AIDS May Have Been Vaccine-Caused

[Purple Knight]

Good evidence that AIDS may have been transmitted to humans in the polio vaccine, rather than from some tribesman eating bush meat or even boinking a chimp. The whole patient zero having had sex with a ludicrous number of people never made sense to me.

Question for debate: Assume this is true. What is the right course of action society should take? Should we just let companies do what they do and take the hit when vaccines cause harm because the benefit outweighs it? Should we try harder to regulate and, for the greater good, bring down the boot on people who panic and say vaccines aren't safe? Should we forgo the boot and just let people choose? Should we regulate hard, and bring down the boot on companies with potentially research-crippling oversight? Are liability indemnities a good thing, or should there be laws against them?

[Wootah]

It does seem more likely. Monkey Pox related?

[Difflugia]

Monkey Pox related?

No. Monkey pox/smallpox are DNA viruses, but AIDS is a retrovirus (RNA virus).

[The Barbarian]

The evidence suggests that the HIV virus (which exists in primates including green monkeys and chimpanzees) first infected green monkeys and then spread to chimps as well as to other monkey species.

The most logical transmission to humans probably had to do with butchering of chimps or monkeys by hunters. Blood could transmit the virus to any break in skin.