Name: Was AIDS a CIA Experiment That Got Out of Control? The Army's Biological Warfare Program
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Description: The use of biological warfare by any military force is considered a violation of international law, and it is strictly prohibited by the Biological Weapons Convention of 1972. That being said, the his

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US Army biological experiments Operation Sea-Spray Tuskegee Syphilis Study Operation Big Buzz Project 112 CIA and AIDS conspiracy theories biological warfare HIV/AIDS epidemic origin and spread of HIV/AIDS African-American communities

The use of biological warfare by any military force is considered a violation of international law, and it is strictly prohibited by the Biological Weapons Convention of 1972.

That being said, the history of biological warfare is a long and complex one, and many armies around the world have researched and experimented with biological agents in the past.

During World War II, Japan's military conducted experiments on prisoners of war and civilians using biological agents such as anthrax and bubonic plague. In the United States, the Army Biological Warfare Laboratories were established in 1943 to research and develop biological agents for military use.

In the 1950s, the United States and other countries signed the Biological Weapons Convention, which banned the development, production, and stockpiling of biological weapons.

Today, the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) continues to research infectious diseases and other biological agents, but with a focus on developing vaccines and treatments rather than weapons. The organization also conducts research to help prevent the use of biological weapons by other countries or terrorist groups.

The US Army has a controversial history of conducting biological experiments on both military personnel and civilians. Some of the most well-known examples of these experiments include:

Operation Sea-Spray (1950): In this experiment, the US Army released bacteria over San Francisco Bay to study the spread of biological weapons in a populated area. The experiment was conducted without the knowledge or consent of the general public, and many people became sick as a result.

Tuskegee Syphilis Study (1932-1972): This study was conducted by the US Public Health Service, but it involved cooperation from the US Army. The study aimed to observe the progression of untreated syphilis in African-American men, even though a cure for the disease was already available. The participants were not informed of the nature of the study and were not provided with proper medical care.

Operation Big Buzz (1955): This experiment involved the release of over 300,000 mosquitoes infected with yellow fever and other diseases over Georgia and Florida. The goal was to study the effectiveness of mosquito-borne biological weapons, but the experiment was conducted without the knowledge or consent of the public.

Project 112 (1962-1973): This was a series of biological and chemical warfare tests conducted by the US Army on military personnel. The tests involved exposure to biological and chemical agents, including nerve gas, and many participants experienced adverse health effects as a result.

These experiments have been widely criticized for their lack of ethical standards and the harm they caused to both military personnel and civilians. The US Army has since discontinued the use of human subjects in biological and chemical warfare experiments and has implemented stricter ethical standards for medical research.

There have been several allegations and conspiracy theories regarding the CIA's involvement in the origin and spread of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. However, there is no credible evidence to support these claims, and they have been widely debunked by experts in the field.

One of the most persistent allegations is that the CIA intentionally introduced the virus into the African-American and gay communities in the United States in the 1970s as part of a biological warfare program. Proponents of this theory point to the fact that many of the earliest cases of AIDS were found in these communities and suggest that the virus was deliberately spread through contaminated vaccines or other means.

However, there is no scientific evidence to support this theory, and it has been widely dismissed by researchers and public health officials. The most widely accepted theory is that the virus originated in Africa and was spread to other parts of the world through international travel and sexual contact.

There have also been allegations that the CIA was involved in a cover-up of the origins of the virus, possibly to protect its own interests or those of its allies.

Various fringe theories have arisen to speculate about purported alternative origins for the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), with claims ranging from it being due to accidental exposure to supposedly purposeful acts. Several inquiries and investigations have been carried out as a result, and each of these theories has consequently been determined to be based on unfounded and/or false information. HIV has been shown to have evolved from or be closely related to the simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) in West Central Africa sometime in the early 20th century. HIV was discovered in the 1980s by the French scientist Luc Montagnier. Before the 1980s, HIV was an unknown deadly disease.[1]
Discredited theories
Smallpox vaccination theory

In 1987 there was some consideration given to the possibility that the "AIDS epidemic may have been triggered by the mass vaccination campaign which eradicated smallpox". An article[2] in The Times suggested this, attributing to an unnamed "adviser to WHO" the quote "I believe the smallpox vaccine theory is the explanation to the explosion of AIDS". It is now thought that the smallpox vaccine causes serious complications for people who already have impaired immune systems, and the Times article described the case of a military recruit with "dormant HIV" who died within months of receiving it. But no citation was provided regarding people who did not previously have HIV. Currently HIV is considered[by whom?] to be a contraindication for the smallpox vaccine—both for an infected person and their sexual partners and household members.[3][4] Some conspiracy theorists propose an expanded hypothesis in which the smallpox vaccine was deliberately contaminated with HIV.[5]

