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The River : A Journey to the Source of HIV and AIDS
Examines the possible source of HIV, analyzing a number of theories concerning its origins and investigating current scientific inquiries into HIV, AIDS, and the search for a cure
1070 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1999
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Displaying 1 - 29 of 38 reviews
October 19, 2022
This is a massive book (over 1,000 pages). I still give it 4* because of the idiosyncratic method the author uses to tell the story. He is a journalist trying to figure what caused the AIDS pandemic. He reads about it, he interviews people, etc. He starts with the conventional wisdom that it came from some kind of spillover from apes ("monkeys") in Africa. But along the way someone tells him about this alternative theory that the origin was that something went wrong with early polio vaccination programs in the 1950s. Keeping an open mind he chases down all kinds of leads, some of which would refute the vaccine theory, while others would support it. Most of the paths he follows turn out to be dead ends.
This is why it makes sense to have the book be so long. Hooper is documenting every detail because as he goes along, the apparently crazy theory about the vaccine makes more and more sense and the arguments given against it fall apart more and more. By the end, the vaccine theory is not proven, but it's plausible as opposed to coo-coo bananas. What makes it plausible is all the balderdash, sloppy science (no controls in a vaccine trial? no lab notebooks for anything?), hubris, unethical experimentation (no informed consent?) from supposed heroes of modern medicine. All this reminded me of a book I'm reading now about the Sacklers and the opioid epidemic Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty. According to that book, the Sackler family was engaging in shady behavior for decades before OxyContin and should have been shunned for those corrupt shenanigans, not given the benefit of the doubt by the FDA and co. This is why these sorts of stories of egomaniacs and sociopaths need to be told. Because otherwise we can't possibly learn from them and try to stop the next man-made plague.
That's why the most galling thing to me in The River was all the doctors and scientists telling the author not to publish his book even if it is all true because it would damage confidence in vaccines. Not only is that the recipe for more disasters, it goes against the primary moral value of Science, i.e. Truth: Science & Human Values. Not to mention that this is the argument of the villains in Capricorn One, who think that faking a Mars landing is the way to save NASA's reputation.
Toward the end of the book, there are a few pages about the evidence for/against the vaccine hypothesis and a list of experiments that could be done to refute it. This is the core content of the whole thing and people in a hurry could jump to that. I'm reading the original hardback edition, so it would be interesting to see if any of these experiments have been done.
Turns out there is a new (2021) edition available online, but it does not update what happened with all those potential experiments. The postscript makes sense: "There are lessons to be learned from both hypotheses. If Hahn’s theory is right, then it is important (from a medical perspective) to try to curb the bushmeat trade. If the OPV theory is right, then we need to be particularly cautious about medical interventions that have the potential to introduce foreign viruses into humans. And whichever theory is correct, it is important to try to minimize the casual reuse of needles in Africa, in that it is abundantly clear that reused needles can amplify rare viral infections in humans."
One fascinating thing in whichever theory is the agreement on the difference between infection and disease. Before the AIDS epidemic, "sputtering" SIV/HIV exposures were occurring but leading to epidemiological dead ends with asymptomatic and/or non-contagious infections. If that's the case, what matters is what happened to cause the transformation from nothing-burger to plague. It seems like that is worth sorting out, and is relevant to COVID and lots of other diseases.
If you think it's crazy that polio vaccine could have been contaminated with monkey viruses:
The Virus and the Vaccine: The True Story of a Cancer-Causing Monkey Virus, Contaminated Polio Vaccine, and the Millions of Americans Exposed
This is why it makes sense to have the book be so long. Hooper is documenting every detail because as he goes along, the apparently crazy theory about the vaccine makes more and more sense and the arguments given against it fall apart more and more. By the end, the vaccine theory is not proven, but it's plausible as opposed to coo-coo bananas. What makes it plausible is all the balderdash, sloppy science (no controls in a vaccine trial? no lab notebooks for anything?), hubris, unethical experimentation (no informed consent?) from supposed heroes of modern medicine. All this reminded me of a book I'm reading now about the Sacklers and the opioid epidemic Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty. According to that book, the Sackler family was engaging in shady behavior for decades before OxyContin and should have been shunned for those corrupt shenanigans, not given the benefit of the doubt by the FDA and co. This is why these sorts of stories of egomaniacs and sociopaths need to be told. Because otherwise we can't possibly learn from them and try to stop the next man-made plague.
