Government created AIDS/HIV?

[HyperHulk]

hmmm, okay that's interesting.....who else should we be thinking of? I don't buy the USSR, they would have leaked the cure as a gesture of good faith when the wall came down......China? possibly to suppress resource prices through economic turmoil in Africa......North Korea? too incompetent.

let's hear some ideas then.....


PS, sci-fi?! please, survival horror! and i really do think the Umbrella Corporation is a good archetype for an insane, quasi-governmental menace. they were also selfish enough (or foresighted enough) to consider the possibility they themselves would become infected, hence all the effort to come up with an antidote.

At the top of the page, I linked an article that covers the vast history of HIV/AIDS and touches on most of these issues. If you have the time, give that a read and see if anything resonates with you. It may or may not. I found it fascinating.

 

[homelessmandril]

.....
The other part of my theory was that HIV was created under a logical premise--let's see if we can suppress the immune system in humans. And maybe then it got out of control before a cure could even be found?

Lots of different possibilities. Here's what we know, around the time of the cold war, HIV exploded on the scene out of no where and has now affected over 65 million lives globally in 30 years. All of that from someone eating a monkey in Africa?

ok, that makes more sense to me, the benificent-experiment-gone-wrong theory. but even so i have to be skeptical that leading scientists would have underestimated the risk of spread so wildly. maybe a lot has changed in thirty years, but you just can't see that degree of oversight being practiced nowadays.

and your argument about drug companies suppressing a cure to protect demand for retrovirals is appealling too - maybe with the growth in these low cost bootleg drugs coming out of India and various other places, we might eventually see those kind of incentives undermined.

on an related note, this is interesting. read the introduction and the conclusion for the basic gist, but essentially he's arguing that the decline in population growth due to AIDS in Africa might actually increasing living standards for the survivors, similar to the aftermath of the Black Death in Europe. it's kind of a peculiar read, but it's mildly cheering i suppose.

 

[Guy-jin]

I perused that article and it's got a lot of stuff I've heard/read before in it. Most of it doesn't make a lot of sense or seem particularly likely given a bit of logical thought on the matter, I'm afraid. Again, I state simply that the case for nature having naturally generated the HIV virus the way it constantly does all the time is far, far more believable than any of these conspiracy theories.

 

[lucky8]

this thread is retarded (no offense hyper). but seriously, what's next, humans invented cancer? what about the plague? did the Chinese invent that and spread it to the western world? no government, or extremists, intentionally spread the HIV virus in Africa, nor did they invent it. that is just ludacris. maybe it is so prevalent in Africa because A)it is where the virus originated, B) condoms and testing are scarce in the motherland, and C) men have been maliciously raping women in Africa for centuries. those 3 facts should say enough...

 

[D_Thoraxis_Biggulp]

Point A doesn't prove anything one way or the other. It just restates where the first documented case occurred.
Point B and Point C are meaningless since safe sex wasn't much of a concern to the western world until the AIDS outbreak, and rape has been a common crime for as long as there have been prostitutes.

By the way:
ludicrous (adj) - laughably absurd
ludacris (n) - a rapper from georgia

 

[Tattooed Goddess]

Point A doesn't prove anything one way or the other. It just restates where the first documented case occurred.
Point B and Point C are meaningless since safe sex wasn't much of a concern to the western world until the AIDS outbreak, and rape has been a common crime for as long as there have been prostitutes.

By the way:
ludicrous (adj) - laughably absurd
ludacris (n) - a rapper from georgia

Rapes have been around since the beginning of human history. It has nothing to do with prostitution.

 

[D_Thoraxis_Biggulp]

Rapes have been around since the beginning of human history. It has nothing to do with prostitution.

The subtext is that prostitution is considered the world's oldest profession. Guess that was a little too implicit. Still, a large number of rape victims are hookers.

 

[lucky8]

Point A doesn't prove anything one way or the other. It just restates where the first documented case occurred.
Point B and Point C are meaningless since safe sex wasn't much of a concern to the western world until the AIDS outbreak, and rape has been a common crime for as long as there have been prostitutes.

By the way:
ludicrous (adj) - laughably absurd
ludacris (n) - a rapper from georgia

all three of those reasons together COMBINED, not separetly, should lead any logical, rational person in seeing the correlation between them and the epidemic in africa. many africans STILL dont have access to condoms, while we do, which is why there are more cases there than here. use some logic, mang.

 

[D_Thoraxis_Biggulp]

all three of those reasons together should lead any logical, rational person in seeing the correlation between them and the epidemic in africa. many africans STILL dont have access to condoms, while we do, which is why there are more cases there than here. use some logic, mang.

