I am extremely obsessed with this episode. I loved the comprehensive tracing back to the origins of the disease, it was excellently executed! NICE JOB.

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This desease probbly has a cure! And the medical fraternity is making money from just making anti Retrovirals and many other depressants! A cure must exist!

Interesting podcast but a lot of the things seems to based of speculation, which is disheartening and possible deceptive to others.

When will a cure for AIDS be found? And who, in particular, is looking for a cure?

This was my first time listening to radio lab, I never heard of it before I took this course on HIV/AIDS. It is so interesting and I didn't want to stop listening. I've learned so much and look forward to learning more.

i only just began devouring radiolab a couple days ago but this is by far the most riveting story that i've heard so far. i must have spent the last hour or so (at work...) searching the internet for anything i could find on the history of AIDS.

I heard a Radiolab that spoke of the origins of AIDS coming from an African man who might have contracted it from a monkey. It mentioned mutations that defied the odds. It was a lovely story. What I have issue with is that this story, which is total speculation, was presented as fact. I wish you wouldn't do that.

Thanks.

Al

I couldn't agree more with Lili Fuller from Milford, CT, who commented:

"I love Radio Lab, but I really wish that the narrators could pay attention to grammar. I winced when I heard the phrase, "Her and her colleagues (did)..." Please, this is as egregious as starting a sentence with, "Me and him..." Usage like this undermines the sense of intellectual discourse one associates with programming like this. Presentation is as important as content. Let me know if you need an editor."

The content on RadioLab is amazing. The grammar? Ain't so great.

Actually, AIDS has never been definitively connected to any virus. And the alleged pandemic has never followed any known epidemiological pattern. The alleged HIV epidemic in Africa doesn't exist, and none other than Luc Montagnier, the man who won a Nobel Prize for his "discovery", has already publicly stated that if sanitation, nutrition and traditional diseases were addressed throughout Africa, the so-called HIV/AIDS pandemic would "disappear".

The false notion connecting AIDS - a syndrome - with a retrovirus, was propagated by a man who, years before, had failed in his efforts to find a viral cause to cancer. But any close examination of the numbers reveals that the HIV=AIDS link is a phantasm. It doesn't exist. The deaths attributed to AIDS in Africa are extrapolated from torturous mathematical models used by the World Health Organization - and have nothing to do with reality.

If anybody wishes to see the Luc Montagnier interview in its entirety, it can probably still be found on YouTube. And if people have more than a passing curiosity about the fallacy of HIV=AIDS, I'd recommend watching the award winning documentary "House of Numbers", released in 2009. In it, a young Canadian man goes through the process of trying to find out what the whole pandemic is about, only to discover that it never existed in the first place. And all of the root interviews with so-called experts - all of which contradict each other - are also available on-line if you bother to track them down.

I love Radio Lab, but I really wish that the narrators could pay attention to grammar. I winced when I heard the phrase, "Her and her colleagues (did)..." Please, this is as egregious as starting a sentence with, "Me and him..." Usage like this undermines the sense of intellectual discourse one associates with programming like this. Presentation is as important as content. Let me know if you need an editor.

Dear Radio Lab,
Thank you for this wonderful broadcast. It was very timely when I stumbled across this story. I teach a lower level year 10 science class of all boys, of whom, for the past several days, have been obsessed with asking questions about AIDS/HIV. On a limb, I played this podcast for them and they loved it. It was one of the first time i had them fully engaged, just listening, even videos rarely hold their attention! They actually asked for more when the HIV segment was done so I play the Typhoid Mary segment too (they're Australian and had never heard of Typhoid Mary). Most of these boy come to class hating science so it was really rewarding to find something they could relate to and found interesting. I'm going to try to incorporate more of your segments into my classes.
Thanks again

Fascinating broadcast. I just listened to it on a podcast and I,too, am wondering if there is a transcript of the show.

Anyone interested in the origins of HIV/AIDS should read Timberg and Halperin's new book Tinderbox : How the West Sparked the AIDS Epidemic and How the World Can Finally Overcome It. http://www.amazon.com/Tinderbox-Sparked-Epidemic-Finally-Overcome/dp/159420327X/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1326824386&sr=1-2
It's a thought-provoking exploration of how the West's interference/colonization in Africa may have helped spawn and spread the AIDS epidemic.

Hooper's book is 13 years old and has been thoroughly discredited. See Jacques Pepin's book The Origins of Aids.

Stefan: That theory has already been thoroughly debunked by much more authoritative publications (Science, Nat Med, Nature)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OPV_AIDS_hypothesis

Stefan,
SV-40 is a polyomavirus, a DNA virus. HIV is a retrovirus, an RNA virus. These two viruses are completely unrelated. If polio vaccines were contaminated with this virus it would have nothing to do with the AIDS epidemic.

I appreciate Radiolab for presenting this story; When I first heard it, I had little knowledge of the AIDS epidemic other than the story of Gaeton Dugas. However, of all places, I read a small passage from material that was distributed during our Physics lab, discussing the theories of the beginning of HIV: it mentioned a possibility that Radio lab hasn't addressed, the distribution of polio vaccinations in West Africa during the late 1950s that contained SV-40. Polio vaccines were cultured in ape kidneys and I plead that Radio lab address this theory.

If you go to Amazon's website and read the one star reviews for, The River, by Edward Hooper, you'll read why the book's theory has been debunked.

I'm distressed that the most tested and researched theory of the origin of AIDS is not mentioned in this story, despite the fact that 90% of the research reported comes to the same conclusions. Edward Hooper's book "The River" must be read. The much more recent research, as reported in this story, correlates with Hooper's research, except for the flimsy conjecture of the hunter which ends the story. If you read this masterful book, it becomes clear Hooper's theory is the most well defended and researched of all possibilities. http://www.amazon.com/River-Journey-Source-HIV-AIDS/dp/0316371378/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_1

Is there a transcript of this available anywhere?

Hello
I am looking for electron micrograhy pics of HIV that show:

1. the source or nature of the material photographed
2. a size bar
3. if the pics have been changed in any way ie computer enhanced, generated, coloured etc.

thank you