That's why the most galling thing to me in The River was all the doctors and scientists telling the author not to publish his book even if it is all true because it would damage confidence in vaccines. Not only is that the recipe for more disasters, it goes against the primary moral value of Science, i.e. Truth: Science & Human Values. Not to mention that this is the argument of the villains in Capricorn One, who think that faking a Mars landing is the way to save NASA's reputation.
Toward the end of the book, there are a few pages about the evidence for/against the vaccine hypothesis and a list of experiments that could be done to refute it. This is the core content of the whole thing and people in a hurry could jump to that. I'm reading the original hardback edition, so it would be interesting to see if any of these experiments have been done.
Turns out there is a new (2021) edition available online, but it does not update what happened with all those potential experiments. The postscript makes sense: "There are lessons to be learned from both hypotheses. If Hahn’s theory is right, then it is important (from a medical perspective) to try to curb the bushmeat trade. If the OPV theory is right, then we need to be particularly cautious about medical interventions that have the potential to introduce foreign viruses into humans. And whichever theory is correct, it is important to try to minimize the casual reuse of needles in Africa, in that it is abundantly clear that reused needles can amplify rare viral infections in humans."
One fascinating thing in whichever theory is the agreement on the difference between infection and disease. Before the AIDS epidemic, "sputtering" SIV/HIV exposures were occurring but leading to epidemiological dead ends with asymptomatic and/or non-contagious infections. If that's the case, what matters is what happened to cause the transformation from nothing-burger to plague. It seems like that is worth sorting out, and is relevant to COVID and lots of other diseases.
If you think it's crazy that polio vaccine could have been contaminated with monkey viruses:
The Virus and the Vaccine: The True Story of a Cancer-Causing Monkey Virus, Contaminated Polio Vaccine, and the Millions of Americans Exposed
May 29, 2022
(This book was my constant companion for a month; I feel, writing it up, like I'm delivering a eulogy.)
In The River, Edward Hooper builds a case for HIV's sudden appearance in the 1970's springing from unsafe practices surrounding the development and production of (live) oral polio vaccines in the late '50's. His writing is detailed, clear, personal, and frank; not only does he reconstruct events of sixty years ago, he describes the often-bumpy course of his own research in the 90's.
There is a LOT here about polio vaccines and vaccination campaigns and white guy scientists and African geography and the natural ranges of monkeys you've never heard of. A lot. My favorite part, though, is when Hooper goes back to so-called "archival" pre-1959 AIDS cases, people posthumously diagnosed based on them having opportunistic infections typical of AIDS. The existence of these cases was a key point for people opposed to the oral polio vaccine hypothesis: how could AIDS have appeared before the vaccine trials? Hooper provides reasonable alternatives for each person's immunosuppression: cancer, steroids, exposure to radiation, and a couple of cases of "ideopathic lymphocytopenia," technical talk for "no clue why this dude's white count tanked"; yes, some explanations are better than others, but he effectively bunks the archival-case objection.
Hooper encountered opposition of all kinds, often along the lines of "You shouldn't write a book about this, because even if you're right, you're just going to convince people that vaccines -- and polio vaccines in particular -- are unsafe." Hooper would point out that he was making it clear he was talking about vaccines of a bygone era. I found myself thinking that an 841-page book is not the thing that's going to halt vaccination programs in India and Africa today.
There's a follow-up documentary with updated information I'm going to hunt down; it would also probably be a good place to start if you're interested in all this.
In The River, Edward Hooper builds a case for HIV's sudden appearance in the 1970's springing from unsafe practices surrounding the development and production of (live) oral polio vaccines in the late '50's. His writing is detailed, clear, personal, and frank; not only does he reconstruct events of sixty years ago, he describes the often-bumpy course of his own research in the 90's.
There is a LOT here about polio vaccines and vaccination campaigns and white guy scientists and African geography and the natural ranges of monkeys you've never heard of. A lot. My favorite part, though, is when Hooper goes back to so-called "archival" pre-1959 AIDS cases, people posthumously diagnosed based on them having opportunistic infections typical of AIDS. The existence of these cases was a key point for people opposed to the oral polio vaccine hypothesis: how could AIDS have appeared before the vaccine trials? Hooper provides reasonable alternatives for each person's immunosuppression: cancer, steroids, exposure to radiation, and a couple of cases of "ideopathic lymphocytopenia," technical talk for "no clue why this dude's white count tanked"; yes, some explanations are better than others, but he effectively bunks the archival-case objection.
