The Coming Plague

The Coming Plague Page 106

by Laurie Garrett

  103 C. Marwick, “French, U.S. Viral Isolates Compared in Search for Cause of AIDS,” Journal of the American Medical Association 251 (1984): 2901–09.

  104 L. G. Gürtler, D. Wernicke, J. Eberle, et al., “Increase in Prevalence of Anti-HTLV-III in Haemophiliacs,” Lancet II (1984): 1275–76; and J. E. Groopman, S. Z. Salahuddin, M. G. Sarngadharan, et al., “Virologic Studies in a Case of Transfusion-Associated AIDS,” New England Journal of Medicine 311 (1984): 1418–22.

  105 G. M. Shaw, B. H. Hahn, S. K. Arya, et al., “Molecular Characterization of Human T-Cell Leukemia (Lymphotropic) Virus Type III in the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome,” Science 226 (1984): 1165–71; and M. Alizon, P. Sonigo, F. Barré-Sinoussi, et al., “Molecular Cloning of Lymphadenopathy-Associated Virus,” Nature 312 (1984): 757–60.

  106 J. A. Levy, A. D. Hoffmann, S. M. Kramer, et al., “Isolation of Lymphocytopathic Retroviruses from San Francisco Patients with AIDS,” Science 225 (1984): 840–42.

  107 P. A. Luciw, S. J. Potter, K. Steimer, et al., “Molecular Cloning of AIDS-Associated Retrovirus,” Nature 312 (1984): 760–63.

  108 A. G. Dagliesh, P. C. L. Beverley, P. R. Clapham, et al., “The CD4 (T4) Antigen Is an Essential Component of the Receptor for the AIDS Retrovirus,” Nature 312 (1984): 763–66.

  109 S. Wain-Hobson, P. Sonigo, O. Danos, et al., “Nucleotide Sequence of the AIDS Virus, LAV,” Cell 40 (1985): 9–17; L. Ratner, W. Haseltine, R. Patarca, et al., “Complete Nucleotide Sequence of the AIDS Virus, HTLV-III,” Nature 313 (1985): 277–84; and I. M. Chiu, A. Yaniv, J. E. Dahlberg, et al., “Nucleotide Sequence Evidence for Relationship of AIDS Retrovirus to Lentivirus,” Nature 317 (1985): 366–68.

  110 S. Broder and R. C. Gallo, “A Pathogenic Retrovirus (HTLV-III) Linked to AIDS,” New England Journal of Medicine 311 (1984): 1292–1303.

  111 In 1993 scientists working with the World Health Organization would conclude that at least one local subtype (dubbed D and found in parts of Tanzania, Uganda, and Rwanda) differed from all other HIVs on the planet. It possessed the genetic ability to immediately infect macrophages, bypassing intermediary cells, and to cause devastation of the human T-cell system in a matter of months, rather than years. As many as 12 percent of those infected with subtype D progressed from asymptomatic infection to full AIDS in less than twelve months.

  112 “AIDS in Europe, Status Quo 1983.” European Journal of Cancer and Clinical Oncology 20 (1984): 155–73; Brunet, Bouvet, Liebowitch, et al. (1983), op. cit.; I. C. Bygbjerg, “AIDS in a Danish Surgeon (Zaire 1976),” Lancet I (1983): 925; Clumeck, Mascart-Lemone, deMaubeuge, et al. (1983), op. cit.; N. Clumeck, J. Sonnet, H. Taelman, et al., “Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome in African Patients,” New England Journal of Medicine 310 (1984): 492–97; D. Edwards, P. G. Harper, A. K. Pain, et al., “Kaposi’s Sarcoma Associated with AIDS in a Woman from Uganda,” Lancet I (1984): 631–32; G. Offenstadt, P. Pinta, P. Hericord, et al., “Multiple Opportunistic Infection Due to AIDS in a Previously Healthy Black Woman from Zaire,” New England Journal of Medicine 308 (1983): 775; and J. Vandepitte, R. Verwilghen, and P. Zachee, “AIDS and Cryptococcosis (Zaire 1977),” Lancet I (1983): 925–26.

  113 A. Ellrodt, F. Barré-Sinoussi, Ph. LeBras, et al., “Isolation of Human T-Lymphotropic Retrovirus (LAV) from Zairian Married Couple, One with AIDS, One with Prodromes,” Lancet I (1984): 1383–85.

  114 Clumeck, Sonnet, Taelman, et al. (1984), op. cit.

  115 P. Van de Perre, D. Rouvroy, P. Lepage, et al., “Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome in Rwanda,” Lancet II (1984): 62–65.

