HIV, I have always believed is a phenomenon that has been politicized to the suffering of Africa, plummeting us within the vicious triangle of economic, political and health dependency. Have you ever wondered why there is much ado about managing a disease that very few have opted to tell us where it came from? The medical field, the media, and government has not enlightened us about its origin, yet much money and efforts has gone into
enlightening us about how to prevent or live with it. Sometimes, understanding the source of problem could as well lead you into its solution.
They first incidence of AIDS is reported to have been in Los Angeles in 1981. It came to be established as a disease found mostly among homosexual and bisexuals. Barely 15 years after, Africa has approximately 60% of the reported HIV/AIDS especially sub-Saharan Africa. Now Africa is heavily dependent on external aid to help it combat a disease we cannot ascertain its origin. I researched several materials including the Internet and discovered there was a dearth of information on where this plague comes from. Almost the entire medical field, if not all, believes that the disease derived from some natural evolutionary event. But Dr. Jonathan Mann who is according to the medical field, a WHO/AIDS czar, made a profound statement shortly before his death in an Airline Crash en route the European AIDS conference. He stated that more than a medical significant problem, AIDS is a socio-political imposition. Is AIDS man-made? This is the dreadful question that pervades my mind throughout my search for what information had on its origin. While I do not want to draw conclusions but to provoke you to having an inquisitive mind, I cannot but be tempted to conceive AIDS as iatrogenic. This is because of the unique way this virus works.
HIV which is the cause of AIDS is a retrovirus that possesses a special enzyme called "Reverse Transcripts". This enzyme is able to make a copy of the DNA of the viral RNA which enables the virus to reverse the normal flow of genetic information and to incorporate its viral genes into the genetic material of its host. This virus may remain latent for a lengthy period of time until it is
reactivated. A major step in the HIV infection is that it binds itself to a receptor called the CD4 which is found on the surface of the T4 cells (your soldier cells that fight infection in the body). This way, it gains entrance into the nucleus of the T4 cells, grows and reproduces within it, and then destroys the T4 cell. A point to note is that whichever cell in the body carries the CD4 on its surface, will get attacked by the HIV. This is almost the same way a computer virus works, by attaching itself to files and then finding its way to the computer system shell or kernel, thereby crashing it. The process looks highly planned and instructed. This may in a way points to the likelihood that AIDS is iatrogenic. However, there are several explanations to the contrary.
On reading the Leonard Horowitz postulations on the danger of HIV/ AIDS, I began to wonder if Western scientists are not hiding things from the common man on the street. Horowitz believes that HIV/AIDS is the outcome of "specific vaccination experiments". This is buttressed by the WHO specialist, the late Dr Jonathan Mann. According to him, "AIDS is undoubtedly man-made. I can now assert its iatrogenic origin". He further links those developments to the early or mid-1970s.
From some of the materials I came across, I discovered that most of the investigating scientists seem to link the AIDS pandemic to the Hepatitis B vaccine. In 2001, this was the publication of the Royal Society of London. This society published its proceedings on its enquiry into the origin of AIDS, in which they focused on the theory that contaminated Polio vaccines triggered the HIV/ AIDS pandemic, after which consideration was given for the theory of the HB vaccine. The publication stated that clear resolutions were made by the society of which I quote some profound parts:- "There should be an investigation by an international committee mostly composed of non-medical people concerning how a rather obvious and plausible theory (of AID S's origin from contaminated vaccines) came to be proved and restricted from publication for so long, especially when important consequences regarding mankind's' worse epidemic and even more important consequences for others, possibly even worse that may be following, hang in the balance".
Faced with the terrible burden of AIDS, stories that HIV was introduced into Africa from the West by an accident such as OPV (Oral Polio Vaccine) or internationally by the USA (Central Intelligence Agency) have gained widespread audience… Never the less, because natural and iatrogenic transmissions of retrovirus are not mutually exclusive, these are the very powerful conclusions that cannot be overlooked by African leaders. Our governments through institutions like A.U or ECOWAS should present a common front on constituting an enquiry into this "Afrocidic issue" (as the word permits). It is now widely accepted that the Cut Hunter Theory of natural transfer holds no substance. This theory alleges that an African native
received a bloody wound or infected splash while preparing a chimpanzee carrying a similar AIDS virus found in monkeys i.e. the Simian Immune-Virus (SIV). Although, the Royal Society of London's delegates who had concerned themselves with the OPV contamination, since the vaccine was partially got from growing life polio viruses in the monkey kidney cells, had concluded that HIV origin and AIDS was not likely to have come from polio vaccine transmissions as chimpanzees were not proven to have been used during the manufacture of these vaccines. They left open the possibility of contamination of the HB vaccines for which Leonard Horowitz stands his ground. From the book "The Origin of AIDS: Darwinian or Lamarckian" written by T. Burr, J.M Hyman and the famous Dr. Gerard Myers who is the US governments' Chief DNA Sequence Analyst in New Mexico, they claim that some genetic sequencing studies links to sometimes around the mid 1970s the punctuated origin of AIDS events. They said the most likely cause of this animal to man disease was some man influenced acts involving monkeys. But they were not certain if chimpanzees were used especially for the making of polio vaccines. But Dr. Horowitz (a Harvard degree holder) attempts to answer in his book "Emerging Viruses, AIDS and Ebola - Native, Accident or Intentional?" I believe every African should read this thought provoking book. He in this book with backed documents proved that chimpanzees with contaminated viruses were used in the growing of HB vaccines which was used on homosexual men in the US (New York City) and central African people around the mid 1970s. I was absolutely appalled looking through this book and the evidential instances made. I keep asking, with such research work done by prominent scientists such as this, why is there still little attention given to this threatening issue?
In the second part of this article, I will take a very close look on prevailing and modern evidence on the origin of AIDS. I sincerely hope that we will gather enough momentum to prevail on the authorities in Africa to sound a clarion call for a deeper investigation into this menace. As much as we are privileged to enjoy divine intervention, we must secure the faith of the weak. What is African Development when we are on the brink of extinction? How can we fold our hands and watch 30% of our whole nation's population battle HIV/AIDS and we claim we can only pray. I believe we should allow our prayers bring us into divine inspiration on how to permanently root out this disease from our continent if God's agenda will materialize in our time. You can purchase the books I made reference to in this article as they are available.
Reginald Bassey is a pioneer graduate of Covenant University, Nigeria
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