In contrast, a research article was published in 2010 suggesting that it might have been the actual eradication of smallpox and the subsequent "ending" of the mass vaccination campaign that contributed to the sudden emergence of HIV. The theory was the possibility that immunization against smallpox "might play a role in providing an individual with some degree of protection to subsequent HIV infection and/or disease progression."[6][7] Regardless of the effects of the smallpox vaccine itself, its use in practice in Africa is one of the categories of un-sterile injections that may have contributed to the spread and mutation of the immunodeficiency viruses.[8]
Hepatitis B vaccine (HBV) theory

The dermatologist Alan Cantwell, in self-published books entitled AIDS and the Doctors of Death: An Inquiry into the Origin of the AIDS Epidemic (1988) and Queer Blood: The Secret AIDS Genocide Plot (1993), said that HIV is a genetically modified organism developed by U.S. Government scientists. The virus was then introduced into the population through hepatitis B (via the hepatitis B vaccine) experiments performed on gay and bisexual men between 1978 and 1981 in major U.S. cities. Cantwell claims that these experiments were directed by Wolf Szmuness, and that there was an ongoing government cover-up of the origins of the AIDS epidemic. Similar theories have been advanced by Robert B. Strecker,[9] Matilde Krim, and Milton William Cooper.
Oral polio vaccine (OPV) theory

In the 1999 version of his OPV AIDS hypothesis, Edward Hooper proposed that early batches of the oral polio vaccine (OPV) grown in cultures of chimpanzee kidney cells, infected with a chimpanzee virus, were the original source of HIV-1 in Central Africa. A vial of the batch most strongly implicated by Hooper was found in storage in the UK, and analysis found no HIV/SIV sequences or chimpanzee cellular components, but did find traces of macaque mitochondria. Analysis of five samples of OPV in storage at the Wistar Institute, including one from a batch used in the Belgian Congo between 1958 and 1960, found no chimpanzee DNA.[10] Other molecular biology and phylogenetic studies also contradict the hypothesis, and scientific consensus regards it as disproven.[11][12][13][14] A 2004 article in the journal Nature described the hypothesis as "refuted".[15]
Additional theories

These theories generally attribute HIV's origin to the US government or its contractors:
Created at Fort Detrick

Jakob Segal (1911–1995), a professor at Humboldt University in then-East Germany, proposed that HIV was engineered at a U.S. military laboratory at Fort Detrick, by splicing together two other viruses, Visna and HTLV-1. According to his theory, the new virus, created between 1977 and 1978, was tested on prison inmates who had volunteered for the experiment in exchange for early release. He further suggested that it was through these prisoners that the virus was spread to the population at large.

At the end of the Cold War, former KGB agents Vasili Mitrokhin and Oleg Gordievsky independently revealed that the Fort Detrick hypothesis was a propaganda operation devised by the KGB's First Chief Directorate codenamed "Operation INFEKTION". This revelation was later supported by officer Günther Bohnensack of section X of East Germany's Main Directorate for Reconnaissance.

It is known that Segal was in close contact with Russian KGB officers and Mitrokhin mentioned him as a central asset of the operation.[16][17] It is not entirely clear whether Segal pursued the hypothesis independently on his own accord or whether he was simply following orders. Segal himself always denied the latter and kept pursuing the hypothesis even after the operation had been canceled and the Cold War had ended.
Conspiracy to decrease the population

In Behold a Pale Horse (1991), radio broadcaster and author Milton William Cooper (1943–2001) proposed that AIDS was the result of a conspiracy to decrease the populations of blacks, Hispanics, and homosexuals.[18]
Prevalence of conspiracy beliefs

According to Phil Wilson, executive director of the Black AIDS Institute in Los Angeles, conspiracy theories are becoming a barrier to the prevention of AIDS since people start to believe that no matter what measures they take, they can still be prone to contracting this disease. A 2005 study suggests this makes them less careful when engaging in practices that put them at risk because they believe there is no point.[19] "Nearly half of the 500 African Americans surveyed said that HIV is man-made. More than one-quarter said they believed that AIDS was produced in a government laboratory, and 12 percent believed it was created and spread by the CIA ... At the same time, 75 percent said they believed medical and public health agencies are working to stop the spread of AIDS in black communities."[19]
Prominent endorsers of discredited theories
Nation of Islam

