The Coming of Aids
Grutsch, James F. Jr. & Robertson, A.D.J.
THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR VOL. 19, NO 3 / MARCH...
...When this is done for the Aids virus it is unequivocally obvious that it is closely related to the maedivisna virus, but not to the human leukemia viruses...
...Like the oncoRNAviruses they are called retroviruses because they make a DNA copy of their RNA genome...
...The other known lentiviruses cause maedi-visna in sheep, infectious anemia in horses, and a form of encephalitis in goats...
...We shall never know the details of the early spread in Africa, although its geography suggests that war and nomadic trading patterns were important...
...Infection led after a long delay to cerebellar ataxia, followed by helplessness and death within a year...
...A new disease is infecting mankind...
...that associated with the Aids virus is aggressive and lethal...
...This renaming is dangerous since it hinders public appreciation of the fact that Aids is caused by a lentivirus whose targets are not only the T-cell, but the central nervous system...
...Its epidemiology suggests a slow viral agent, though the usual mode of transmission is not known...
...In America the virus has been called HTLV III and ARV...
...Tragically, this view is still being propagated...
...Perhaps we should reiterate this thought: if "they" includes all male homosexuals now and to be recruited, all intravenous drug addicts now and to be recruited, all prostitutes, all past hemophiliacs, all customers of prostitutes, all those receiving infected blood (which we cannot detect, even in this country, with certainty), as well as their sexual partners, spouses, and children, who will be left...
...Most of the confusion about the issue of Aids originates from similar semantic muddles...
...Thus, the proteins themselves, and therefore the antigenic properties of the virus, vary as well...
...Data from surveys of blood donors, of members of the armed forces, and of other discrete groups in the United States suggest that somewhere between one and three million individuals are now infected...
...This CDC definition was used originally to follow the epidemic and was limited by the absence of a reliable blood test...
...The first sign is progressive pneumonia, called maedi in Iceland, which develops up to four years after inoculation with the virus...
...The disease may also damage the central nervous system, causing massive degeneration of the brain which leads to wasting and paralysis of the infected animal...
...Normally each cell in the body has two complete copies of the genome...
...The actual rate probably lies between 4 and 7 percent, again per year...
...It explains also why the Aids virus, which has probably crossed the species barrier between the African green monkey and man, is so lethal, and why we apparently have no natural defenses against it...
...the only way to control the disease is to isolate and slaughter infected animals...
...It is now appearing in Africa as well...
...is a biophysicist working in the regulatory affairs department of a major chemical company in Chicago A.D.J...
...Strangely enough, the victims remained cheerful, though finally entirely incapacitated...
...This is true of parasites in general, for it does a parasite no good to kill its host before it itself has reproduced...
...Such diseases include Kaposi's sarcoma, Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia, and other opportunistic infections which include pneumonia, meningitis, and unusually extensive mucocutaneous herpes simplex...
...Indeed, twenty-one of the African countries known to have AIDS epidemics do not report cases to the World Health Organization...
...this is also true for the other lentiviruses...
...Their habits are also covert...
...From what we know now the only alternative available until cures or vaccines, or both, are developed, is to prevent the spread of the disease by making it physically impossible...
...What we do know with absolute certainty is that the disease will continue to spread if we do not act positively top stop it, and that its long latency and potentially permanent infectiousness mean that it will not die out as do some of the more spectacular, but shorter-lived epidemics, such as those of the Plague or small pox...
...The green monkey's habitat at the edge of the forest has been encroached upon by man...
...for example, we should be studying the epidemiology of Aids scientifically, not sociologically, for without proper in-formation we will not have rational action...
...For some very small groups—for example, those looking after infected children, but not infected themselves—we simply do not yet know whether infection can or cannot occur...
...no cure exists...
...transfer can also occur during copulation and possibly in milk passing to a suckling foal...
...Quarantine in turn implies accurate testing, which will require the development of an efficient test for viral antigens, not just antibodies...
...The influenza virus varies in a similar way, but to a much smaller ex-tent...
...There is also epidemiological evidence that children within families are being infected after birth by their siblings...
...Antibodies: Proteins made in response to specific antigens...
...But we can at least assume that promiscuous male homosexuality and sharing of needles in "shooting galleries" were not essential, just as they cannot be essential for the devastating epidemic of "Simian Aids" now spreading through primate colonies in the United States...
