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We know the city where HIV first emerged

bbc.com

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Re: We know the city where HIV first emerged

#11

Post by nonbel »

abandonliberty wrote: post #8
nonbel wrote: post #4

Simian AIDS was discovered after human AIDS. How do they know the jump didn't occur in reverse? Here is the first report of simian AIDS: "Examination of the species-specific annual mortality rates of macaques at the center during the previous 4 yr showed a significant increase in deaths in 1980 and 1981" http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC393899/ Also, it is convenient they do not share the mcmc traces. Base…

Thanks for the article link! >"Our estimated location of pandemic origin explains the observation that Kinshasa exhibits more contemporary HIV-1 genetic diversity than anywhere else" >This is totally circular. As shown in their figure S2, they used genetic diversity in a region as an indication of earlier presence. It seems like they also used phylogenetic history. Diversity alone is not a sufficient to identify orig…

Well I know that information about genetic diversity was used to generate the phylogenetic tree since the same sequences are used to determine both, therefore there is data leakage. So I am sure it is circular, it is only a matter of how circular. I think totally circular.

Perhaps I am misunderstanding their model, but look at figure S2. It shows the less closely related the sequences at each location, the more likely that was the originating region relative to the others. See how the leafs of the right tree corresponding to location B are more widely distributed (indicating diversity) than those for location A or C (which are more clustered within the tree)?

Re: We know the city where HIV first emerged

#12

Post by thaumasiotes »

nonbel wrote: post #4

Simian AIDS was discovered after human AIDS. How do they know the jump didn't occur in reverse? Here is the first report of simian AIDS: "Examination of the species-specific annual mortality rates of macaques at the center during the previous 4 yr showed a significant increase in deaths in 1980 and 1981" http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC393899/ Also, it is convenient they do not share the mcmc traces. Base…

> Simian AIDS was discovered after human AIDS. How do they know the jump didn't occur in reverse?

Obviously, just as humans are higher than monkeys on the Great Chain of Being, so must HIV be higher than SIV. ;)

Re: We know the city where HIV first emerged

#13

Post by nonbel »

RyanZAG wrote: post #10
nonbel wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, the time of discovery proves nothing. But I asked how they can tell either way since there is no data from earlier. However, I would think captive animals were monitored more closely for strange diseases than people in rural mid-1900s Africa.

You'd probably be wrong about that. Even today in most of these places, a captive animal that dies is just 'sick' and disposed of. Or often sold off as food if the death symptoms aren't obviously apparent, as would be the case with HIV. There is no functioning FDA in central africa.

This was at the "New England Regional Primate Research Center" though.

Re: We know the city where HIV first emerged

#15

Post by lloydde »

nonbel wrote: post #4

Simian AIDS was discovered after human AIDS. How do they know the jump didn't occur in reverse? Here is the first report of simian AIDS: "Examination of the species-specific annual mortality rates of macaques at the center during the previous 4 yr showed a significant increase in deaths in 1980 and 1981" http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC393899/ Also, it is convenient they do not share the mcmc traces. Base…

My limited understanding is that once discovered scientists found the families of simian viruses that demonstrated evolutionary and divergence that cannot be explained in going the other way or the timeframe of human hiv.

See http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/05/060525-aids-... http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/8026477/#

There is a video documentary that I watched in the last couple years that I was really hoping to find again and link to.

Re: We know the city where HIV first emerged

#16

Post by anton_gogolev »

achille wrote: post #5

There's an excellent Radiolab Podcast that covers the same study, I'd highly recommend listening to it: * http://www.radiolab.org/story/169879-patient-zero/

There's also an updated version which briefly covers recent Ebola outbreak: http://www.radiolab.org/story/patient-zero-updated/

Re: We know the city where HIV first emerged

#18

Post by bad_user »

nonbel wrote: post #4

Simian AIDS was discovered after human AIDS. How do they know the jump didn't occur in reverse? Here is the first report of simian AIDS: "Examination of the species-specific annual mortality rates of macaques at the center during the previous 4 yr showed a significant increase in deaths in 1980 and 1981" http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC393899/ Also, it is convenient they do not share the mcmc traces. Base…

Wikipedia links to an article stating that SIV has been present in monkeys and apes for at least 32000 years: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/17/health/17aids.html?_r=2&sr...

Re: We know the city where HIV first emerged

#20

Post by masklinn »

olegious wrote: post #6

The book "The history of AIDS" was a fascinating and accessible read on the subject of the spread of HIV, from it's origins to today.

Definitely, highly recommended book. Learned of it from Quammen's "Spillover"[0] (a great — if somewhat terrifying — book in its own right) mentioning it as a source in the AIDS chapter and it was a fantastic read. Note that Quammen released his own AIDS-history book this hear, "The Chimp and the River"[1] (haven't read it yet though I intend to).

Direct link to Jacques Pépin's "The Origin of AIDS" on amazon: http://www.amazon.com/dp/0521186374

[0] http://www.amazon.com/dp/0393346617/

[1] http://www.amazon.com/dp/0393350843/

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