Interestingly, according to Garrett (1994), HIV and HIV antibodies have not been found in the Mbuti and other indigenous tribes, or Forest People of Central Africa who have hunted wild monkeys for years! Why? 
In 1966, a widely travelled Norwegian sailor died with AIDS-like symptoms. When his blood was tested later, it turned out HIV positive.
A 1959 blood sample kept from a man living in Kinshasha in Zaire turned out to be HIV positive when tested, according to the CDC (Center for Disease Control). According to Laurie Garrett (1994), the CDC lost this blood sample and the positive test results were never confirmed by anyone else. However, the CDC is convinced that it has found the oldest blood to definitely test HIV positive.
The HIV virus was never found in the blood of a Saint Louis teen who died in the 60's of AIDS-like symptoms, according to Garrett. Does this mean that with all the teen's t-cells destroyed by HIV (the teen had no t cells) that the virus died off? Or would some of the virus have remained in other cells that can also harbor HIV?
The HIV that researchers claimed to have found in the blood of a little-travelled sailor from Manchester, U.K., who died of AIDS-like symptoms in 1959, was most likely tainted, as it was so like a modern variety of HIV going around in laboratories, that the blood samples must have been mixed up, according to Garrett (1994).
It is likely that if either the Manchester sailor and the Saint Louis teen had HIV, they had a variety that is not known today, that has died off or evolved into a more modern form!
In Africa: AIDS researcher Dr. Jay Levy tested blood samples drawn in Africa in the late 1960's, and was unable to detect HIV, according to Laurie Garrett (1994). Joe McCormick of the CDC (the United States Center for Disease Control) tested blood drawn in Africa in the mid-to-late 1970's and found HIV present in a small percentage of the samples.
In the United States: HIV was detected in a small percentage of samples of blood drawn from injecting drug users in the United States in the early-to-mid 1970's. The first case of HIV infection traced to blood and plasma donation in the United States was traced to blood donated in 1978, according to Garrett (1994). Unfortunately, when infected blood was discovered in the blood supply, the blood and plasma dealers began destroying records of donations/sales of blood, together with the old blood samples, so it is difficult to trace exactly when HIV was first present in blood and plasma donations in the United States, according to Garrett (1994).
Does this Mean that HIV is a Relatively New Virus? HIV could have changed and evolved recently, and older variants of it may not be detectable by tests for present-day HIV. Or HIV could have evolved relatively recently from other viruses, and entered the blood supply relatively recently. Or there may be insufficient blood samples from earlier dates to detect HIV. No matter which of these you believe, it does seem that the HIV epidemic exploded in the late 1970's and early 1980's in both Africa and the United States (and also in the Caribbean and Europe). Prior to that, it was a very rare disease!
HTLV or the Human t-cell leukemia virus is another lentavirus and retrovirus--like HIV. It seems to be very distantly related to HIV, and most scientists think it is older than HIV. HTLV was originally found in Japan, Melanesia, Kenya, Italy, the Caribbean, and parts of the Americas (Ecuador, Bolivia, and Columbia especially). There are two varieties of HTLV. One seems to be native to the Americas--this is generally considered the milder variety, because it does not cause cancer in the t-cells. The other variety was found initially in all areas listed above except the Continental Americas. The relatively mild "American" variety of HTLV (HTLV2) has now spread widely among drug users in the Southeastern United States--and may mutate and become more severe with its new opportunities to spread, according to some disease specialists (Garrett, 1994). Interestingly, the string of amino acids in the protease enzyme of the more severe variety of HTLV--HTLV1--is almost identical to the string of amino acids in the protease enzyme of HIV (type 1, which is the type most often associated with severe AIDS). Since viruses and bacteria can exchange strings of proteins and amino acids, did HIV1, which is otherwise more like HIV2 than like either variant of HTLV, get this string of proteins in an exchange with HTLV1? Was HIV1 originally the same as HIV2? Or did HIV2, with less opportunities to infect than HIV1 perhaps, lose this string of proteins as it mutated and became less deadly?
Equine Infectious Anemia (which infects horses) and the Visna virus (which infects sheep), again both lentaviruses and retroviruses, seem to be more closely related to HIV than does HTLV. These viruses and HIV share the same structure, but have generally different proteins--suggesting they come from a single virus family.
Take a look at HIV Web's Diagrams of the protein and gene arrangements in HIV
Or view the list of varieties of HIV and SIV at HIV Web's Subtypes of HIV
According to many researchers, HIV, which mutates, is currently mutating at a rate of about 1% a year. Thus it may have evolved from another virus about 100 years ago, given a constant rate of mutation.
However, HIV may not have mutated at a constant rate. It might have mutated faster or slower at different times, depending on circumstances! When a microbe has opportunties to spread rapidly, it may mutate faster according to research on microbes, and when it has few opportunities to spread, if may mutate more slowly.