Hooper encountered opposition of all kinds, often along the lines of "You shouldn't write a book about this, because even if you're right, you're just going to convince people that vaccines -- and polio vaccines in particular -- are unsafe." Hooper would point out that he was making it clear he was talking about vaccines of a bygone era. I found myself thinking that an 841-page book is not the thing that's going to halt vaccination programs in India and Africa today.
There's a follow-up documentary with updated information I'm going to hunt down; it would also probably be a good place to start if you're interested in all this.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 11, 2008
Not an easy read, but the payoff for your investment is huge. Recommended for fans of And the Band Played On.
September 16, 2017
* SPOILER ALERT*
This book is unlike any other I have ever read. I'd be amazed if anyone has ever undertaken a greater amount of research in writing a book than Hooper. The sheer volume of circumstantial evidence he amasses to support his theory is mind-blowing and yet despite the hundreds of interviews, articles, research notes, diaries and conversations he never manages to find the smoking gun that would prove his hypothesis once and for all. But in the end I'm not sure that matters. Because even though he cannot prove that OPV caused AIDS, for me the real story here is Hooper's merciless exposure of unethical medical and scientific practices of a few ego-driven men taking advantage of their white, male, western privilege to experiment on Africans, disabled children and prison inmates.
Hooper is like a dog with a bone -incidentally, the same analogy he uses to describe his arch-nemesis Hilary Koprowski at one point in the book. Even when it starts to become evident to the reader that the OPV/AIDS theory is not going to be provable - for me, the penny dropped in chapter 49 - Hooper keeps on going for another 150 pages, desperately clutching at straws and rehashing old evidence he'd presented in earlier chapters. My advice for future readers is to stop after chapter 49. There's really nothing new in the final section and I felt having to trudge through these pages diminished my overall opinion of the work.
This book is unlike any other I have ever read. I'd be amazed if anyone has ever undertaken a greater amount of research in writing a book than Hooper. The sheer volume of circumstantial evidence he amasses to support his theory is mind-blowing and yet despite the hundreds of interviews, articles, research notes, diaries and conversations he never manages to find the smoking gun that would prove his hypothesis once and for all. But in the end I'm not sure that matters. Because even though he cannot prove that OPV caused AIDS, for me the real story here is Hooper's merciless exposure of unethical medical and scientific practices of a few ego-driven men taking advantage of their white, male, western privilege to experiment on Africans, disabled children and prison inmates.
Hooper is like a dog with a bone -incidentally, the same analogy he uses to describe his arch-nemesis Hilary Koprowski at one point in the book. Even when it starts to become evident to the reader that the OPV/AIDS theory is not going to be provable - for me, the penny dropped in chapter 49 - Hooper keeps on going for another 150 pages, desperately clutching at straws and rehashing old evidence he'd presented in earlier chapters. My advice for future readers is to stop after chapter 49. There's really nothing new in the final section and I felt having to trudge through these pages diminished my overall opinion of the work.
November 16, 2007
Well, I never quite finished this book, as while I was reading it the theory was debunked by other scientists- they dated HIV's origin by sequencing the RNA from other SIV species, and HIV originated at least 20 years earlier than the first wave of the oral polio vaccine. That being said, I'm a fan of epidemiological studies on origins of infectious diseases, and the first half of the book was quite thorough and well-referenced (I think he was aware of the controversy this book would initiate).
April 7, 2024
A very long book on the origin of AIDS. It contained a lot of eye- opening facts about oral polio vaccine administration in the U.S and Africa in the late 50's which I found appalling. Documentation was horrific or hidden because it could cause widespread havoc.
All in all, a very worthwhile read.
All in all, a very worthwhile read.
August 1, 2022
An amazingly well researched book about AIDS, polio, and their possible link in Belgian Congo.
The book poses a question, supported by scientists, whether malfeasance in growing the OPV - the oral polio vaccine - resulted in the species jump of SIV to humans leading to the AIDS epidemic.
