5 ms·

http://www.theaidsinstitute.org/node/259 http://www.theaidsinstitute.org/node/259 You might have to eradicate a number of species.

by jack9 10y ago

dogma1138 10y ago
That doesn't mean it would make the jump again, it took quite a while for SIV to jump to humans becoming HIV. Many species have a similar virus, even cats, and still it only jumped once so far in it's history.
- justin66 10y ago
  > still it only jumped once so far in it's history Not true. http://incubator.rockefeller.edu/jumping-species-how-hiv-entered-our-world/ http://incubator.rockefeller.edu/jumping-species-how-hiv-ent...
  - dogma1138 10y ago
    What isn't true? Once in our history doesn't mean once as in a single host. There are four major groups of HIV, HIV1 (likely to have originated in a strain of SIV commonly infecting chimpanzees and gorillas) O and M and HIV2 (likely to have originated in a strain of SIV commonly infecting mangabeys) A and B, it's not cleared how many times it independently jumped, what is clear that this was more or less a single temporal event in modern history (cavemen didn't had to worry about HIV or aids, neither did the Romans, and even the bushmen in africa only have been recently infected) and the jump happened between the late 19th and early to mid 20th centuries. SIV doesn't jump species all the time, there are plenty of SIV strains that haven't done so even tho humans were and are in contact with primates that are infected by those strains all the time. Other immuno suppressing viruses also haven't made the jump from other species to humans. If you eradicate HIV today with a push of a button there is no guarantee that SIV will make a jump again and turn into HIV, and there is little to no evidence that HIV jumped back to primates or has yet to infect another species. There is also no conclusive evidence that the four groups of HIV happened to jump species on 4 distinct occasions, could have been 4, could have been 2 could have been 1 could have been 400. Heck if HIV1C somehow originated in South America and then was introduced to the human population in Africa half of our models can be thrown down the toilet. What we do know is that this happened 80-140 years ago, why did a virus that infected primates for 50,000 to 2000000 years suddenly jumped species all of a sudden despite the fact that there was just as much if not more cross species interaction during human history is a better question, in fact if it indeed jumped multiple times all within a pretty small time window that would only raise more questions than give any answer.
    - nonbel 10y ago
      >"What we do know is that this happened 80-140 years ago, why did a virus that infected primates for 50,000 to 2000000 years suddenly jumped species all of a sudden despite the fact that there was just as much if not more cross species interaction during human history is a better question" Simian AIDS was discovered after human AIDS though: "Examination of the species-specific annual mortality rates of macaques at the center during the previous 4 yr showed a significant increase in deaths in 1980 and 1981" http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC393899/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC393899/ I don't see how people really know whether the problem originated in humans and spread to apes or vice versa. If anything you would expect such issues to be detected in highly monitored animals kept in well controlled research facilities first...
      - dogma1138 10y ago
        Human HIV was discovered probably 5 decades if not more after it jumped. We know it didn't originate in humans, because we can estimate how old SIV and HIV are based on their genetic material and other factors. And we also know how old SIV at least is because we've tested primates on isolated islands and found that they are also infected, so if you find SIV infected primates on an island that was isolated from mainland Africa 30,000 years ago and it's preset within 100% of the primate population you know it's at least that old. Another thing you can do is look at the DNA of the host and see if any viral DNA has been embedded within it, depending on where it is you can also estimate a timeline based on known processes and mutation rates. There is very little to no doubt that HIV originated from SIV, the question is why now. And yes we've discovered SIV later because AIDS happened then we found that it's a virus and not because they are gay, so people started looking at it's source and discovered SIV, FIV, EIAV and others. You also need to understand that viruses are very hard to find, it's not like you just look at blood samples and see them, there are also not that many generic tests that can simply detect if a virus is present or not, it takes years to decades to isolate, classify and then develop methods to identify a virus and it's not like in the 1980's you could just order a full genome to be sequenced at will.
        nonbel 10y ago

http://www.theaidsinstitute.org/node/259 http://www.theaidsinstitute.org/node/259 You might have to eradicate a number of species.

