The Origin of HIV:
Physical

Where Did HIV Come From?

A Brief History

There are various types of Immunodeficiency Virus, e.g.:

Apparently, sometime in the past, the cat population was ravaged by FIV, the cattle population was ravaged by BIV, etc. Today's cats are descended from those who were resistant to FIV, today's cattle are descended from those resistant to BIV, etc.

AIDS is caused by the Human Immunodeficiency Virus. There are two strains of HIV, called HIV-I and HIV-II.  HIV-II is the original form.  However, HIV-I was discovered first.

HIV, and AIDS, originated in Africa. HIV-II is virtually identical to SIV -- Simian Immunodeficiency Virus. SIV is common in certain types of monkeys (CDC article). In many parts of rural, tribal Africa, such monkeys are kept as pets, just as Americans keep cats and dogs as pets.  These monkeys are generally small, perhaps less than 2 feet (0.6 meters) tall.  Like dogs and cats, they sometimes playfully bite people.  When that happens, SIV virus can be transferred from the monkey's saliva to the person's blood, infecting the person.

Because this is fairly rare, humans never developed resistance to SIV (HIV-II). Historically, tribes were fairly isolated. If someone became infected, they might pass on the virus to their spouse; a mother might pass it on to her babies, a few people would eventually die (probably less than 10), and that would be the end of the incident.

IN THE 1960'S, CHANGES BEGAN WHICH LED TO THE CURRENT EPIDEMIC.

AFRICA STARTED BECOMING URBANIZED.

As we see today in the rainforests of South America, African tribal lifestyles changed radically.  Beginning in the 1960's, modern civilization began encroaching on traditional hunting, grazing, and wild vegetation areas.  There were many government upheavals.  Both the political and physical landscape of sub-Saharan Africa changed dramatically.  In many cases, tribal members could not continue in their traditional roles of hunter-gatherers, so, like many people before them in the United States, they moved to the cities in search of work.

As is common in such circumstances, when these people from unsophisticated, closed, rural, technologically primitive societies arrived in cities, they did not have the skills and connections to get good jobs.  When they could find work, men usually took menial jobs as manual laborers, etc., barely earning enough to stay alive.

For women, the situation was far worse: many could find no work and wound up becoming "streetwalker" prostitutes to avoid starvation.  Obviously, a large percentage of their clients were the hopeless, displaced men.  Nobody knew that a prostitute could be infected with SIV (HIV-II), and nobody tried to prevent infection from sexually transmitted diseases.

WESTERN NATIONS DEVELOPED TIES TO AFRICA.

Traditionally, Americans and Europeans had little to do with Africa. Even major famines, epidemics, etc., would go totally unnoticed in the West.  In the 1960's that changed.  With the growing civil rights movement in the United States, interest in Black history began.  Companies began looking for new markets for their products and new sources for materials.

As the West expanded and became more sophisticated, interest in Africa and ties to Africa developed -- not just cultural ties, but also physical ties, such as trade, African students attending Western universities, the Peace Corp, etc.

AT THE SAME TIME, A CULTURAL REVOLUTION BEGAN IN THE WEST.

While all this was going on, a cultural revolution  was also taking place in the West.

As a result of the GI Bill, many World War II veterans started attending college. With the increasing standard of living in the United States, many parents were able to send children to college for the first time. Also, in the hope of postponing military service until after the Viet Nam War ended, many young American men who traditionally would have gone from high school directly into the work force went to college instead. Furthermore, until deferments for graduate school were stopped, many college graduates went on to graduate school.

As the number of people obtaining higher education exploded, traditional values began to be examined, and frequently rejected.  It was asked "If 'traditional Christian values' are so great, why are Blacks, American Indians, women, and the poor so often treated atrociously?"  (Response: If people don't follow the values, you can't blame the values for the bad situation!)  Bible stories of giants, angels, the virgin birth, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, etc., were compared to myths of other cultures and often considered 'just another myth' by those who didn't understand the evidence that the Bible is true.

At the same time a revolution was occurring in Western education.  Whereas it had traditionally been Christian-based, secular humanism now began to flourish and became the norm in non-religious institutions, from which it spread to legal systems, public school systems, etc.

With (a) the development of female contraceptives, (b) the rejection of traditional societal disapproval of interracial sexual relationships, and (c) rejection of traditional Christian moral values such as (i) monogamy, (ii) sexual abstinence outside of marriage, (iii) condemnation of homosexual activity, and (iv) condemnation of drug and alcohol abuse, etc.,  a new set of short-sighted, self-centered societal values arose in the West, which included rampant drug use and sexual promiscuity.

AND SO THE STAGE WAS SET FOR AIDS

HISTORY OF THE SPREAD OF HIV

In Africa, HIV has always been spread mainly by heterosexual intercourse. The viral strain in Africa is HIV-II (SIV), the original one.

As contacts with the West increased, Western men slowly began getting infected with HIV-II, generally from sexual encounters with prostitutes during business or government trips to Africa.  However, because HIV can take more than 10 years to start showing effects, this went unnoticed.

The first reported case of AIDS occurred in the late 1950's-early 1960's, when a Western medical journal presented an article about a merchant marine who died of a 'wasting-disease' totally unknown to Western medicine.

Basically, a virus is simply a string of DNA, the genetic material that tells a body's cells what to do.  HIV is a very 'sloppy' virus; when it makes copies of itself, the copies routinely are slightly different.  Technically, such minor differences are the result of micro-evolution  (as opposed to the fantasy of macro-evolution: the claim that your great-great-greatgrandfather was a rock).

HIV-I, the strain common in the West, is the old Simian Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV-II) after about 30 years of micro-evolution.  (But it's still a virus, not a horse or a frog!)  HIV-I began showing up in the Western world in the early 1980's. Originally, it spread almost exclusively among homosexual men, and was often claimed to be a punishment from God against homosexuals.

HIV and AIDS is a punishment from God. But God punishes societies, with plagues. HIV and AIDS spread primarily by sexual promiscuity.  Studies have shown that gay men are the most promiscuous group.  AIDS didn't spread quickest among male homosexuals because they are gay, but because they are promiscuous.  In other promiscuous groups (and among drug users), HIV and AIDS also spread more rapidly than among the general population.

As with any plague, it eventually affects everyone, not just the guilty.  We see that with the latest plague: AIDS.  Innocent children are born with HIV because of their parents' activities.

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