a federal constitutional republic comprising 36 states and its Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. The country is located in West Africa and shares land borders with the Republic of Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, and Niger in...
and in several other nations of Africa, which epidemiologists trace to refusals by certain local populations to allow their children to be administered the Sabin oral vaccine. The expressed concerns of local populations often relate to fears that the vaccine might induce sterility, and it seems that debate over the OPV-AIDS hypothesis has fueled additional fears. Since 2003, these fears have spread among some in the Muslim community, with Datti Ahmed, of the Supreme Council for Sharia in Nigeria stating that:
Polio has also resurged in areas of Pakistan, India and Bangladesh.
See also
- AIDS origins opposed to scientific consensus
- AIDS originAIDS originAIDS is caused by the Human immunodeficiency virus , which originated in non-human primates in Sub-Saharan Africa and was transferred to humans during the late 19th or early 20th century....
- SV40SV40SV40 is an abbreviation for Simian vacuolating virus 40 or Simian virus 40, a polyomavirus that is found in both monkeys and humans...
A scientifically accepted case of a monkey virus contaminating polio vaccine - Inactivated poliovirus vaccine (IPV) only. - ZoonosisZoonosisA zoonosis or zoonoseis any infectious disease that can be transmitted from non-human animals to humans or from humans to non-human animals . In a study of 1415 pathogens known to affect humans, 61% were zoonotic...
External links
- Where did HIV come from? Questions and Answers, from the United States Centers for Disease Control