Some things that might make HIV mutate more rapidly:
Because SIV, or the Simian Immune Deficiency Virus, which infects monkeys, is very closely related to HIV, and because some varieties of SIV can infect both humans and monkeys, researchers argue that HIV evolved from the monkey virus. However, monkey and human versions of a virus may become alike because viruses have co-evolved with the various animal species. Dr. Jay Levy (2001) of the University of California at San Francisco's Aids Research Institute suggests that 'the predecessor of [HIV may have] . . . entered the animal kingdom and evolved with the species.' Simply because monkeys and humans are so close genetically, the viruses that attack them may also be close genetically.
It's also worth noting that the current infectious varieties of SIV and HIV may have co-evolved in animals as a result of urban conditions. SIV and HIV are closest together not in the wilderness, but around cities, where trees have been clear cut, the monkeys' habitat destroyed, and monkeys and humans left competing for the turf.
| Interestingly, according to Garrett (1994), HIV and HIV antibodies have not been found in the Mbuti and other indigenous tribes, or Forest People of Central Africa who have hunted wild monkeys for years! Why? |
Right: Photo of One of the BaAka people, working as a guide for the World Wildlife Fund |
Monkeys are also hunted and kept in captivity for research and lab purposes. And many outbreaks of SIV have occurred in research and lab monkeys, where a large number of monkeys are caged together!
HIV and SIV were not found in the kidney cells of Green monkeys used in the manufacture of the polio vaccination in the 1950's. Of course, HIV and SIV do not infect the kidney cells well. And, possibly, the 1950's version of the virus was nothing like the modern virus.
Today, about half of all African Green Monkeys in the wild carry a kind of SIV. However, according to Garrett (1994), the Green monkeys in the Caribbean who were all brought from Africa in the eighteenth century all tested SIV negative! Perhaps the people who brought the monkeys luckily picked some who did not have SIV. But perhaps SIV was rarer in monkeys in the eighteenth century than it is today! Or again, perhaps it was not anything like any modern virus.
Some kinds of SIV considered "native" to certain species of African monkeys seem not to make these monkeys that sick--it's argued that the monkeys have developed resistance! For example, a variety of SIV that is like HIV2 does not make sooty mangabeys too sick--though there is some change in their cells; however, Asian Macaques do get sick from this variety of SIV and do not seem to have any resistance. (It's generally agreed that the AIDS epidemic reached Asia later than it reached Africa, but of course, it also reached Asia later than it reached Europe, or the U.S.) Does this mean that the ancient ancestor of HIV was not endemic in monkeys at the time the macaques and related species went separate ways, at least not endemic enough to lead to resistance?
Many kinds of SIV that infect non-human primates in Africa (and do not appear to cause severe illness) are more like HIV2, a variety of HIV common in West Africa that has (so far) not been as severe as HIV1--the HIV most of us associate with severe AIDS! But chimps do get sick from SIV when SIV is more like HIV!
It's also worth noting that resistance to microbes may evolve faster in many animal species, simply because many animals go through the generations a bit faster than we do!
Some researchers argue that the presence of HIV in Africa can be explained in terms of the habitats of the non-human primates who are the original carriers: sooty mangabeys live in West Africa where HIV2 is prevalent, and some of the mangabeys are infected with an HIV2-like strain; chimps infectred with an HIV1-like strain have been found in East Africa where HIV1 is prevalent. But chimpanzee habitat (shown at Bossou's web site) does not extend to in South Africa, where HIV1 is also prevalent. It's clear that many more HIV varieties exist in Africa than elsewhere--but did these varieties evolve in Africa--or elsewhere, and then just find a better place to spread in Africa, while they became extinct elsewhere?
HIV infects Africans like everyone else! In fact, most persons who carry genes that make their cells more resistant to HIV docking are of European ancestry, not of African ancestry.
Various immune deficiency viruses related to HIV infect animals not unique to (or always found in) Africa: cats, the Florida panther, lions in captivity, sheep, and cows.
Dr. Luc Montagnier (who tends to believe that the precursors of HIV started exploding in Africa), reminds us that HIV may be like syphilis, another disease no one wanted to own:
| The "Naples disease" (as the French called it), or the "French disease" (as everyone else called it) suddenly appeared in Europe after Columbus's expedition in 1492 . . . Blame was laid on a germ imported from America, but syphilitic lesions have recently been discovered on skeletons of Europeans dating back to well before the discovery of the New World. (Quoted from Virus, 2000.) |
Lenta means 'slow.' Lentaviruses work slowly, and may take years to make someone sick!
Retroviruses are viruses that use RNA rather than DNA.
In poor countries, sometimes injections with reused syringes are sold by injectionists. In addition, some vaccination programs in rural areas in poor countries have not had an adequate supply of clean needles and syringes, and have reused needles and syringes. In Africa, children with sickle cell anemia have been injected with blood from adult relatives without checking for possible microbes in the blood.
