Is there any truth to the myth that monkey contributed to the start of AIDS?

Answer 1

I believe that scientists have found evidence that western African monkeys carry a virus very similar to AIDS, and that the current AIDS epidemic seems to have arisen in this same region, but I do not believe a direct link has been *proven.* Proof may have been discovered since I last looked into this.

It *has* been proven that AIDS existed in the 1940s in England - contracted by a British sailor whose ship had also harbored in western Africa. I believe he died shortly after he had returned to England, so the virus did not spread at that time. Having existed for so long, it seems unlikely that anyone could prove who had the virus first - humans or monkeys.

Jim, http://www.jimpettis.com/wheel/

Answer 2

I haven't read the literature on it so I can't say for sure, but I do not believe that is true. If it were, biologists could verify it very quickly and it would be reported in the scientific literature and of course in the main-stream media. It is known, or strongly believed, that the AIDS epidemic started in Africa, and I believe it is similar to a virus that infects monkeys. But I think the old theory that it came from some African having sex with a monkey is racist and homophobic nonsense.

Answer 3

Truth The virus originated in monkeys or apes.

False It was transferred by bestiality. Pervs love this idea.

true Most scientists believe the transfer from animal to man came from men eating the apes. This frequently happens in Africa because if you're hungry enough you'll eat almost anything. Funny nobody ever bothers to claim new flu strains come from bestiality.

Answer 4

They say AIDS started because people were eating Monkey Brains.

Answer 5

^Monkey's are one of the theory's and most likely true, another one is, it was produced in a lab for germ warfare, I hope this is a fallacy, it's a very scary thought.

All I can tell you is sex was never the same, once we found out that heterosexuals as well as homosexuals can get aids.

Answer 6

in the 1920's in Congo the witchdoctors started to inject people in the groin with monkey blood to give them a boost. Whether or not it gave them a boost is unknown - but it did give them AIDS or HTLV3/STLV3. Then gay men took it to Haiti in the 60's and from there into SF in the late 70's.

Answer 7

aids was man made and dropped off in africa to cull the population.
But, what nobody was thinking of was that sailors and farmers were sleeping with the africans(prostitution) and their slaves, spreading it to other races, and the sailors taking it back withthem to their countries and spreading it.
Now the scientists and men behind this cullination(which is still going on in Africa by aids and starvation) have to worry about their own families now being infected.

Or, if you prefer the other versions about the monkeys, then i guess a gay black man was a.ss banging a monkey, so the black mans partner(monkey) gave him aids, and so it spread between the gay monkeys and black men, and then to the rest of the world.

Answer 8

Yeah. Aids is passed through blood. Some ape ate a monkey, some guy ate the ape.

Answer 9

It's true -- scientists have traced the ancestry of the virus that causes AIDS back to strains found in African monkeys.

Answer 10

How about the rumor that says that the virus was invented in a lab to cause the death of millions of people of the third world, but scientists lost control and it spread in the other continents as well?
http://www.africaspeaks.com/articles/2005/1204.html
http://www.aegis.org/news/dmg/1999/MG990604.html
http://www.amren.com/mtnews/archives/2004/10/aids_amade_to_k.php