by jack9 10y ago

http://www.theaidsinstitute.org/node/259 http://www.theaidsinstitute.org/node/259 You might have to eradicate a number of species.

dogma1138 10y ago

That doesn't mean it would make the jump again, it took quite a while for SIV to jump to humans becoming HIV. Many species have a similar virus, even cats, and still it only jumped once so far in it's history.

justin66 10y ago
> still it only jumped once so far in it's history Not true. http://incubator.rockefeller.edu/jumping-species-how-hiv-entered-our-world/ http://incubator.rockefeller.edu/jumping-species-how-hiv-ent...
- dogma1138 10y ago
  What isn't true? Once in our history doesn't mean once as in a single host. There are four major groups of HIV, HIV1 (likely to have originated in a strain of SIV commonly infecting chimpanzees and gorillas) O and M and HIV2 (likely to have originated in a strain of SIV commonly infecting mangabeys) A and B, it's not cleared how many times it independently jumped, what is clear that this was more or less a single temporal event in modern history (cavemen didn't had to worry about HIV or aids, neither did the Romans, and even the bushmen in africa only have been recently infected) and the jump happened between the late 19th and early to mid 20th centuries. SIV doesn't jump species all the time, there are plenty of SIV strains that haven't done so even tho humans were and are in contact with primates that are infected by those strains all the time. Other immuno suppressing viruses also haven't made the jump from other species to humans. If you eradicate HIV today with a push of a button there is no guarantee that SIV will make a jump again and turn into HIV, and there is little to no evidence that HIV jumped back to primates or has yet to infect another species. There is also no conclusive evidence that the four groups of HIV happened to jump species on 4 distinct occasions, could have been 4, could have been 2 could have been 1 could have been 400. Heck if HIV1C somehow originated in South America and then was introduced to the human population in Africa half of our models can be thrown down the toilet. What we do know is that this happened 80-140 years ago, why did a virus that infected primates for 50,000 to 2000000 years suddenly jumped species all of a sudden despite the fact that there was just as much if not more cross species interaction during human history is a better question, in fact if it indeed jumped multiple times all within a pretty small time window that would only raise more questions than give any answer.
  - nonbel 10y ago
    >"What we do know is that this happened 80-140 years ago, why did a virus that infected primates for 50,000 to 2000000 years suddenly jumped species all of a sudden despite the fact that there was just as much if not more cross species interaction during human history is a better question" Simian AIDS was discovered after human AIDS though: "Examination of the species-specific annual mortality rates of macaques at the center during the previous 4 yr showed a significant increase in deaths in 1980 and 1981" http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC393899/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC393899/ I don't see how people really know whether the problem originated in humans and spread to apes or vice versa. If anything you would expect such issues to be detected in highly monitored animals kept in well controlled research facilities first...
    - dogma1138 10y ago
      Human HIV was discovered probably 5 decades if not more after it jumped. We know it didn't originate in humans, because we can estimate how old SIV and HIV are based on their genetic material and other factors. And we also know how old SIV at least is because we've tested primates on isolated islands and found that they are also infected, so if you find SIV infected primates on an island that was isolated from mainland Africa 30,000 years ago and it's preset within 100% of the primate population you know it's at least that old. Another thing you can do is look at the DNA of the host and see if any viral DNA has been embedded within it, depending on where it is you can also estimate a timeline based on known processes and mutation rates. There is very little to no doubt that HIV originated from SIV, the question is why now. And yes we've discovered SIV later because AIDS happened then we found that it's a virus and not because they are gay, so people started looking at it's source and discovered SIV, FIV, EIAV and others. You also need to understand that viruses are very hard to find, it's not like you just look at blood samples and see them, there are also not that many generic tests that can simply detect if a virus is present or not, it takes years to decades to isolate, classify and then develop methods to identify a virus and it's not like in the 1980's you could just order a full genome to be sequenced at will.
      - nonbel 10y ago