Did Monkey Serum In A Vaccine Cause HIV?

Posting Date: 03/08/2000

Vicky: A scientist friend says there is a well-regarded theory that HIV was transferred to the human race by monkey serum in a vaccine.

I think that if this idea were being seriously considered it would be plastered all over the newspapers. What do you think?

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Dr. Dean: DNA research has traced HIV to primates in Africa where it did spread to human beings, but not from a bad batch of vaccines.

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The transmission of disease from animals to humans is not that unusual, but often the disease can't spread unless some mutation occurs. The common flu is a disease from ducks that spreads to pigs where it mutates to become capable of infecting people. A sneezing pig spreads the virus to the people on the farm, who take it into town and school with them, and before you know it, the whole world is sneezing.

We think a similar type of transmission occurred with HIV, although of course you can't catch HIV from casual contact like a sneeze. We think that by invading the rainforests, we exposed ourselves to germs and bugs that humans had never before been in contact with. As civilization encroaches on the rainforests, we think other diseases will be spread cross-species.

The theory about HIV and vaccines was investigated for a time, because monkey kidney cells were used in the early development of the polio vaccine.

I wish more people would demonstrate as much intelligence as you did when you heard some astounding news from one source. You wondered why something this important wasn't being shouted from the rooftops. That's a good way to sort through all the information that comes at us.