  116 B. Ivanoff, P. Duquesnoy, G. Languillat, et al., “Haemorrhagic Fever in Gabon: I. Incidence of Lassa, Ebola and Marburg Viruses in Haut-Ogooué,” Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene 76 (1982): 719–20.

  117 N. J. Cox, J. B. McCormick, K. M. Johnson, and M. P. Kiley, “Evidence for Two Subtypes of Ebola Virus Based on Oligonucleotide Mapping of RNA,” Journal of Infectious Diseases 147 (1983): 272–75.

  118 P. Piot, T. C. Quinn, H. Taelman, et al., “Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome in a Heterosexual Population in Zaire,” Lancet I (1984): 65–69.

  119 R. Shilts, “The Heterosexual Connection: AIDS Researchers Look to Africa,” San Francisco Chronicle, November 7, 1984: 5.

  120 SIDA is the French acronym for AIDS.

  121 F. Brun-Vézinet, C. Rouzioux, L. Montagnier, et al., “Prevalence of Antibodies to Lymphadenopathy-Associated Retrovirus in African Patients with AIDS,” Science 236 (1984): 453–56.

  122 J. M. Mann, H. Francis, T. Quinn, et al., “Surveillance for AIDS in a Central African City,” Journal of the American Medical Association 255 (1986): 3255–59.

  123 The finding was also published. See P. Van de Perre, N. Clumeck, M. Carael, et al., “Female Prostitutes: A Risk Group for Infection with Human T-Cell Lymphotropic Virus Type III,” Lancet II (1985): 524–26; and N. Clumeck, M. Robert-Guroff, and P. Van de Perre, “Seroepidemiological Studies of HTLV-III Antibody Prevalence Among Selected Groups of Heterosexual Africans,” Journal of the American Medical Association 254 (1985): 2599–2602c.

  124 The proceedings of the First International Conference on AIDS were published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, Vol. 103, No. 5 (1985). The Kenyan data also appeared in R. J. Biggar, B. K. Johnson, C. Oster, et al., “Regional Variation in Prevalence of Antibody Against Human T-Lymphotropic Virus Types I and III in Kenya, East Africa,” International Journal of Cancer 35 (1985): 763–67.

  125 R. J. Biggar, M. Melbye, L. Kestens, et al., “Seroepidemiology of HTLV-III Antibodies in a Remote Population of Eastern Zaire,” British Medical Journal 290 (1985): 808–10.

  126 W. C. Saxinger, P. H. Levine, A. G. Dean, et al., “Evidence for Exposure to HTLV-III in Uganda Before 1973,” Science 227 (1985): 1036–38.

  127 These findings were published. See P. J. Kanki, M. F. McLane, and N. W. King, “Serologic Identification and Characterization of a Macaque T-Lymphotropic Retrovirus Closely Related to HTLV-III,” Science 228 (1985): 1199–1201; M. D. Daniel, N. L. Letvin, N. W. King, et al., “Isolation of T-Cell Tropic HTLV-III-like Retrovirus from Macaques,” Science 228 (1985): 1201–4; and P. J. Kanki, R. Kurth, W. Becker, et al., “Antibodies to Simian T-Lymphotropic Virus Type III in African Green Monkeys and Recognition of STLV-III Viral Proteins by AIDS and Related Sera,” Lancet I (1985): 1330–32.

  128 For excellent descriptions of the blame-counterblame atmosphere that surrounded discussions of AIDS in Africa from late 1983 to 1990, see Sabatier (1988), op. cit.; and T. Barnett and P. Blaikie, AIDS in Africa: Its Present and Future Impact (New York: Guilford Press, 1992).

  During elections in South Africa in the mid-1980s, opposing white politicians made use of inflated African AIDS data. One right-wing presidential candidate even claimed that ANC guerrillas in Zambia were deliberately getting infected with HIV, sneaking back into South Africa, and then having sex with white women in order to spread AIDS among Boers.

  Inflated AIDS reports were a common feature of the apartheid regime. See, for example, S. Simmie, “One in Ten Africans Has AIDS,” Weekly Mail, Johannesburg, May 20—June 5, 1986: 9.

  129 United Nations Development Programme, Human Development Report 1993 (Oxford, Eng.: Oxford University Press, 1993). According to the United Nations, military expenditures in non-Arab Africa were as follows:

  130 A similar pattern of rain forest encroachment and subsequent desertification was later observed along South America’s Amazon Basin. See J. deOnis, The Green Cathedral: Sustainable Development of Amazonia (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992
).

  131 R. J. Biggar, P. L. Gigasse, M. Melbye, et al., “ELISA HTLV Retrovirus Antibody Reactivity Associated with Malaria and Immune Complexes in Healthy Africans,” Lancet II (1985): 520–23.