...12 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR MARCH 1986 epidemiology of the disease, since no men appeared to be infected...
...in New York, most male homosexuals are infected and most intravenous drug addicts are too...
...Comparing these sequences in two organisms allows one to determine how closely they are related...
...Viruses Viruses are much smaller than other entities that cause disease...
...during the normal metabolism of a cell RNA is copied from the nuclear DNA, but retroviruses can go in reverse...
...At the very least somewhere between 2 and 10 percent of those infected will develop full-blown AIDS, and thus eventually die of an opportunistic infection, per year...
...The figures from San Francisco, which are being corroborated by surveys from other countries, also show that the much-heralded "change in behavior" will have no effect...
...This implies strict quarantine, as has always been used in the past when serious—not necessarily lethal—infections have been spreading...
...THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR MARCH 1986 15...
...Indeed, the presence of a large population with damaged immune systems is a danger to us all, quite apart from the danger of infection with the Aids virus itself, since many diseases which are endemic but not now dangerous will again become rampant...
...changes in behavior—at least those suggested to date—are not going to stop the spread of Aids...
...without them we become susceptible to infection by many organisms which are endemic, but notnormally life-threatening...
...Even so, though transmission of Kuru was stopped thirty years ago, two or three people a year still develop the neurological symptoms and die...
...when he had changed to only ten partners a year, the infection rate was 75 percent...
...Since these properties made it extremely difficult to discern the cause and effect, slow viral diseases were often thought to be no more than the inevitable manifestations of age...
...It is lethal...
...Aids virus: AIDS is caused by infection with a virus...
...In Africa censorship is beginning, so it will be increasingly difficult to obtain good data...
...Their repetition and use for prediction lead to incorrect results and encourage complacency...
...AIDS is the first disease of man known to be caused by one...
...They are small—about one-250,000th of an inch long—and have a genome made of RNA with about six genes...
...These names vary from "The Horror" to (in Uganda)"Slim Disease," so called'because those affected waste away, become helpless, and die...
...However, there is now a report from England of the possible passage of the virus from an AIDS patient to a member of the household, and there has been a similar report from Italy...
...Nonetheless, the Food and Drug Administration recently banned the sale of growth hormone derived from human brains because it appears that the preparations have infected at least five people with Creutzfeldt-Jakob...
...It is very rare, in this country occurring only in people who have been weakened by malnutrition or whose immune responses have been suppressed either by chemicals, as for kidney transplants, or disease...
...The first human diseases known to be caused by slow viruses are Kuru and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease...
...We know now that in some countries up to 30 percent of urban populations are infected...
...This is undoubtedly one of the reasons why the development of antibodies to the virus does not either protect against subsequent infection or remove the virus from the bloodstream...
...The protein coat both protects the RNA and allows the virus to become attached to cells, including lymphocytes and brain cells, which it can then penetrate and infect...
...In Miami over 40 percent of a small group of prostitutes tested recently were infected...
...January 16 New York Review of Books.' These canards are extremely dangerous because the disease itself is lethal and because we know neither how serious the problem is tiow, nor how serious it will become...
...The mechanisms include insect vectors, needles used for inoculations and blood sampling, and tattooing devices...
...The first unequivocal clue was the infection of four women in Australia, out of eight inseminated artificially with semen from a single man...
...In this form it is known as pro-viral DNA...
...No federal agency has taken the actions needed to eradicate the disease...
...Both the endemic African form and the European form are relatively benign...
...As is true for many other viruses, but particularly for the lentiviruses, the genes controlling the synthesis of the protein coat are extremely variable...
...There are, for example, many mistakes in the article by Jonathan Lieberson in the James F. Grutsch, Jr...
...Thus, within the limits of accuracy in measurement, the chance of encountering an infected partner has not changed at all...
...at first they could not be seen in electron micrographs and it may be that they do not always provoke an immune response—the production of antibodies—in infected people...
...In other words, the virus transforms itself, to the point where the original antibodies are no longer effective against it...
...Since in some places the male homosexual population is concentrated geographically, and promiscuous behavior is encouraged, the disease has flourished in this group...
...It is caused by a virus which, for simplicity, we shall call the Aids virus...
...THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR MARCH 1986 13 healthy homosexual men were treated for Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia in Los Angeles...
