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Originally posted by BlueTriangle
It doesn't make sense to me that a government program designed to make bioweapons would even bother with something like chlamydia or gonorrhea. These diseases don't kill, sterility is a worst case scenario for the most part.
Originally posted by BlackGuardXIII
The rates of infection in some developing nations is astounding.
If you could, either on this thread, or by U2U, share some of the reasons for your thumbs down, and maybe propose what you have heard is the most plausible source?
Timeline
Also, look at the timeline. Why would the government look for a weapon of mass genocide in the beginning of the 70's jump to the completely unknown area of human retroviruses? There were many known and available lethal alternatives available. Military science had no reason to look at that group of viruses that HIV belongs to.
The first human retrovirus (HTLV-I) was not discovered until 1977, and even then it could not immediately be linked to any disease, but scientific evidence shows AID was already in several countries by that time. It would have had to be an epidemic years before the 70's. (Slow virus, remember?).
If you read the book "The Birth of AIDS" you would note that cases in the 1930's (earliest accurate records) show some isolated cases with all the earmarks of AIDS. Studying the DNA sequences to determine age have provided estimates for HIV in the 30-900 year range.
Then you have the social conditions of the time. International travel on the rise, the sexual revolution, injection drug use building and blood donations with multiple re-use of syringes in many Third World countries, provide an Occam's Razor type of explanation.
Thousands of Africans get infected with HIV each year from blood transfusions alone because they can't afford to screen their blood supply.
Reuse of old syringes which in some cases is a handful of needles for a few thousand people.
Poor protection practices. Just look at the STD rate in Africa as a result of a lack of basic public health. Poverty in those nations means that many Africans don't even have basic medication like aspirin
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