Study Links European Colonialism in Africa to HIV-AIDS Epidemic

[Frodo]

Co­lo­ni­al­ism in Africa helped launch the HIV epidemic a century ago

By Craig Timberg and Daniel Halperin, Monday, February 27, 5:55 PM

We are unlikely to ever know all the details of the birth of the AIDS epidemic. But a series of recent genetic discoveries have shed new light on it, starting with the moment when a connection from chimp to human changed the course of history.

We now know where the epidemic began: a small patch of dense forest in southeastern Cameroon. We know when: within a couple of decades on either side of 1900. We have a good idea of how: A hunter caught an infected chimpanzee for food, allowing the virus to pass from the chimp’s blood into the hunter’s body, probably through a cut during butchering.

As to the why, here is where the story gets even more fascinating, and terrible. We typically think of diseases in terms of how they threaten us personally. But they have their own stories. Diseases are born. They grow. They falter, and sometimes they die. In every case these changes happen for reasons.

For decades nobody knew the reasons behind the birth of the AIDS epidemic. But it is now clear that the epidemic’s birth and crucial early growth happened during Africa’s colonial era, amid massive intrusion of new people and technology into a land where ancient ways still prevailed. European powers engaged in a feverish race for wealth and glory blazed routes up muddy rivers and into dense forests that had been traveled only sporadically by humans before.

The most disruptive of these intruders were thousands of African porters. Forced into service by European colonial powers, they cut paths through the exact area that researchers have now identified as the birthplace of the AIDS epidemic. It was here, in a single moment of transmission from chimp to human, that a strain of virus called HIV-1 group M first appeared.

[dead0man]

That's a leap that could qualify for the Olympics.

[Grumpier Than Thou]

Not surprised.

[memphis]

That's a leap that could qualify for the Olympics.

^^^^^^^^^^^
Not that colonialism was a pleasant affair, but c'mon.

[minionofmidas]

Uhm... you guys realize that these were arguably leap-of-faith assumptions twelve years ago when they were first brooched, but not now that virtually all the research since has corroborated them?

[Politico]

The wording in the article is a bit off IMHO. A virus by itself is not an epidemic, and certainly not if the virus is undetected for decades by virtue of being relatively scarce. An epidemic is when a harmful virus starts to spread at an unexpected, high rate, causing a lot of unexpected damage in the process. Obviously we'll never know precisely how HIV/AIDS started in humans and when, but the epidemic itself began in bathhouses in New York City, San Francisco and Los Angeles. All of this is very well-documented in this book: http://www.amazon.com/Band-Played-Politics-Epidemic-20th-Anniversary/dp/0312374631/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1330448101&sr=8-1

If you don't want HIV/AIDS, use condoms and don't share needles, and you'll probably be fine. In particular, it's highly advisable not to engage in receptive anal sex (at least outside of a committed relationship). That's one tidbit they don't always share in sex ed classes these days, for whatever reason(s).

It's mind-boggling that the rate of HIV infection is on the rise again.

[Lief 🗽]

That's a leap that could qualify for the Olympics.

Uh, the article is not blaming colonialism for HIV/AIDS. It's saying that colonialism was an important factor in creating and transforming societies and population patterns that allowed the virus to spread into wider society.

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

We have a good idea of how: A hunter caught an infected chimpanzee for food, allowing the virus to pass from the chimp’s blood into the hunter’s body, probably through a cut during butchering.

I always heard someone sodomized a chimp

[memphis]

We have a good idea of how: A hunter caught an infected chimpanzee for food, allowing the virus to pass from the chimp’s blood into the hunter’s body, probably through a cut during butchering.

I always heard someone sodomized a chimp

Did Michele Bachmann tell you that?

[Frodo]

We have a good idea of how: A hunter caught an infected chimpanzee for food, allowing the virus to pass from the chimp’s blood into the hunter’s body, probably through a cut during butchering.

I always heard someone sodomized a chimp

Did Michele Bachmann tell you that?

I've heard crazier ideas from some of my otherwise sane African-American co-workers, like how the virus was actually created in an apartheid-era South African lab with the intention of spreading it among the black population to clear the way for whites to eventually colonize the continent.    

[minionofmidas]

The virus did jump over from chimps to humans, and mutated along the way. Which requires spreading a huge number of times very quickly just after getting the infection - don't press me on the specifics, I'm not a virologist; the standard chimp version is fairly harmless to humans (and also to chimps), and lots of bush hunters contract it at some point in their life.

Technically you can't rule out someone "sodomizing a chimp"... but of course the virus primarily lives in blood, not semen, and the infection risk from sex is far lower than from blood contact. As I thought was common knowledge by now. And hunters are in contact with their prey's blood all the time, so...

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

You mean a "civilizing force", right?

[tpfkaw]

A hunter caught an infected chimpanzee for food, allowing the virus to pass from the chimp’s blood into the hunter’s body, probably through a cut during butchering.

Scientists should stop being ridiculous prudes.  Someone f**ked a chimp.  Get over it.