...the virus can be found in all tissues, including the brain...
...there is no evidence that it is necessary to mix blood and semen to propagate the infection during normal vaginal intercourse...
...To understand how this situation has come about, it is important to understand the biology of the Aids virus, something of the sociology of science, and the relentless progress, but often thoughtless use, of medical technology...
...They typically infect the nervous system...
...It is now rare since it was found to be spread when food was prepared for ritual cannibalism, and the practice has been stopped...
...Robertson THE COMING OF AIDS It didn't start with homosexuals, and it won't end with them...
...The acronym AIDS stands for Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome...
...Recently a female, prepubertal chimpanzee was inoculated with 5,000 virus particles—a relatively small number—carefully placed in her vagina with a damp swab...
...It is only a matter of time before we, in general, realize that the disease is not peculiar to those with eccentric habits...
...No vaccines have been produced...
...Since the risk has only just been recognized, and the latency between infection and disease is so long, there will be many more victims of infection by this particular route...
...While this is endemic in Africa, it is extremely rare in the United States and is normally confined to old men from the Mediterranean or with Jewish ancestry...
...The best data for the spread of AIDS come from the CDC...
...predictions by distinguished scientists about the spread of the Aids virus cannot be dismissed on the grounds that they are the self-serving fear-mongering of grant-hungry academics—and so on...
...From the homosexuals the disease has spread to drug addicts, to the blood banks, to hemophiliacs, to prostitutes, to those who have sexual intercourse with members of these groups, and to children, both those born after their mothers became infected and, in some cases, those infected via breast milk...
...GLOSSARY AIDS: In 1982, CDC defined a case of AIDS as a disease, at least moderately predictive of a defect in cell-mediated immunity, occurring in a person with no known cause for diminished resistance to that disease...
...Eggs and sperm carry one copy each...
...This is a good example of a disease whose spread was eliminated by a simple (some might say desirable) change in behavior...
...However, the male homosexual population of San Francisco appears to be close to saturation, if not saturated, with the Aids virus...
...HTLV now has been changed to denote Human T-cell Lymphotropic Virus to include the Aids virus, HTLV-III, which does not cause leukemia...
...All AIDS victims, as defined by the CDC, are infected with the Aids virus, though the vast majority of people infected with the virus have not yet developed AIDS—which is the name given to a number of diseases known to be caused by the Aids virus...
...It does seem to be true that the disease, in parts of the United States, first afflicted the male homosexual community, though some old blood samples show early infection of drug addicts in New York City...
...In this country the figures from the CDC show clearly that heterosexual infection is now increasing at the same rate as did homosexual infection in the early days of the disease...
...The ultimate incidence of fatal brain damage will not be known for many years, but it may be 100 percent for those infected but not developing AIDS...
...one does not require a damaged immune system to be susceptible to infection by the virus...
...We do not know how many American men patronize prostitutes, but some police officers have suggested that a figure of 30 percent is realistic...
...In Africa the minimum number believed to be infected is ten million...
...Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease is also a viral disease that causes brain damage, but it is much more widespread than Kuru...
...The latency for dementia seems to be longer than that for developing AIDS, but demented, sero-positive victims of infection with the Aids virus are appearing with in-creasing frequency in this country and in Europe...
...It is interesting that the virus exists in many immunologically dif'It is unfortunate that the Aids virus was first thought to be an "oncoRNAvirus," like the human leukemia viruses, HTLV -1 and HTLV II...
...The Aids Virus The Aids virus probably spread to humans from the green monkey, in Central Africa...
...The rapid spread of AIDS among "high risk" groups in the United States has obscured our perception of the equally, or more, serious spread among other groups in other countries and the beginning of the spread to what are considered "low risk" groups here...
...Using the techniques of modern molecular biology one can read the sequence of the bases in a virus's nucleic acid genome...
...Throughout the civilized world most, if not all, hemophiliacs diagnosed before 1985 have been infected by the Aids virus carried by clotting factor VIII preparations made from American blood...
...Thus not only was a useful old name lost, but new confusiqn was created...
...it seems to us that a lethal disease spreading inexorably in just these populations presents a national emergency—let alone a disease which now seems to be capable of spreading to anyone who has sexual intercourse with more than one person...
...This number will in-crease as the infected population in-creases...
