Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Is it true that HIV/AIDS was transmitted to humans by men having sex with monkeys

Is it true that HIV/AIDS was transmitted to humans by men having sex with monkeys?
I hope noone is offended by me asking this question. Just trying to find out if it's an urban myth or if there's any truth in it,
STDs - 6 Answers
Random Answers, Critics, Comments, Opinions :
1 :
No one know for sure but it is most likely an urban myth. I the area where HIV/AIDS is thought to have come from they eat monkeys. It is logical to assume that an infected monkey was eaten rather than a man had sex with a wild monkey.
2 :
hi, no, i'm pretty sure it was passed through the blood
3 :
that was the cover up story the CIA wanted us to beleive so that we wouldnt uncover the truth! which is that they needed a way to kill out a good number of the population cos people were reproducing at a really fast rate, so the CIA in their top secret labs created the virus. well thats another theory, you wont have much luck finding out which is real.
4 :
No, HIV was not transmitted to humans via sex with monkeys. It is believed, however, that it did come from monkeys. The likely mode of transmission would be monkey blood getting on cuts in the human's skin. Certain cultures in Africa actually eat monkey and through the process of removing the meat from the animal there is a substantial amount of exposure to the blood (and sharp objects). It's an urban myth.
5 :
this is a myth u cant transmit HIV/AIDS through a monkey hello its in the name human immunodeficiency virus it will only transmit through humans
6 :
Urban myth most likely. The fact that this 'theory' is still around says more about our own racism and homophobia than it does anything else. We know definitively that HIV originated from an ancient simian (monkey) infection called Simian Immunodeficiency Virus, or SIV that has been around for longer than humans have. It probably jumped several times to humans over the course of human history but didn't successfully jump until around 1930. We know that HIV-2 (found in Western Africa) is related to a different strain of SIV showing that there was a distinct jump from monkey to human for HIV-2 as well. People eat what is around them and for many people who live near jungles, monkeys are a source of food. Hunters of bushmeat can come into contact with a variety of infections from the animals they trap, kill, and butcher for the meat. It is much more likely that this is how HIV jumped successfully from monkey to human. In fact, there is a research project looking at studying bushmeat hunters around the world looking for early cases of zoonotic infections (that may or may not cause disease). With early detection, large epidemics can be stopped. If we had this kind of surveillance pre-HIV, the epidemic may not have been an epidemic: excellent video on the research project: http://www.ted.com/talks/nathan_wolfe_hunts_for_the_next_aids.html

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