This is interesting because there's a fair bit of evidence, and documentary support, that AIDS was first identified in Kinshasha, the capitol city of Congo, during both Belgium's rule and the subsequent independence.
The oft-blamed bushmeat is explained because those native to Congo have been harvesting and consuming bushmeat for centuries, but somehow in the early-mid 20th century they managed to make such a mess of a centuries old hunting practice they became infected with a disease.
And perhaps the most damning discovery. Chimpanzees were used as the growth media for the polio vaccine. To non-scientists this seems minute. But all of the scientific literature insists it's only appropriate to use Macaques as they have no diseases that can cross the species barrier to humans. Macaques, however, are not native to Congo while chimpanzees are. Macaques were to be specially ordered from breeders in southeast Asia.
But the part I found most interesting was the author's tracing of early, perhaps undiagnosed, AIDS cases. A woman in Kinshasha dies from what looks like AIDs in the 1950. She worked in the vaccination program and could have been exposed to blood products from thousands.
[Here's where I note up until AIDS it was exceedingly common for far-flung and rural places to re-use needles. During the WHO's push to end smallpox inoculators would commonly use the same multi-pronged needle for hundreds of patients for time, for failure to be taught proper sanitary practices, and for lack of supplies. There's no reason to presume safeguards were in place prior to that time for polio-vaccination drives.]
There's the British sailor who worked in Belgian Congo on a humanitarian mission.
There's dozens of people dying in the 1950s and 1960s across Europe from an unspecified disease that seems to leave them vulnerable.
The mass-polio vaccination campaign is credited with saving millions of American lives. To the point that the majority of Americans alive today were never vaccinated with polio vaccine (or smallpox). But this book questions if that's true. It questions what if "the science" realized that through error or malfeasance a single cadre of scientists could have created and unleashed AIDS on the world. A disease that has killed millions. All because some corrupt scientist was in a hurry to make a buck half-a-century before.
I will note that the majority of the scientists who could confirm or deny have vehemently denied ever doing anything wrong. Which is completely unrelated to the fact that they are hailed as heroes, and have garnered awards, millions in grants, and positions leading faculties and foundations with billions of dollars to award. Who questions if the guy with the money is actually the bad guy?
The book poses a question, supported by scientists, whether malfeasance in growing the OPV - the oral polio vaccine - resulted in the species jump of SIV to humans leading to the AIDS epidemic.
This is interesting because there's a fair bit of evidence, and documentary support, that AIDS was first identified in Kinshasha, the capitol city of Congo, during both Belgium's rule and the subsequent independence.
The oft-blamed bushmeat is explained because those native to Congo have been harvesting and consuming bushmeat for centuries, but somehow in the early-mid 20th century they managed to make such a mess of a centuries old hunting practice they became infected with a disease.
And perhaps the most damning discovery. Chimpanzees were used as the growth media for the polio vaccine. To non-scientists this seems minute. But all of the scientific literature insists it's only appropriate to use Macaques as they have no diseases that can cross the species barrier to humans. Macaques, however, are not native to Congo while chimpanzees are. Macaques were to be specially ordered from breeders in southeast Asia.
But the part I found most interesting was the author's tracing of early, perhaps undiagnosed, AIDS cases. A woman in Kinshasha dies from what looks like AIDs in the 1950. She worked in the vaccination program and could have been exposed to blood products from thousands.
[Here's where I note up until AIDS it was exceedingly common for far-flung and rural places to re-use needles. During the WHO's push to end smallpox inoculators would commonly use the same multi-pronged needle for hundreds of patients for time, for failure to be taught proper sanitary practices, and for lack of supplies. There's no reason to presume safeguards were in place prior to that time for polio-vaccination drives.]
There's the British sailor who worked in Belgian Congo on a humanitarian mission.
There's dozens of people dying in the 1950s and 1960s across Europe from an unspecified disease that seems to leave them vulnerable.
The mass-polio vaccination campaign is credited with saving millions of American lives. To the point that the majority of Americans alive today were never vaccinated with polio vaccine (or smallpox). But this book questions if that's true. It questions what if "the science" realized that through error or malfeasance a single cadre of scientists could have created and unleashed AIDS on the world. A disease that has killed millions. All because some corrupt scientist was in a hurry to make a buck half-a-century before.