...Robertson is a biologist interested in embryology and behavior who works at the Research, Testing, and Development Corporation of Lexington, Georgia...
...Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome It is worth repeating that the name "AIDS" is not synonymous with the Aids virus, nor with infection by the virus...
...The name "oncoRNAvirus" means that the viruses are cancer-causing and contain ribose nucleic acid (RNA) rather than DNA...
...Unfortunately, in another round of semantic confusion, the T-cell leukemia viruses were renamed T-cell lymphotropic viruses so that the Aids Virus could be kept in the same artificial group whose members would then be HTLV-I, HTLV II, and HTLV III...
...Their wives are showing an increasing rate of infection, which in the long run will give us our best statistics on the efficacy of heterosexual intercourse in transmitting the disease...
...and A.D.J...
...This disease is caused by protozoan parasites which grow in the lungs, making breathing difficult...
...Some viruses are called "slow" because there is a long latency between infection by them and the appearance of symptoms in the victim...
...These are the acknowledged "riskgroups...
...19, NO 3 / MARCH 1986...
...The reduced incidence of promiscuous sodomy is exactly compensated for by the increasing prevalence of the virus...
...But the fact that it can be spread by homosexual intercourse does not mean that it is spread only in that way...
...some identify antigens, stimulate the production of antibodies, produce antibodies, and/or destroy foreign materials...
...there is no evidence that anal intercourse is more frequent among "African" heterosexual couples than among the comparable group of Americans...
...In the same year a further twenty-six previously healthy homosexuals in New York and California were found to have Kaposi's sarcoma...
...There are two reasons for this...
...This explained the strange 'Contrary to his assertions, the virus is not a mutant of HTLV-I...
...HTLV: Originally denoting Human T-cell Leukemia Virus, HTLV-I and HTLV II cause some kinds of leukemia in people...
...This form of the disease was called visna...
...It is interesting that the more dramatic syndrome, pneumonia, was recognized first and not immediately associated with the more insidious neural disease...
...Some illustrations may help...
...Many of those who do not develop AIDS will become demented, or die from diseases like tuberculosis which are not included in the CDC definition of AIDS, but which are beginning to show increased incidences again in the United States...
...It is about the spread of Aids that most misconceptions have arisen...
...these have been compounded by ill-informed reporting in which laymen, often from special-interest groups...
...Whatever the exact numbers are, since we know that the virus is spread by normal, vaginal, heterosexual inter-course, the population now at risk is enormous...
...Equine infectious anemia is spread by the transfer of blood from horse to horse...
...In other words, as each population becomes exposed to the Aids virus we see that, by whatever means it is transmitted, the rate of in-crease in infection is always similar...
...Pathogens: disease-causing micro-organisms...
...There are only three ways that the spread of a lethal infectious disease stops: It may be too rapidly fatal, killing off its victims before the disease can spread...
...Possibilities which fit the nature of the other lentiviruses but which cannot be assessed yet are that infection in utero may be 100 percent effective and fatal, that the overall fatality rate may approach 100 percent, that it will not be possible to make a vaccine, and, finally, that we are'all equally at risk...
...This is a good example of the unwitting spread of a disease by technology...
...In San Francisco the incidence of exposure to the Aids virus, as revealed by the presence of antibodies in serum, is known quite accurately...
...infection of their male, heterosexual customers went from one percent to 13 percent over the same period...
...First, the numbers are small...
...No new infections should occur, unless cannibalism comes back into fashion or the virus changes its habits...
...The reports from Africa show that men and women are becoming infected in roughly equal numbers: if not by heterosexual intercourse, then by some other route common to everyone...
...The major, early methods of spread are ones which the majority of Americans are not prepared to admit to—even though, in surveys, nearly half of the population admits to being unfaithful...
...Whether this occurs when open sores allow mingling of blood, or by some other means, is not known...
...the population infected may develop natural or medically applied immunity...
...It is now present in over 80 per-cent...
...The lentiviruses are not cancer-causing but they do contain RNA...
...These include those pathogens causing the rare diseases first associated with the Aids virus...
...It explains why the opening of the tropics by the white man led to so many apparently novel, but serious, diseases...
...Infected brain tissue was removed from dead relatives by women of the Fore tribe and handled by them and their children...
