Do you think diseases such as SARS, AIDS, Bird Flu have been CREATED in a lab and dispersed to the masses?
475321
That's a stretch, AT BEST.  \n\nTake bird flu for instance.  It would affect most countries, regardless of race/region/etc.  \n\nThe potential worldwide economic fallout from that would not discriminate.
98597
I don't know about that, but it certainly humbles those it affects.\n\nAIDS was created by the world--not God or man.  I am a Christian but do not subscribe to the misguided notion that God created AIDS to punish gays and drug users.  You may as well say God created leukemia to punish innocent children.\n\nAnd while human creation of AIDS is possible, I do not believe it some concious method of population control.  AIDS is an ongoing global epidemic and it has the coordinated effort of researchers worldwide working to stop it.  Instead of trying to figure out how it started, why not concentrate on how it will be finished?
296586
The basic answer to this is No because there are various strains of the virus and thus each person could be reinfecting each other and thus make the other person sicker than they really should be.
1094780
1.HIV/AIDS looks to be prominent among the gay community probably becoz this virus and the disease was first discovered in gays and was thought to infect only the gays,thus it was termed as a gay related disease but it is well know now that even hetrosexuals can get it if u sleep around with people without any protection.\n2.How we humans got it remains a mystery but scientists now belive that we got it from their bite or when man consumed bush meat.\n3.No America was not the first place,it just that this disease was first discoved in America in 1980's.It was know to have existed in Africa even earlier in the 1950's.
685244
how modern is medicine? never enough. There will be always new viruses (maybe made by huge laboratories), and medicine people will always look for new cures. think about cancer it's been discovered and studied for thousands of years.
499379
YEah i've heard that, taking for example the HIV, once I watched that on Discovery Channel, and the same thing (as Discovery Channel said) happened in the middle ages qwith I don't know wath virus( tuberc..I don't remember something like that)\nAnd that, this kind of cells are created by this substance inherited by your mother... And that means that in every generation this gen is getting lost.\nBut the exact name o f them I don't know...But the only name I'll give them is --Lucky--
104258
If it was, it is not effective.  Why would anyone create a virus that is not effective on humans?  Is there a government that is anti-bird?
206453
Actually, the bird flu is a pandemic, and it sort of could be a plague if it spreads more
288924
Take A Look At The Sickness That Pervades Our Society Today, Theres Aids An Other Seual Diseases. Thats An Good Reason
53956
The size and scope of the diseases effect...epidemics can be local, pandemics can be global.
618375
I thought this was an amazing article. It was just published a few days ago:\n\nWASHINGTON - Twenty-five years after the first AIDS cases emerged, scientists have confirmed that the HIV virus plaguing humans really did originate in wild chimpanzees, in a corner of Cameroon.\n\nSolving the mystery of HIV’s ancestry was dirty work. Scientists employed trackers to plunge through dense jungle and collect the fresh feces of wild apes — more than 1,300 samples in all.\n\nBefore that, it took seven years of research just to develop the testing methods to genetically trace the primate version of the virus in living wild chimps without hurting the endangered species.\n\nUntil now, “no one was able to look. No one had the tools,” said Dr. Beatrice Hahn of the University of Alabama at Birmingham. She led the team of international researchers that reported the success in Friday’s edition of the journal Science.\n\n“We’re 25 years into this pandemic,” Hahn said. “We don’t have a cure. We don’t have a vaccine. But we know where it came from. At least we can make a check mark on one of those.”\n\nScientists long have known that nonhuman primates carry their own version of the AIDS virus, called SIV or simian immunodeficiency virus. But with one exception, it had been found only in captive chimpanzees, particularly a subspecies that in the wild populates mostly West Africa.\n\nIt was not known how prevalent the virus was in chimps in the wild, or how genetically or geographically diverse it was, complicating efforts to pin down the jump from animal to man.\n\nHahn’s team tested chimp feces for SIV antibodies, finding them in a subspecies called Pan troglodytes troglodytes in southern Cameroon.\n\nChimps tend to form geographically distinct communities. By genetically analyzing the feces, researchers could trace individual infected chimps. The team found some chimp communities with infection rates as high as 35 percent, while others had no infection at all.\n\nEvery single infected chimp had a common base genetic pattern that indicated a common ancestor, Hahn said.\n\nThere are three types of HIV-1, the strain of the human virus responsible for most of the worldwide epidemic. Genetic analysis let Hahn identify chimp communities near Cameroon’s Sanaga River whose viral strains are most closely related to the most common of those HIV-1 subtypes.\n\n“The genetic similarity was striking,” Hahn said.\n\nThe first human known to be infected with HIV was a man from Kinshasa in the nearby country of Congo who had his blood stored in 1959 as part of a medical study, decades before scientists knew the AIDS virus existed.\n\nPresumably, someone in rural Cameroon was bitten by a chimp or was cut while butchering one and became infected with the ape virus. That person passed it to someone else.\n\nThe Sanaga River long has been a commercial waterway, for transporting hardwood, ivory and other items to more urban areas. Eventually, someone infected made it to Kinshasa.\n\n“How many different transmission events occurred between that initial hunter and this virus making it to Kinshasa, I don’t know. It could have been one, it could have been 10, it could have been 100,” Hahn said. “Eventually, it ended up in an urban area, and that’s where it really got going.”\n\nSomewhere in all that spread, the virus became more deadly to people than it is to chimps, who seldom are bothered much by SIV.\n\nThe research seems to settle any question of HIV’s origin, said Dr. Anthony Fauci, the National Institutes of Health’s AIDS chief.\n\nWhen tracing a virus’ evolution, “it’s important to get as close to the source as you can,” he said. “It’s of historic interest.”