I will note that the majority of the scientists who could confirm or deny have vehemently denied ever doing anything wrong. Which is completely unrelated to the fact that they are hailed as heroes, and have garnered awards, millions in grants, and positions leading faculties and foundations with billions of dollars to award. Who questions if the guy with the money is actually the bad guy?
January 9, 2008
Hooper presents a fascinating hypothesis. Essentially that the AIDS virus is the result of the bringing together of 2 species of chimpanzee that had been separated by a river since the point of speciation. (Chimps do not swim). As a result SIV viruses endemic and living in equilibrium with both species came into contact the result being HIV. He presents as proof the fact the 'hearth' of AIDS is the Great Lakes Region of Africa which coincides with the zone of human testing of the Koprowski polio vaccine which was very likely cultured in tissues from the aforementioned chimps. He never presents a smoking gun and I think that he may have identified an early vector of the virus-perhaps the largest rather than its origin. Following through his research is utterly fascinating. If not for the fact that this book is nonfiction I'd say it is the best mystery novel ever written. He loses one point for his subsequent egotistical defenses of his thesis in a number of online forums and his repetition of the urban myth of "gerbilling"" in an early chapter.
June 1, 2020
this book was outstanding. While I am not a virologist or even a doctor of any type, this book was written in a style that I could understand. An amazing premise that is even more pertinent to right now. in our rush for a vaccine for covid 19, we need to be very careful that we do not get much more than we asked for. a real case study in how science can go very bad and what the lack of oversight can do. It is absolutely amazing that over 1 million people were vaccinated with an EXPERIMENTAL vaccine--of course this was to the african population of the congo--NOT to the white european colonists. It is pitiful that this book showed that the medical establishment could not then and still cannot be trusted to police itself. Dr. Koprowski should be vilified by the medical community for his research methods and his total lack of regard for human life and instead he is held up as a hero. This man experimented on the mentally handicapped in the US without consent. What an eye opener this book was.
April 2, 2011
A very thorough look at how HIV might have first been spread to humans and then eventually lead to an epidemic. Since it's a very thorough (and very long) book, there is quite a lot of repetition. Also, Hooper wrote the sections as he investigated so that makes the narrative longer (and sometimes harder to follow). He does speculate a lot and sometimes overemphasizes people who don't recall exact details of everything they ever wrote/did (from many decades earlier, I might add), but I feel like he would be a tough guy to be interviewed by. Also, not being a scientist himself, he does explore/think about the issues and theories very well. In fact, maybe he does a better job than most scientists since he is looking at it from the outside.
January 4, 2022
This is real journalism -- what journalism used to be. Excellent and well-researched, including Hooper's traveling the globe to get first-hand accounts and interviews. It took me a couple of weeks of evening reading to traverse this 800+ page documentary book, and at the end I understood it as an important journey.
When I picked up Judy Mikovits's Plague of Corruption and started into Robert F. Kennedy Jr's The Real Anthony Fauci, I was thrilled to realize Hooper's book had laid a great deal of groundwork for understanding those two worthy books. This is not past history, or it certainly isn't right now -- the same issues arising in the 80s are surfacing now, and we, especially within western civilization, need to take this on and fix it.
When I picked up Judy Mikovits's Plague of Corruption and started into Robert F. Kennedy Jr's The Real Anthony Fauci, I was thrilled to realize Hooper's book had laid a great deal of groundwork for understanding those two worthy books. This is not past history, or it certainly isn't right now -- the same issues arising in the 80s are surfacing now, and we, especially within western civilization, need to take this on and fix it.
June 25, 2008
Incredibly well-researched. It provides a truly unique insight into the minds and egos of many of the AIDS researchers and polio researchers of the last century. Hooper interviews many of them. This is a big book, but a thorough history of the science behind what we know about HIV is bound to be bulky. It should be noted that the theory Hooper is investigating (linking the polio vaccine with the introduction of HIV in humans) has been all but discredited by the medical community. Still, this is a fascinating book on a subject that is typically too couched in medical jargon to really make sense to a normal person.
December 16, 2008
This book was hard to read, not because it was too academic, it definitely wasn't. It is horrfying to read because it's so fn sick how one dude who was just trying to make money probably began the spread of the AIDS virus to humans. Every step of the way, he skips protocol and shirks regulations just to get recognition for creating a vacine. If you can find it, I recommend reading this book. If you can't, I recommend watching the documentary.