...this will continue until all those originally infected and in whom the virus remains latent, are dead...
...It was first used in 1982 by the CDC to describe what seemed to be a new disease and to follow its spread...
...Many viruses are not pathogenic, or are only slightly so, in their normal host, but may become lethal if by chance they infect a new organism which has not evolved with them...
...14 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR MARCH 1986 the virus and developing antibodies, and a longer latent period between exposure and frank disease...
...Other diseases, not originally associated with the Aids virus, are now known to be caused by it, or to be simply one of the standard syndromes with a local name...
...She, too, became infected, showing antibodies to the virus after six weeks...
...T-cells: A class of lymphocytes derived from the thymus...
...Lentivirus: Until the Aids virus was discovered, lentiviruses were known only to cause disease in specific domestic animals...
...a substantial Aids epidemic could well flourish in many South American countries before it was recognized...
...Treatment is impossible, so spread of the disease can be prevented only by slaughtering infected animals...
...most viruses are probably derived from genetic material that has escaped from the cell nucleus to become self-replicating...
...Thus it may be impossible to dislodge a retroviral infection, and an infected individual will continue to manufacture RNA containing virions while he is alive...
...Dementia is also a symptom of Aids infection in Africa, which has only been recognized recently...
...The disease kills at least half its victims...
...Lentiviruses The lentiviruses are a small group of slow viruses...
...it may not be able to spread because uninfected individuals are separated sufficiently well from those infected...
...involved in recognizing antigens and the destruction of foreign materials...
...T -helper cells: The lymphocytes that identify antigens and stimulate other cells to produce antibodies...
...Similar figures for comparable groups are being reported by all Western countries, even the relatively staid, such as Switzerland, or the relatively religious, such as Spain...
...The Spread of the Aids Virus The syndrome, AIDS, was defined by the Centers for Disease Control in 1982 although it had been recognized as an entity in 1981, when five previously We should be studying the epidemiology of Aids scientifically, not sociologically...
...The most recent CDC figures (January 6, 1986) show that over 16,000 cases of CDC-defined AIDS have been reported...
...Errors of fact are then propagated by the innocent...
...We find it amazing that it is still possible for anyone to believe that the virus cannot be spread by heterosexual intercourse...
...with their own furrows to plow, express opinions about scientific matters...
...Neither quarantine nor universal testing is palatable to the American public where Aids is concerned, yet both have been used without hesitation in the past...
...For simplicity, it is here called the Aids virus...
...it does not replicate only when inhabiting T-cells...
...At first it was widely assumed that the AIDS syndrome was secondary to a defect in cell-mediated immunity which might have multiple causes, including drug use and suppression of the immune system by the many other infections characteristically found in promiscuous male homosexuals...
...Worldwide probably at least fifteen million, but possibly many more, are infected...
...It was absent from the male homosexual population before 1978 and present in a few percent by 1980...
...This was isolated in France from a patient with chronically swollen lymph glands and called LAV...
...These lymphocytes are needed to mount a normal immune response...
...second, there is a latent period, up to two years in some people, between exposure to We are much less likely to produce a successful vaccine against the Aids virus than we are to produce one simultaneously effective against all the strains of the influenza virus...
...The spread of the Aids virus in the United States is being monitored, but cannot be prevented, by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC...
...The results so far are ominous...
...In the United States, the epidemic is several, perhaps three to five, years younger...
...in this country, cells from their livers are used in the production of vaccines...
...This epidemic is not being carried by a drug-crazed homosexual monkey, leaping from colony to colony, though as a theory this is not so very different from what is believed about the spread of human Aids...
...Since the ELISA test used may have a false negative rate of at least 15 percent, we will not know the exact numbers without testing for the virus particles themselves...
...Genome: The collection of all the kinds of genes in an individual...
...The virus is usuallyspread by coughing when sheep are crowded together in the winter...
...For example, prostitutes in Kenya had a 7 percent incidence in 1981, but a 51 percent incidence in 1985...
...If, like the other lentiviruses, the Aids virus can be transferred to ungulates, then we must face the fact that it could be spread in cows' milk (just as it is in breast milk), in bronchial secretions transmitted as aerosols by coughing (as is maedivisna), and, potentially, by insect vectors, if only mechanically (as is equine infectious anemia...
