[BRIEF NOTE] The North American Prehistory of HIV

[rfmcdonald]

The June 2003 Journal of Virology paper "U.S. Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 1 Epidemic: Date of Origin, Population History, and Characterization of Early Strains", by Robbins et al, provides an interesting examination of the prehistory of HIV in North America. The standard history of HIV in North America usually begins with the first diagnoses of AIDS in 1981, sometimes with the first retrospective confirmations of HIV seropositivity in 1977-8, occasionally even further back than that to children born with AIDS (the earliest, one born with AIDS in 1973-74). Robbins et al. demonstrate, by taking very early samples of HIV and measuring the rate of the viruses' evolution from a hypothetical ur-virus, that HIV was likely introduced to North America some time in the late 1960s. Hooper in The River (chapters 3 through 9, 32), cited in the paper, details some superficially convincing early cases of HIV/AIDS. From such a small singular event, given a decade's growth unnoticed the seeds of great tragedies were sown.