drdach wrote:

drdach replies: Another question for you Sean, regarding the HIV:

It is well known that HIV is non-pathogenic to primates in the wild.
The existence of non-pathogenic HIV is also well known in the human
population called elite controllers, the subject of a recent Mass
General Study:

http://www.massgeneral.org/aids/hiv_elite_controllers.asp#who

Participants in the study are:
HIV positive adults between the ages of 18-75
Maintaining viral loads below 2,000 copies/ml
Not taking medications for HIV
Willing to have a routine blood draw for scientific research

The question is: would it be possible that many of the HIV positives in
the 80's and 90's treated with HIV might have died from the
toxicity effects of AZT instead of the non-pathogenic form of HIV?

The form of HIV is the same. It is just that different people are more
or less inherently resistant to the same form of HIV and the eventual
development of AIDS.

Simian resistance seems to be based, not on the immune system, but on
the production of a certain type of protein that humans no longer
produce (although the genetic code for this protein is present in the
human genome). It is hoped that through study of HIV resistant humans
something like this HIV resistance conferring protein will be
discovered in these humans - which might then be used to treat HIV
infections in other humans.

By the way, through modifications of the virus, making it part HIV and
part SIV, it has been shown that monkeys can be infected and develop
AIDS symptoms - no AZT required. Also, about 7 years ago now, a very
similar SIV virus was found to HIV-1 (the most lethal form in humans).
This virus was isolated in a sub-group of chimpanzees known as Pan
troglodytes troglodytes (P. t. troglodytes), which were once common in
west-central Africa. The virus is known as "SIVcpz".

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=health&res=9A0DE1DE133CF935A15751C0A9629C8B63

http://www.seedmagazine.com/news/2006/08/the_one_that_got_away.php

http://www.avert.org/origins.htm