The AIDSOrigins Webmaster has just drawn my attention to the following article on the Web. Apparently entitled: The AIDS Conspiracy Handbook, it was written by Juliet Lapidos.

It lists several wacky theories about the origins of AIDS. One of the theories that features is the OPV theory, and Ms Lapidos sums up as follows:

"Hooper's contaminated polio vaccine thesis sounds less wacky than most conspiracy theories and has attracted support from a few notable academics-including late Oxford professor W.D. Hamilton. But it's definitely wrong. Hooper says Koprowski got his kidney samples from chimps in the Congo. The problem is that the SIV strain endemic to chimps from that region is phylogenetically distinct from HIV. The offending chimps probably came from Cameroon."

But the claim that the OPV theory is definitely wrong is itself incorrect. The precise source of the chimpanzees that bore the SIV (or SIVs) that crossed into humans to make HIV-1 is still unproven. Ms Lapidos asserts that they "probably came from Cameroon", but the truth is that we still don't know. However, there is documentary evidence that at least one Pan troglodytes troglodytes (Ptt) chimpanzee from the west central African region that includes Cameroon was present among Koprowski's chimps in the Congo. (In reality, there were probably several such Ptt chimps present, but the one single documented chimp proves the point.) Because these chimps were co-caged and group-caged together, an SIV introduced by one single chimpanzee could have infected many others in the camp. For the OPV theory to work, it requires only one such SIV-infected chimp to provide kidney cells or sera that were used in the vaccine.

I was surprised at that very technical phrasing: "phylogenetically distinct from HIV" in the Lapidos article. Where had she picked up such a phrase, I wondered. But my surprise only lasted until I reached the bottom of the article, where Michael Worobey is thanked for his help. It seems that Dr Worobey is actively trying to discredit the OPV theory on the Web. Of course, one of the best ways of doing that is to try to link it to daft conspiracy theories.....and then for good measure to assert that it's "definitely wrong".

In an accompanying article, "HIV-1 in 1908?", I reveal among other things that Dr Worobey (who writes articles that seek to prove that the OPV theory is "definitely wrong") has been actively collaborating for the last seven years with the doctors who made and administered the suspect vaccine that was used in the Congo in the 1950s. These include Dr Koprowski's deputy in that era, Dr Stanley Plotkin. We may also safely assume that Dr Koprowski himself, now 91, is a "silent partner" in the enterprise. Now we see Worobey actively trying to diss the OPV theory on the Web. And he claims that he doesn't have an agenda!

Sorry, Dr Worobey, but you've been found out. Again!!

Ed Hooper. October 10th, 2008.

Michael Worobey’s possession of 1950s tissue samples from Stanleyville (Kisangani).

Michael Worobey’s first active participation in the origins-of-AIDS debate is believed to have occurred in late 1999, when Professor Bill Hamilton (a highly-respected evolutionary biologist, then rated by many as the “star” of the Royal Society) was seeking someone to accompany him on his second trip to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to test the SIV of wild chimpanzees.

Some background. Since I first met him in 1993, Bill Hamilton had been my mentor, and he wrote a powerful and highly supportive foreword to “The River”. In July 1999, after the book was completed but before it was published, Bill and I spent just over a week in the DRC, but we had some quite serious disagreements during the trip, which focussed on whether I was there mainly to help him with the collection of samples from local chimpanzees, or was also there to conduct my own historical research into Lindi Camp and the Laboratoire Medical de Stanleyville. We had obtained visas from the rebel government based in Kisangani (formerly Stanleyville) that were good for six further months, and Bill in particular wanted to return there to do more research. Since he and I were, by late 1999, still going through a cooling-off period (and since I was busy dealing with the response to The River, published in September 1999), Bill looked around for a companion in his own Department of Zoology at Oxford University, and came across a young Rhodes Scholar, Michael Worobey, who suggested that they also bring along a Canadian friend of his, Jeff Joy, who had practical skills and experience of living in the wilds.