New series examines how close we are to a cure for virus

This is the first in a series of stories about HIV/AIDS. This story is special to the Trice Edney News Wire from the Louisiana Weekly.

BY MICHAEL RADCLIFF
TRICE EDNEY NEWS WIRE

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimated in 2010, that 1,142,714 people had been diagnosed with AIDS in America since the beginning of the epidemic. That is more than the combined total of every soldier lost in battle, in every war the United States has ever fought, since the forming of this nation.

The Chosen Ladies of Distinction, a group of about 12 HIV-positive women show support for each other. They are shown in June 2008 at the AIDS Outreach Center in Fort Worth, Texas. (AMY PETERSON/FORT WORTH STAR-TELEGRAM/MCT)

As viewed from a global perspective, the World Health Organization (WHO) states that in 2010, over 34 million individuals were currently living with HIV/AIDS. More than one half were women, and nearly 10 percent were children.

One of ‘greatest human tragedies’

In 2010, nearly two million people died of AIDS, while nearly three million were newly infected with this deadly disease. Since AIDS was officially recognized in 1981 as a disease modality, nearly 30 million people have died of AIDS-related illnesses.

"When you stop and think," explained Dr. Cecile Fox, a pathologist with the National Institute of Infectious Diseases, "that over the next 30 years, over a hundred million people will have died of HIV/AIDS prematurely, it will be one of the greatest human tragedies of all time."

The Louisiana Weekly is examining the origin of this plague of the 21st century, its infectious process, statistics and populations at risk, the social stigma or "modern-day" leprosy, a day in the life of an HIV/AIDS survivor, legal rights and ramifications of HIV/AIDS-infected individuals, an individual cured of HIV/AIDS, and current medical treatments, breakthroughs.

Origin theory includes monkeys

While theories abound with regard to its origin, it is generally believed that the Simian Immunodeficiency Virus (SIV) or Green Monkey virus — a retrovirus that had been commonly found in nearly three dozen species of monkeys, primarily chimpanzees, dating back over 32,000 years, somehow mutated and transferred to humans in Central Africa during the 1950s.

Two major theories put forth are: (1) people, primarily Africans, contracted the virus by eating or preparing monkeys infected with SIV and, (2) polio vaccines of the 1950s.

The most obvious question posed to the first theory is "If people have eaten and prepared monkeys for virtually thousands of years, why only now have we seen a crossover or transference of this virus from monkey to man? The most common response is that it mutated. This theory is the commonly accepted theory of a large number of researchers in the scientific community.

The second theory, however, which has been rejected over and over by the scientific community, has, in spite of numerous attempts to discredit it over the years, gained a degree of credibility and deserves a closer look.

Linked to polio vaccine

In 1992, Tom Curtis, a freelance journalist for Rolling Stone magazine, wrote an article linking the onset of HIV/AIDS to Dr. Hilary Koprowski’s live polio vaccine.

Curtis’ hypothesis shook up the scientific community because it challenged the credibility of one of its most renowned scientists, Koprowski.

He is an author or co-author of nearly 900 scientific papers and co-editor of several journals and a consultant to the World Health Organization as well as the Pan American Health Organization.

Theory: Scientists created it

In the 1950s, polio was one of the most lethal and debilitating diseases known to man, killing mostly children.

Dr. Jonas Salk developed a vaccine against polio using a dead polio virus extracted from monkey organs. Monkeys were used as both experimental guinea pigs and raw material from which to create the polio vaccine.

The vaccine was proven generally effective. However, oftentimes there were serious side effects. In spite of its side effects, Salk was viewed as a national hero.

Koprowski, a young virologist and recent immigrant to the U.S., in 1950 decided to test his own prototype of a live polio vaccine.

Vaccine lots contaminated

A scandal subsequently erupted when it was determined that he was testing his formula on handicapped children, who were wards of the state of New York. On April 23, 1955, 260 children vaccinated with Salk’s vaccine became violently ill and 11 subsequently died.

People, parents in particular, began to question the safety of Salk’s vaccine and began to refuse to have their children inoculated. A subsequent investigation determined that some vaccine lots were contaminated. In addition to Koprowski, another scientist, Dr. Albert Sabin, also was developing a vaccine to replace the Salk vaccine.

Subsequently, a race between Sabin and Koprowski to deliver a more stable "live" vaccine ensued. To win the race to a better vaccine, they both needed to test their vaccine on a large non-immunized population sample – something that was no longer available in the United States.

Virus X exposed

Sabin made a secret deal with his native country, Russia, to test his vaccine there, and he was able to vaccinate more than six million Russian citizens. Koprowski chose to extract his sample population from the Congo region of Central Africa.

Subsequent investigation of the Koprowski vaccine by his rival Sabin determined that the vaccine was infected with a virus, which at that time Sabin designated as Virus X.