Congratulations, you've proven that AIDS is an STD. Hate to break it to you, but that's all that that statement proves. It says nothing of the origin of the disease, whether natural or artificial, or who released it upon them. All it says is that Africa is the best place to start a mass spread. If anything, that just suggests that it was artificially spread.

 

[homelessmandril]

all three of those reasons together COMBINED, not separetly, should lead any logical, rational person in seeing the correlation between them and the epidemic in africa. many africans STILL dont have access to condoms, while we do, which is why there are more cases there than here. use some logic, mang.

that, and the leader of Africa's most developed nation still barely acknowledges that AIDS exists. and he appoints health ministers who tell people that garlic acts as a prophylactic.

EDIT: ....what a dick

 

[lucky8]

in a country where condoms are scarce, HIV is highly prevalent, and rape is high, the HIV count is going to higher than in countries where condoms come by the dozens, rape is NOT even CLOSE to as high as in africa, and people are tested, made aware of the fact they have the virus, and are treated, thus helping to control the spread of the virus. you obviously have no logic if you cannot understand that simple truth.

 

[Tattooed Goddess]

Congratulations, you've proven that AIDS is an STD. Hate to break it to you, but that's all that that statement proves. It says nothing of the origin of the disease, whether natural or artificial, or who released it upon them. All it says is that Africa is the best place to start a mass spread. If anything, that just suggests that it was artificially spread.

What proof do you have to back up your statement on most rapes occur on prostitutes. I've known many rape victims, none of which were prostitutes. Im sure many other people can attest to knowing far more rape victims than prostitutes. Look up the psychology behind rape and you will see that men who rape women aren't necessarily drawn to prostitutes at all. No, THANK YOU for playing.

 

[lucky8]

Congratulations, you've proven that AIDS is an STD. Hate to break it to you, but that's all that that statement proves. It says nothing of the origin of the disease, whether natural or artificial, or who released it upon them. All it says is that Africa is the best place to start a mass spread. If anything, that just suggests that it was artificially spread.

artificially spread? please explain what you mean. did someone come to africa with a syringe and inject half the country? nobody "released" this virus. please understand that. why is it so hard to believe that HIV isn't natural? under your arguments, i could claim that every disease and virus is man made, and that just isn't true.

 

[faceking]

And to be correct, per the title, not sure you can create a virus, can you? You can discover it, and let it propagate I suppose.

 

[D_Thoraxis_Biggulp]

What proof do you have to back up your statement on most rapes occur on prostitutes. I've known many rape victims, none of which were prostitutes. Im sure many other people can attest to knowing far more rape victims than prostitutes. Look up the psychology behind rape and you will see that men who rape women aren't necessarily drawn to prostitutes at all. No, THANK YOU for playing.

It's amusing how you're getting so up in arms about a misreading. I said a large number, not a large percentage. Plus that was just a sidenote to my pointing out what I was implying with my original post on this matter. That being: prostitution is the world's oldest profession. Hence rape has been occurring since the beginning of history.

 

[homelessmandril]

And to be correct, per the title, not sure you can create a virus, can you? You can discover it, and let it propagate I suppose.

sir, don't make sensible, on-topic remarks, you'll ruin the thread.....

 

[D_Thoraxis_Biggulp]

artificially spread? please explain what you mean. did someone come to africa with a syringe and inject half the country? nobody "released" this virus. please understand that. why is it so hard to believe that HIV isn't natural? under your arguments, i could claim that every disease and virus is man made, and that just isn't true.

Well no, injecting half the country is preposterous. But knowing how quickly it would spread on its own in Africa, somebody could have infected a monkey or any other animal, knowing that it isn't spread only by sexual contact.
Just because other viruses weren't man made or spread doesn't mean the same applies to all viruses though. And really the only arguments I've made have been dispelling other people's reasons why this particular one can't have been the exception.

 

[D_Thoraxis_Biggulp]

in a country where condoms are scarce, HIV is highly prevalent, and rape is high, the HIV count is going to higher than in countries where condoms come by the dozens, rape is NOT even CLOSE to as high as in africa, and people are tested, made aware of the fact they have the virus, and are treated, thus helping to control the spread of the virus. you obviously have no logic if you cannot understand that simple truth.

I understand that perfectly. But I fail to see what your point is in regards to whether or not someone purposely released it. One minute you're saying that idea is ludicrous, but this sounds like you're saying that a first-world country is responsible, since we're keeping it in check within our own borders.

 

[lucky8]

and how did the virus go from monkey to human? i thought someone already "dispelled" that one.

 

[D_Thoraxis_Biggulp]

That I don't know the exact story behind, but I didn't see anything about the monkey story being disproven. Link me to it if you find it.
Even still, all it would take is one infected person to start it spreading over the whole continent and eventually beyond, especially knowing how medically archaic most of Africa is.