...This is an important property since the DNA copy is incorporated into the DNA inside the chromosomes of the virus's host...
...once infected an animal remains infectious for life...
...Without widespread blood testing we will never know the true incidence of infection with the Aids virus in equatorial Africa because so many deaths, particularly among children, are given non-specific causes, such as diarrhea, or no cause at all...
...indeed, green monkeys are eaten by Africans in several countries...
...some groups, which have been followed for four or five years, show rates of increase in infection just like those we have seen here...
...It is this protein coat which is exposed to the immune system and stimulates the production of antigens...
...It was thought to be a purely degenerative process, rather like Alzheimer's disease, without a specific cause...
...it also mistakenly suggests that the Aids virus is like the leukemia viruses in that infection by it might be treated in the same way as infection by them.ferent forms, which makes the theoretical task of producing an effective vaccine difficult, if not impossible...
...as the computer programmers say, "garbage in, garbage out...
...They bind to the antigens, immobilizing them, and bring them to white blood cells for destruction or excretion...
...Antigens are most often "surface antigens," located on the external surfaces of viruses, bacteria, or invading cells...
...it is inaccessible to attack by cells, therapeutic chemicals, or antibodies, but can replicate by making further RNA copies...
...The CDC figures show that the number of cases is, roughly, doubling each year, as is the number of subsequent deaths...
...In Africa the disease is affecting almost as many women as men and appears to be spread through prostitution, and sometimes the multiple medical use of syringes and needles...
...Lymphocytes: A group of cells found in the blood...
...Every day that the disease is allowed to spread unchecked a further 40,000 people will become infected and some proportion of these, possibly all, are therefore being condemned to an extremely unpleasant premature death...
...Until we know a great deal more about the Aids virus itself, the best models for understanding its behavior and for making predictions are the other lentiviruses.' Maedi-visna virus causes a fatal infection in sheep...
...The same is true of the poorer parts of South America...
...While AIDS is secondary to damage to the immune system, the cause is infection with a virus that can kill a particular group of lymphocytes...
...For the United States the numbers are proportionately smaller, but the daily added increase in potential human suffering is obvious, as is the potentially catastrophic economic impact...
...They need the metabolic machinery of a cell to manufacture copies of themselves...
...Not only are these events tragedies for the victims, but the legal, insurance, and medical implications are staggering...
...When the average homosexual in the San Francisco cohort had forty partners per year, the infection rate with the Aids virus was 24 percent...
...They cannot reproduce or, sometimes, even survive outside living cells...
...We are therefore much less likely to produce a successful vaccine against the Aids virus than we are to'produce one simultaneously effective against all the strains of the influenza virus...
...This is true for the Aids virus...
...Kuru is exotic, confined to a small population in New Guinea and having symptoms like Parkinson's disease...
...James F. Grutsch, Jr...
...Antigen: A protein identified as a foreign material by the immune system, resulting in the production of antibodies...
...Since we know that the Aids virus is spread by normal, vaginal, heterosexual inter-course, the population now at risk is enormous...
...This is because they contain only a small amount of genetic material—some nucleic acid—surrounded by a protective protein coat...
...Like the other lentiviruses, the Aids virus consists of a core of RNA surrounded by a protein coat...
...In turn, complacency leads to inaction...
...Thus, the statistics tell us more about the probability that a member of a particular group will interact with an infected individual than about the transmissibility of the virus within that group...
...This, of course, is a gross underestimate of the number of United States citizens infected by the Aids virus...
...Slow Viruses The Aids virus is a slow virus...
...We now know that the term AIDS is misleading because it does not describe a syndrome, because the Aids virus causes congenital as well as acquired immune deficiency, because the virus attacks many cells in the body apart from those in the immune system, and because the spectrum of diseases caused by the virus is much wider than that encompassed by the CDC definition of AIDS...
...Even so, AIDS is the leading cause of death for males between 30 and 40 years old in New York City, so if the true number of deaths caused by the virus were known, the situation might already appear catastrophic to the public...
...The unequivocal facts that are not denied by those doing research on the Aids virus, or on the disease itself, are that the virus is a lentivirus, that it will be extremely difficult to produce a vaccine or a cure, that infection is permanent and can occur by several routes, and that the spectrum of fatal disease is much wider than the CDC definition of AIDS...
Vol. 19 • March 1986 • No. 3
