The Journey

A documentary, The Origins of AIDS, appeared recently on The Sundance Channel. This documentary theorized about the the origin of the AIDS Virus. The telling of this story, based on the book The River that theorizes how this deadly disease could have started, is complex. In the 1950's polio vaccinations that were made from Chimp cultures instead of the standardized practice of utilizing Rhesus monkey cultures were given to people living in The Congo. This was a mass inoculation utilizing an experimental vaccine. The straying from standard practice in the composition of these vaccinations and the administrating of such to the people of The Congo is theorized to have been the origin of HIV and AIDS as the population of this area of Africa is where persons who had the first cases of AIDS resided. The intentions of administrating polio vaccines was upstanding, but it is further theorized that there has been, for quite sometime, the simian type of AIDS present in some chimpanzees and that this disease, if the chimpanzees' kidneys were used in the composing of the polio vaccines, facilitated the leap from Simian AIDS to Human AIDS when administered to humans.

We know have news that a man become ill with HIV and in less than two months from the time of his initial infection he has now developed AIDS. It is believed his strain of HIV was able to flourish into AIDS abnormally quickly because of susceptibility to the disease, which is a phenomenon in and of itself, and because he has a resistant strain that is not diminished by the usual cocktail of HIV treatment drugs. These two phenomenon may cause a new era of HIV/AIDS.

The beginning of HIV/AIDS cannot be determined concretely. Many theories abound as to how and where and why this dreaded disease came about. What is certain is that it is here, the journey through this maze we call HIV/AIDS has been treacherous, and this new strain that is the toughest we have seen, has presented itself. Theories aside, whether this was an act of inoculation that went wrong, or some other sort of conspiracy to wipe out the groups most affected - Africans and other people of color - this disease is not yet on its last legs, and as such all efforts should be put into getting rid of the dreaded disease.