July 21, 2011
This is a riveting read. Incredibly well researched and almost every page boggles the mind regarding the cavalier attitude of scientist to literally the fate of humankind. At last we are nearer the truth of the origin of HIV/AIDS, a truth which has nothing to do with the racist assumptions about the promiscuity of Africans. I do not look forward to finishing this read as I am sure the blues will set in.
January 13, 2009
I had high hopes for this book, but it's impenetrable, disorganised and hopelessly wordy. The thread of the author's argument gets lost well before the half way mark, and it's an uncomfortable mixture of investigative journalism, science and biographical ramblings. "And the Band Played On" is far better, or indeed "Beyond Love".
February 22, 2011
The best researched conspiracy theory you'll ever read in your entire life. However, even I got bored in the middle of the 350+ pages on OPV (oral polio vaciene) so probably not for the casual reader.
January 6, 2020
Superb. Makes a persuasive case to support his thesis that AIDS was essentially a man-made epidemic. There have since been rebuttals but it remains a great tale of detective work and corruption - and I still think there may be *something* to it.
May 21, 2024
This book is eye opening and paints a picture on what can happen when great need arise that requires expedited solutions to serious problems. Such circumstances open the door to experts who engage in competition in hopes for the prizes of fame and immortality. And in the heat of the race short cuts are taken, and less than ethical decisions are made.
No one can deny that Ed Hooper exhaustively turned over every stone in the search for the origins of the Human Immunodeficiency Virus.
I believe there is enough circumstantial evidence laid out in this book to conclude without any reasonable doubt that the most likely cause of the AIDS epidemic was the OPV mass vaccination trials between 1957-1959 in the Belgian Congo where an unknown SIV virus, at the time, was able to survive the vaccine production processes, and be transmitted to humans to evolve into HIV-1. Unknown viruses are more likely to survive live attenuated vaccine making processes than Inactivated vaccines. The earliest confirmed case of HIV-1 was in 1959.
Weighing the heaviest is the simple fact that the first AIDS outbreaks occurred at different locations around the Congo in Africa, around the same areas where the experimental OPV mass vaccinations took place. Also, the fact that over 400 chimpanzees have been used at the Lindi Chimpanzee Camp which was used to support the OPV development, and the fact that all documentation related to this development have been mysteriously lost.
If the scientists involved in the OPV development claim that they didn’t use chimpanzees as grow culture for the CHAT vaccine why didn’t they have the documentation to prove so? Why did all records mysteriously vanish? If the vaccine was safe why didn’t they mass vaccinate Americans and Europeans, but instead went on to mass vaccinate Africans?
On the other hand I would not expect the scientists or the medical establishment as a whole to admit to their mistakes because of the consequences of doing so. Scientists did confirm that HIV-1 came from a type of chimpanzee troglodyte. This type of chimpanzee was the most abundant at the Lindi Chimpanzee Camp.
No one can deny that Ed Hooper exhaustively turned over every stone in the search for the origins of the Human Immunodeficiency Virus.
I believe there is enough circumstantial evidence laid out in this book to conclude without any reasonable doubt that the most likely cause of the AIDS epidemic was the OPV mass vaccination trials between 1957-1959 in the Belgian Congo where an unknown SIV virus, at the time, was able to survive the vaccine production processes, and be transmitted to humans to evolve into HIV-1. Unknown viruses are more likely to survive live attenuated vaccine making processes than Inactivated vaccines. The earliest confirmed case of HIV-1 was in 1959.
Weighing the heaviest is the simple fact that the first AIDS outbreaks occurred at different locations around the Congo in Africa, around the same areas where the experimental OPV mass vaccinations took place. Also, the fact that over 400 chimpanzees have been used at the Lindi Chimpanzee Camp which was used to support the OPV development, and the fact that all documentation related to this development have been mysteriously lost.
If the scientists involved in the OPV development claim that they didn’t use chimpanzees as grow culture for the CHAT vaccine why didn’t they have the documentation to prove so? Why did all records mysteriously vanish? If the vaccine was safe why didn’t they mass vaccinate Americans and Europeans, but instead went on to mass vaccinate Africans?