  132 D. Serwadda, R. D. Mugerwa, N. K. Sewankambo, et al., “Slim Disease: A New Disease in Uganda and Its Association with HTLV-III Infection,” Lancet II (1985): 849–52.

  133 See T. C. Quinn, J. M. Mann, J. W. Curran, and P. Piot, “AIDS in Africa: An Epidemiologic Paradigm,” Science 234 (1986): 955–56.

  134 A. E. Greenberg, C. A. Schable, A. J. Sulzer, et al., “Evaluation of Serological Cross-Reactivity Between Antibodies to Plasmodium and HTLV-III/LAV,” Lancet II (1986): 247–48; A. Srinivasan and D. York, “Lack of HIV Replication in Arthropod Cells,” Lancet I (1987): 094–95; D. Connelley, “Bedbugs and HIV,” New Scientist (June 5, 1986): 69; J. C. Chermann, “Isolation of AIDS Virus from Insects,” Comptes Rendues d‘Académie des Sciences, Series A, 303: 303–6; Office of Technology Assessment, AIDS-Related Issues, Staff Paper 1, September 1987, report to the U.S. Congress (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office); and M. J. Blaser, “Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome Possibly Arthropod-Borne,” Annals of Internal Medicine 99 (1983): 877.

  135 P. J. Kanki, M. F. McLane, and N. W. King, “Serologic Identification and Characterization of a Macaque T-Lymphotropic Retrovirus Closely Related to HTLV-III,” Science 228 (1985): 1199–1201.

  136 J. M. Mann, H. Francis, F. Davachi, et al., “Risk Factors for Human Immunodeficiency Virus Seropositivity Among Children 1–24 Months Old in Kinshasa, Zaire,” Lancet II (1986): 654–56.

  137 J. M. Mann, K. Bila, R. L. Colebunders, et al., “Natural History of Human Immunodeficiency Virus Infection in Zaire,” Lancet II (1986): 707–9; Quinn, Mann, Curran, and Piot (1986), op. cit.; and K. Kayembe, J. M. Mann, H. Francis, et al., “Prevalence des Anticorps Anti-HIV chez les Patients Non Atteints de SIDA ou de Syndrome Associe au SIDA à Kinshasa, Zaïre,” Annals de la Societe Belge de Médecine Tropique 66 (1986): 343–48.

  138 J. M. Mann, H. Francis, F. Davachi, et al., “Human Immunodeficiency Virus Seroprevalence in Pediatric Patients 2 to 14 Years of Age at Mama Yemo Hospital, Kinshasa, Zaire,” Pediatrics 78 (1986): 673–78.

  139 J. M. Mann, H. Francis, T. C. Quinn, et al., “HIV Seroprevalence Among Hospital Workers in Kinshasa, Zaire,” Journal of the American Medical Association 256 (1986): 3099–3102.

  140 M. Melbye, E. K. Njelesani, A. Bayley, et al., “Evidence for Heterosexual Transmission and Clinical Manifestations of Human Immunodeficiency Virus Infection and Related Conditions in Lusaka, Zambia,” Lancet II (1986): 113–15.

  141 Tanzania, Zaire, Central African Republic, Zambia, Congo, Kenya, Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda.

  142 M. Grmek, Histoire du SIDA: Début et Origine d’une Pandémie Actuelle (Paris: Editions Payout, 1989). English language version, 1990, op. cit.

  143 Sabatier (1988), op. cit.

  144 American political scientist Alfred Fortin summarized the atmosphere in a 1986 speech to the “Challenge of AIDS” conference (Miami, Florida, November 12–16): “And so it is that out of a rather ordinary intellectual inquiry into health issues surfaces the politics of East and West, of right and left, of the exotic and the mundane, of violence and peace, and of life and death itself. In these issues of health and health care we can see the struggle against colonialism and neocolonialism, against the financial exploitation by trans-national corporations, the armies, against the ravages of nature, and most of all, against the tragedies built into poverty and ignorance. It is within all of this, the great politics of struggle and survival, that the question of AIDS in Africa must be examined.”

  145 That sort of molecular epidemiology would become possible in 1986 with Kary Mullis’s invention of PCR (polymerase chain reaction). The technique allowed scientists to extract from a biological mass a piece of DNA or RNA and make unlimited numbers of copies of the material. Thus, the seemingly impossible became quite simple. In 1991 the CDC would use the technique to determine whether Florida dentist David Acer infected some of his patients with HIV. The strain of HIV found in Acer’s blood could be “fingerprinted” using PCR, and compared with the genetic “fingerprints” of the HIV strains infecting his patients. In this way, the agency proved that Acer’s virus was, indeed, identical to those found in the patients—a circumstance that could not have been due to chance.