102892
at this point, I am very concerned since only insects outnumber the birds in the world and they are airborn. The mutation could occur at any moment and infect humans. This is how the flu of 1917 or so occured and spread rapidly
542637
NO. It is not a virus, it is caused by the spores of a fungus that is found in bird droppings when they dry up and turn into dust and you inhale the spores.\nMy textbook says that it is a disease caused by the inhalation of spores of the fungus Histoplasma capsulatum, most often asymptomatic but occasionally producing acute pneumonia or an influenzalike illness and spreading to other organs and systems in the body.
488131
I heard that on the radio today.  As I recall, a team of researchers in Gabon found this particualar strain of HIV in chimp droppings out in the bush.  Imagine going to West Africa to study chimp droppings.
160489
AIDS, per say, say was not "discovered."  It was named. AIDS itself is NOT a disease.  Rather it is the end manisfestation of infection with HIV.  AIDS is a "collection" of opportunistic infections which prey on the immune system which has been compromised by HIV.  HIV infection/AIDS continues to spread in all corners of the world.  It seems that in the US people have again become complacent about it, with rates increasing in all metro areas.  One factor that the increase of infection is being attributed to is the use of Meth.
988460
Have you ever watched a loved one wither away in their hospital bed from a common cold because the AIDS virus made their immune system so weak? If not, you should be grateful. I watched my uncle sit there and wither away to skin and bones because of AIDS. Please educate yourself more on this subject and be more respectful about it.
635614
This is a pet topic of mine...\n\nThe origin of AIDS and HIV has puzzled scientists ever since the illness first came to light in the early 1980s. For over twenty years it has been the subject of fierce debate and the cause of countless arguments, with everything from a promiscuous flight attendant to a suspect vaccine program being blamed. So what it the truth? Just where did AIDS come from?\n\nThe first 'officially recognized' cases of "AIDS" occurred in the USA in the early 1980s (the real origin was later recognized to be Africa and a lot earlier than 1980). A number of gay men in New York and San Francisco suddenly began to develop rare opportunistic infections and cancers that seemed stubbornly resistant to any treatment. At this time, AIDS did not yet have a name, but it quickly became obvious that all the men were suffering from a common syndrome. The discovery of HIV, the Human Immunodeficiency Virus that causes AIDS was made soon after. While some were initially resistant to the connection (and indeed remain so today), there is now clear evidence to prove that HIV does cause AIDS. So, in order to find the source of AIDS, it is necessary to look for the origin of HIV, and find out How, When and Where HIV first began to cause disease in humans.\n\nOne theory of the origin of AIDS is that it developed in the Belgian Congo from contaminated vaccines used in the world's first mass immunization for polio. There are a number of reasons why this theory is plausible enough to be worthy of further investigation.\n\n1. The location coincides dramatically. The earliest known cases of AIDS occurred in central Africa, in the same regions where Koprowski's polio vaccine was given to over a million people in 1957-1960.\n\n2. The timing coincides. There is no documented case of HIV infection or AIDS before 1959. Centuries of the slave trade and European exploitation of Africa exposed Africans and others to all other diseases then known; it is implausible that HIV could have been present and spreading in Africa without being recognized.\n\n3. Polio vaccines are grown (cultured) on monkey kidneys which could have been contaminated by SIVs. Polio vaccines could not be screened for SIV contamination before 1985.\n\n4. Another monkey virus, SV-40, is known to have been passed to humans through polio vaccines. A specific pool of Koprowski's vaccine was later shown to have been contaminated by an unknown virus.\n\n5. In order for a virus to infect a different species, it is helpful to reduce the resistance of the new host's immune system. Koprowski's polio vaccine was given to many children less than one month old, before their immune systems were fully developed. Indeed, in one trial, infants were given 15 times the standard dose in order to ensure effective immunization.\n\nIf this theory is correct, it has serious ethical, health and policy implications. In particular, it points to the danger of interspecies transfer of material through vaccinations, organ transplants, etc., which could lead to new variants of AIDS as well as other new diseases. As well, studying the theory may lead to insights about responding to AIDS and preventing new diseases.\n\nHowever, there has been no sustained attempt to test the theory. This could be done, for example, by testing stocks of polio vaccine for the presence of SIV. An offer to undertake tests was made as early as 1991; only in 2000 were some samples tested, and then only US-made vaccine. Another possibility would be to test stored blood samples in Africa from before 1950. If HIV is found, this would undermine the theory.\n\nAlthough the theory has not been properly examined, many people seem to believe it has been refuted. Hilary Koprowski published a letter in Science in 1992 attacking the theory. In 1993, Rolling Stone, which had published a widely publicized article by Tom Curtis about the theory, published an "update", interpreted by Science as a