On the other hand I would not expect the scientists or the medical establishment as a whole to admit to their mistakes because of the consequences of doing so. Scientists did confirm that HIV-1 came from a type of chimpanzee troglodyte. This type of chimpanzee was the most abundant at the Lindi Chimpanzee Camp.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 1, 2024
Ugh…
Edward Hooper raised some good questions regarding the safety of administering such a large number of vaccinations, in a short period. Jacques Pepin acknowledges in his own book The Origins of AIDS that sterilization procedures were insufficient and that it’s indeed quite possible that this contributed to the early spread of HIV/AIDS.
However, that’s about the only positive I can muster. Without getting into the specifics the book is dated. It was published in 1999 and updated shortly after. That’s a quarter of a century ago. Even presuming that the science in this book is correct (it’s not) it would still be dated and superseded by more precise data. As it happens the entire book has been neatly refuted and was done within five years of this book’s publication. A more thorough and simple refutation was done in 2008 on two samples inadvertently collected in 1959 and 1960. Both samples exhibit extensive diversity so much so that their closest common ancestor is about 60 years older than those two samples. This book argues that the virus jumped into humans in 1959. If that were the case there would not be so great a difference.
Case closed.
Edward Hooper raised some good questions regarding the safety of administering such a large number of vaccinations, in a short period. Jacques Pepin acknowledges in his own book The Origins of AIDS that sterilization procedures were insufficient and that it’s indeed quite possible that this contributed to the early spread of HIV/AIDS.
However, that’s about the only positive I can muster. Without getting into the specifics the book is dated. It was published in 1999 and updated shortly after. That’s a quarter of a century ago. Even presuming that the science in this book is correct (it’s not) it would still be dated and superseded by more precise data. As it happens the entire book has been neatly refuted and was done within five years of this book’s publication. A more thorough and simple refutation was done in 2008 on two samples inadvertently collected in 1959 and 1960. Both samples exhibit extensive diversity so much so that their closest common ancestor is about 60 years older than those two samples. This book argues that the virus jumped into humans in 1959. If that were the case there would not be so great a difference.
Case closed.
June 20, 2014
I stumbled across this book on YouTube because it received a prominent mention in a free documentary on the origin of AIDS. Edward Hooper presents a captivating theory that the OPV vaccine developed in the late 1950s unwittingly unleashed the HIV virus on humanity. His theory has been challenged and debunked, but the idea still fascinates me. If the 860 pages could be summed up with any questions it would be, "Why now?"
Hooper presents a very detailed case for those who argue that HIV was introduced to humanity from eating monkey meat, or hunting primates. Hooper goes on to write, "If (as seemed increasingly likely) SIVs had been had been present in African monkeys for many thousands of years, why was it only now that many of these viruses had been transferred into humans?"
He contends that medical virologists and doctors, namely Dr. Hilary Koprowski, developed their important oral polio vaccines in the late 1950s with tissue taken from chimpanzees infected with the simian immunodeficiency virus. This SIV contaminated vaccines were "tested" on unwitting subjects in African villages and in prisons and children's homes in the United States. While Koprowski denied that he could have unleashed HIV on humans with his vaccine, he was incredibly uncooperative in released research data, notes, and old samples of his vaccine.
The world may never really be sure how HIV came to be and how AIDS became the health issue of our age.
While I was gripped by the topic and Hooper's theories, this became one long, ponderous read. What started as an easy and understandable story because a real labor. Not for the faint of heart.
Hooper presents a very detailed case for those who argue that HIV was introduced to humanity from eating monkey meat, or hunting primates. Hooper goes on to write, "If (as seemed increasingly likely) SIVs had been had been present in African monkeys for many thousands of years, why was it only now that many of these viruses had been transferred into humans?"
He contends that medical virologists and doctors, namely Dr. Hilary Koprowski, developed their important oral polio vaccines in the late 1950s with tissue taken from chimpanzees infected with the simian immunodeficiency virus. This SIV contaminated vaccines were "tested" on unwitting subjects in African villages and in prisons and children's homes in the United States. While Koprowski denied that he could have unleashed HIV on humans with his vaccine, he was incredibly uncooperative in released research data, notes, and old samples of his vaccine.
The world may never really be sure how HIV came to be and how AIDS became the health issue of our age.
While I was gripped by the topic and Hooper's theories, this became one long, ponderous read. What started as an easy and understandable story because a real labor. Not for the faint of heart.