In Europe, one of the earliest vaccinations--developed for one of the more ancient of the lethal diseases--was the smallpox vaccination, invented by Edward Jenner in 1796. The initial smallpox vaccinations invented by Jenner were extracted from the lymph of horses, sheep, or cows that had cowpox; or from the lymph of humans previously vaccinated. The lymph was exposed to a 50 percent solution of glycerin and water, and nothing else. A person was vaccinated by 'making an adequate number of insertions of [the] lymph over a sufficient area.' Several other persons could then be vaccinated from the lymph of that person. This procedure was believed to be safer than procedures before Jenner introduced his vaccine, which involved injecting persons with the blood of those who had survived a bout with smallpox. By 1900, Jenner's smallpox vaccination was compulsory for British schoolchildren! The spread of several infections have been attributed, post hoc to the small pox vaccinations, according to the Encyclopaedia Britannica (1911). The procedure was made more sanitary and was ultimately rendered unecessary when smallpox was eradicated in the second half of this century.
Researchers do not have all the answers about HIV. However, the rainforest enriches all of us, and researchers constantly comb the rainforests--an area with much more diverse life than most areas (see also Charlotte's Web for a discussion of variety in life and how paving destroys it)--for new ways to treat infections! One extract from a rain forest plant that is being investigated for anti-HIV properties is Calidomide (discussed in Sharon Douglass' class, 2001). Other rainforest products include: cocoa, coffee (cocoa and coffee can be grown sustainably under the rainforest canopy, a canopy whose birds naturally help keep insects from bothering the trees, according to "The Sweetest Chocolate" in Country Living [February, 2003]; unfortunately, some chocolate and cacao trees are grown using clearcutting methods says the author), brazil nuts, macadamia nuts, cashews, pineapple, mangos, papayas, black pepper, LaPacho herbal teas (said to be healthful), and natural latex. Purchasing rainforest products helps to make the rainforest economically viable and keep it alive.
Another place for rainforests is Malaysia. Take a walk through a rainforest in Borneo at night, and view the animals there at this site from National Geographic's Virtual World.
Hawaii also has rainforests. Learn about Hawaii and its history and culture at About.com's story of the Waipi'o Valley or 'Valley of Kings'. Or view photos of the Hawaiian rainforest on Kauai taken by Dee Estrella and her husband! Or perhaps you would like to learn about the culture and sustainable development in depth at The Taro Patch's Site on Kauai. If you go to the Taro Patch's site, you might want to learn more about Hawaii's statewide Ahupua'a Action Alliance linked to there. Whatever site you go to, have a great virtual trip!
It took somewhere between 70 and 100 million years for the rainforests of the Earth to evolve--but, in 1996, an area of rainforest the size of Florida was being destroyed every year, to provide lumber and lands for ranching, according to Peter Rillero! Rillero says that, at that rate, all the world's rainforests will be gone between 2070 and 2075 A.D.! What can you do to help stop rainforest destruction? Besides buying rainforest products or reducing beef consumption, you can buy only wood from areas where trees are saved. Home Depot and Lowes are planning to label such wood as 'good wood.' You might get your local lumber distributor to follow suit. You can also write your government leaders. Write to the president at [email protected]. Or, help . If you are under eighteen, you might also wish to try the activities at Rainforest Action Network's Kids' Action. To learn more about some of the people who live in the African rainforest, and to support their campaigns, you might want to go to Ogiek.org. For further information about the struggles of the people and wildlife of the rainforest in Central Africa, here's a link to WCS-Congo's site on protected forest lands in the Republic of the Congo (formerly Zaire). Explore more sites yourself--indiced at Rainforest Web's Indigenous Peoples' Page. Or check out World Resources' Institute's Frontier Forest Map of Africa depicting endangered forests (click on the map to find more about each!)
Interestingly, Kujo, a vine which came to this country from Japan (where it was cultivated as an aphrodisiac, or sort-of love potion), and then spread southward and took over when it got into generally frost-free regions in Florida, does not grow in Florida's deep woods. It does well in areas of low brush and clearings at the edge of the deep woods, and also very well in people's back yards, but light and plant conditions in the deep woods are (fortunately) not suitable for Kujo! Kujo climbs and strangles other plants, destroying many Florida yards, however--but may be 'trainable,' like other vines.
Unfortunately for this country, one of its greatest resouces, its beautiful wilderness, is disappearing! When Christopher Columbus and the early settlers and explorers came here, they found forests filled with a variety of tall trees. Poet Nancy Willard writes, quoting from The Journals of Christopher Columbus,
Even the conquerers of this country
lifted their eyes and found
more comely than gold: Bright green trees,
the whole land so green, it is a pleasure to look on it,
and the greatest wonder to see the diversity.
During that time I walked among trees,
The most beautiful things I had ever seen.
. . .
Already the trees are a myth,
half gods, half giants in whom nobody believes.
--From Nancy Willard (1974), When There Were Trees, in The Carpenter of the Sun: Poems by Nancy Willard (New York: Liveright); Quotation (in italics) adapted by Nancy Willard from The Journals of Christopher Columbus, as rendered in William Carlos Williams' In the American Grain.
| Organic Chocolate Links Sites I Found Recommended in "The Sweetest Chocolate":
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