He informed Koprowski, after which Koprowski dismissed his findings and ended their friendship. Sabin’s vaccine was eventually determined to be more stable and was chosen over Koprowski’s vaccine as the inoculation of choice.

Debate about African monkey

In the context of his article, Curtis, the journalist for Rolling Stone magazine, suggested that the African Green monkey was the source of Koprowski’s contaminated vaccine.

Since the African Green monkey was not a carrier of the SIV virus, Koprowski and his colleagues used this error to immediately discredit Curtis and demanded an immediate apology from Rolling Stone magazine, which they did without delay.

Years later, however, Edward Hooper, a British journalist, re-examined Curtis’ theory and went to Africa to follow the path of Koprowski’s vaccine.

Hundreds of chimpanzee claims

After more than seven years of research, he suggested that Koprowski had indeed used African chimpanzees as both test subjects and the source of his vaccines. He then published his findings.

The chimpanzee is one of the most infected SIV carriers in existence. Koprowski once again responded, attempting to discredit the British journalist Hooper by insisting that all of the monkeys he used were in fact imported from either the Philippines or India… emphatically stating that [even though his lab was located in Africa and his test population were Africans] he never used African monkeys.

Vintage film footage of Koprowski’s lab, however, supports Hooper’s claims, showing that there were in fact hundreds of chimpanzees used in Koprowski’s lab between 1956 and 1958.

Furthermore, noted evolutionary biologist, the late Dr. William Hamilton, would later go on record to support Hooper’s claim, stating that there was a "95 percent probability that Hooper’s theory was in fact correct."

Congo man died of AIDS in 1959

Yet in spite of all of the collective evidence, the overwhelming majority of the scientific community to date continues to support Koprowski’s defense. Yet these pro-Koprowski members of the scientific community are strangely silent when asked, "Why if HIV/AIDS has existed as far back as some have suggested the 1800s, only since the 1960s have we seen an explosion in both the spread of HIV and the corresponding mortality rate?"

The first known case of a human contracting HIV was an African male who died in the Congo of central Africa in 1959, or one year after Koprowski’s trial study. He was confirmed years later as having an HIV infection from his preserved blood samples. None of Sabine’s sample population ever contracted AIDS.

What is a retrovirus?

HIV is not deadly in itself. Classified as a retrovirus, the function of HIV is to impair the immune system to the point that the body is unable to defend itself from diseases, which can range from something as aggressive as cancer to an otherwise fairly benign infection.

Retroviruses are unique in that they reproduce by copying themselves into DNA. Once this viral pseudo-DNA, or false DNA, enters the body, it is transported to the cell’s nucleus, where it is spliced into the human DNA by an HIV enzyme.

It then integrates with the host’s normal DNA to form an HIV DNA, or provirus. This provirus may lie dormant within a cell for a long time, but when the cell becomes activated, it treats HIV genes in much the same way as human genes.

Targeting the T-cells

First, it converts them into messenger RNA (using human enzymes). Then the messenger RNA is transported outside the nucleus, and then acts as a blueprint for producing new HIV proteins and enzymes.

These new corrupt copies then coat themselves with a protein and leave the cell to infect other cells and thus the replication process begins all over again. In this manner, the virus quickly spreads through the human body.

Retroviruses become a permanent part of the genetic material of an infected cell, and in the case of the HIV retrovirus, the cell is eventually destroyed.

The cells most targeted are T-cells. T-cells are a type of white blood cell that is of key importance to the immune system and is at the basis of which the body acquires its immunity.

It designs the body’s immune response to specific disease pathogens. T-cells are like soldiers who search out and destroy foreign invaders such as bacteria and viruses.

From HIV to AIDS

As a typical response to an infection, T-cells begin to multiply in response to this invasion. However, these cells also become the target of HIV. Viral pseudo-DNA replaces the host’s normal DNA, normal T-cells soon dwindle in number, are eventually destroyed, and are replaced by HIV DNA-driven cells.

At this point, the infected person has arrived at the late stage of HIV infection, or AIDS. Because retroviruses tend to mutate quickly, they become resistant to anti-viral drugs fairly rapidly.

It is primarily as result of the ability of HIV to mutate so rapidly that scientists have thus far been unable to develop a safe, effective vaccine.

HIV can only replicate itself inside human cells. It cannot grow or reproduce on its own. In order to thrive, it must reproduce itself by infecting the cells of a living organism.

Yet, while HIV leads to lethal consequences within the framework of the human body, the virus is quite vulnerable. HIV can only survive at a temperature of 98.6 degrees or a normal human body temperature. Outside of the body and its 98.6 degree temperature, the HIV virus will die within two to three seconds.

Washing one’s hands with ordinary soap and water can actually render the HIV retrovirus inactive, and physical barriers such as condoms, rubber gloves and facial masks can effectively prevent the spread of HIV.