July 20, 2007
This book was a difficult read but it was an amazing story. It's a bit like reading a doctoral thesis or a legal brief at times. Because of the controversial nature of his theory he is forced to make his case in the most detailed way possible, which results in a sometime tedious writing style.
The author's basic claim is extremely inflammatory: he explains why he believes that AIDS was inadvertently created by American and European doctors in Central Africa during the late 1950s as a result of their search for a Polio vaccine. They used "monkey kidney tissue culture" to propagate the vaccines. At this point in medical history using tissue culture was very common but, also, they had no way of testing for or identifying unknown/undiscovered viruses that might contaminate the tissue culture. At this point in time SIV (simian immuno-deficiency virus) had not yet been discovered but was apparently very common. They theory is that monkey kidney tissue culture infected with SIV went undetected into the polio vaccine and mutated into HIV. The vaccine was then, in fact, given to hundreds of thousands of Africans. Interestingly it also documents the fact that the first known case of HIV wasn't in the early 1980s as is generally assumed but was in 1959.
The author's basic claim is extremely inflammatory: he explains why he believes that AIDS was inadvertently created by American and European doctors in Central Africa during the late 1950s as a result of their search for a Polio vaccine. They used "monkey kidney tissue culture" to propagate the vaccines. At this point in medical history using tissue culture was very common but, also, they had no way of testing for or identifying unknown/undiscovered viruses that might contaminate the tissue culture. At this point in time SIV (simian immuno-deficiency virus) had not yet been discovered but was apparently very common. They theory is that monkey kidney tissue culture infected with SIV went undetected into the polio vaccine and mutated into HIV. The vaccine was then, in fact, given to hundreds of thousands of Africans. Interestingly it also documents the fact that the first known case of HIV wasn't in the early 1980s as is generally assumed but was in 1959.
July 21, 2015
This was a transcendant experience, reading "The River" and taking step and step back into the past. There are cases of deaths going as far back as the 1950's where physical specimens left behind reveal the decedent to be infected with HIV. A British Merchant Marine. A drug addict in St. Louis. Hooper reveals the behind-the-scene machinations of the scientists behind the polio vaccine and how one particular oral immunization in the Belgian Congo may provide answers as to how SIV jumped to humans and became HIV. It's a fascinating read and I completely understood and believed the theory that in the rush to immunize people against polio (and secure prizes in science and humanities) some scientists might have cut corners and used a different form of monkey kidney tissue than prescribed, in creating the vaccine. Sadly, the book and its theory have now been debunked. This was a great book that I originally rated a 4 (both for its well-thought out theory and for its readability) but now have to downgrade to a 3 due to the theory panning out.
October 2, 2007
One theory on how SIV made the transition to HIV. As we were entering WWII we knew we'd be launching a lot of troops from northern africa. We needed to vaccinate the Africans for polio. we needed to produce a lot of the vaccine in a short amout of time. Doing so in chicken eggs takes several months. So we took the antibodies from monkeys who had recovered from polio transfering the disease from monkeys to humans. No culture eats monkeys. No culture is know to have sex with monkeys. This theory gains more support year after year.
January 10, 2009
It has been some time since I read this, but I think about it every now and again. This is a very long book, and as I recall, even the bibliography is huge. It is not an easy read, but it is a fascinating look at the history of HIV and AIDS back to their earliest documented appearances. I have not looked lately to see if there is any additional information in this vein or from this author, but I will put that on my 'to do' list.
November 27, 2007
This book is approximately 1493843948 pages. I read it over the course of a year, and it's just a great read--covering topics relating to Africa, medical ethics, research, politics, etc. I'm pretty sure the main theory proposed in the book regarding the origin of AIDS has been debunked, which is a bummer, but it's still worth the year of your life.
April 1, 2008
This book is fascinating if you have any interest in theories regarding the origin of the HIV virus. It is considered controversial and is very long and at times can be a bit technical, which can make it difficult to follow. Hooper's theory, is followed up by some very strong evidence and makes you think.
June 14, 2007
This book is intense, interesting and long.
January 23, 2008
A tough read, (takes a bit to get into), but fascinating. Well worth the read for anyone interested in infectious disease.
March 22, 2008
A massive tome about AIDS - I learned a lot
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