  An excellent description of PCR can be found in K. B. Mullis, “The Unusual Origin of the Polymerase Chain Reaction,” Scientific American, April 1990: 56–65.

  146 B. L. Evatt, E. D. Gompert, J. S. McDougal, and R. B. Ramsey, “Coincidental Appearance of LAV/HTLV-III Antibodies in Hemophiliacs and the Onset of the AIDS Epidemic,” New England Journal of Medicine 312 (1985): 483–86.

  147 J. D. Moore, E. J. Cone, and S. S. Alexander, “HTLV-III Seropositivity in 1971–1972 Parenteral Drug Abusers: A Case of False Positives or Evidence of Viral Exposure?” New England Journal of Medicine 314 (1986): 1387–88.

  148 H. Nelson and R. Steinbrook, “Drug Users—Not Gays—Called First AIDS Victims,” Los Angeles Times, October 18, 1985: Al; and D. Perlman, “Drug Users Started AIDS Epidemic, Doctor Says,” San Francisco Chronicle, October 18, 1985: 28.

  149 Darrow, Gorman, and Glick (1986), op. cit.

  150 M. Elvin-Lewis, M. Witte, C. Witte, et al., “Systemic Chlamydial Infection Associated with Generalized Lymphedema and Lymphangio-sarcoma,” Lymphology 6 (1973): 113–21; and M. H. Witte, C. L. Witte, L. L. Minnich, et al., “AIDS in 1968,” Journal of the American Medical Association 251 (1984): 2657.

  151 R. F. Garry, M. H. Witte, A. Gottlieb, et al., “Documentation of an AIDS Virus Infection in the United States in 1968,” Journal of the American Medical Association 260 (1988): 2085–87.

  152 G. R. Hennigar, K. Vinijchaikul, A. L. Roque, and H. A. Lyons, “Pneumocystis carinii Pneumonia in an Adult: Report of a Case,” American Journal of Clinical Pathology 35 (1961): 353–64.

  153 I. C. Bygbjerg, “AIDS in a Danish Surgeon (Zaire 1976),” Lancet I (1983): 925.

  154 C. F. Lindboe, S. S. Froland, K. W. Wefring, et al., “Autopsy Findings in Three Family Members with a Presumably Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome of Unknown Origin,” Acta Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology, Scandinavia 94 (1986): 117–23; and S. S. Froland, P. Jenum, C. F. Lindboe, et al., “HIV-1 Infection in a Norwegian Family Before 1971,” Lancet I (1988): 1344–45.

  155 G. Williams, T. B. Stretton, and J. C. Leonard, “Cytomegalic Inclusions Disease and Pneumocystis carinii Infection in an Adult,” Lancet II (1960): 951–55; and G. Williams, T. B. Stretton, and J. C. Leonard, “AIDS in 1959?” Lancet II (1983): 1136.

  156 J. R. Leonidas and N. Hyppolite, “Haiti and the Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome,” Annals of Internal Medicine 98 (1983): 1020–21.

  157 L. Gazzolo, A. Gessain, A. Carrel, et al., “Antibodies to HTLV-III in Haitian Immigrants to French Guiana,” New England Journal of Medicine 311 (1984): 1252–53.

  158 A. E. Pitchenik, M. A. Fischl, G. M. Dickinson, et al., “Opportunistic Infections and Kaposi’s Sarcoma Among Haitians: Evidence of a New Acquired Immunodeficiency State,” Annals of Internal Medicine 98 (1983): 277–86; and J. W. Pape, B. Liautaud, F. Thomas, et al., “Characteristics of the Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) in Haiti,” New England Journal of Medicine 309 (1983): 945–50.

  159 R. Colebunders, H. Taelman, and P. Piot, “AIDS: An Old Disease from Africa?” British Medical Journal 289 (1984): 765.

  160 J. Seligmann, M. Hager, and D. Sewar
d, “Tracing the Origin of AIDS,” Newsweek, May 7, 1984: 101–2; and P. Van de Perre, D. Rouvroy, P. LePage, et al., “Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome in Rwanda,” Lancet II (1984): 62–69.

  161 J. K. Kreiss, D. Koech, F. A. Plummer, et al., “AIDS Virus Infection in Nairobi Prostitutes,” New England Journal of Medicine 314 (1986): 414–18.

  162 J. Emmanuel, director of the Zimbabwe Blood Transfusion Service, personal communication, 1986. Also see “Health Education a Must in AIDS Fight,” The Sunday Mail (Harare), June 15, 1986: 9.

 

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