The Nation of Islam endorses the view that governments and pharmaceutical companies have pursued genocidal racist policies including the creation and spread of HIV. Consequently, the group called for a boycott of U.S.-sponsored vaccination programs for children. Leonard Horowitz has been cited as influential in the boycott decision.[20]
Wangari Maathai

The 2004 Nobel Peace Prize laureate and environmental activist Wangari Maathai was asked by a Time magazine interviewer if she stood by a previous alleged claim that "AIDS is a biological weapon manufactured by the developed world to wipe out the black race". Maathai responded, "I have no idea who created AIDS and whether it is a biological agent or not. But I do know things like that don't come from the moon. ... I guess there is some truth that must not be too exposed."[21] Maathai subsequently issued a written statement in December 2004: "I neither say nor believe that the virus was developed by white people or white powers in order to destroy the African people. Such views are wicked and destructive."[22]
Manto Tshabalala-Msimang

In 2000 South Africa's Minister of Health Manto Tshabalala-Msimang received criticism for distributing the chapter from Cooper's book discussing this theory to senior South African government officials.[23] Nicoli Nattrass, a longtime critic of AIDS denialists, criticized Tshabalala-Msimang for lending legitimacy to Cooper's theories and disseminating them in Africa.[24]
See also

Duesberg hypothesis
History of HIV/AIDS
Timeline of HIV/AIDS
HIV/AIDS denialism
HIV/AIDS denialism in South Africa
Operation INFEKTION
Oral polio vaccine AIDS hypothesis
SV40
Zoonosis

References

Sharp, P. M.; Bailes, E.; Chaudhuri, R. R.; Rodenburg, C. M.; Santiago, M. O.; Hahn, B. H. (2001). "The origins of acquired immune deficiency syndrome viruses: Where and when?". Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 356 (1410): 867–76. doi:10.1098/rstb.2001.0863. PMC 1088480. PMID 11405934.
Wright, Pearce (11 May 1987). "Smallpox vaccine 'triggered Aids virus'". The Times. London.
Maurer, DM; Harrington, B; Lane, JM (1 September 2003). "Smallpox Vaccine: Contraindications, Administration, and Adverse Reactions". American Family Physician. 68 (5): 889–96. PMID 13678138. Retrieved 20 June 2010.
"Questions and Answers About Smallpox Contraindications and Screening". Emergency Preparedness and Response. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Archived from the original on 9 June 2010. Retrieved 20 June 2010.
Kalambuka, Angeyo (1 December 2009). "Kenya: Don't Discount Conspiracy Theories on Origin of Aids". Daily Nation. Nairobi. Retrieved 20 June 2010.
Weinstein, RS; Weinstein, MM; Alibek, K; Bukrinsky, MI; Brichacek, Beda (18 May 2010). "Significantly reduced CCR5-tropic HIV-1 replication in vitro in cells from subjects previously immunized with Vaccinia Virus". BMC Immunology. BioMed Central. 11 (1): 23. doi:10.1186/1471-2172-11-23. ISSN 1471-2172. PMC 2881106. PMID 20482754.
Connor, Steve (19 May 2010). "Smallpox vaccine 'helped fight HIV'". The Independent. London. Retrieved 20 June 2010.
Marx PA, Alcabes PG, Drucker E (June 2001). "Serial human passage of simian immunodeficiency virus by unsterile injections and the emergence of epidemic human immunodeficiency virus in Africa". Philos. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. B Biol. Sci. 356 (1410): 911–20. doi:10.1098/rstb.2001.0867. PMC 1088484. PMID 11405938.
Archived at Ghostarchive and the Wayback Machine: "The Strecker Memorandum – AIDS is a man made disease". Retrieved 27 June 2015 – via YouTube.
Sarah Ramsay 28 April 2001 "Cold water downstream from The River" The Lancet 357 (9265) p.1343 doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(00)04536-0
Hillis DM (2000). "AIDS. Origins of HIV". Science. 288 (5472): 1757–1759. doi:10.1126/science.288.5472.1757. PMID 10877695. S2CID 83935412.
Birmingham K (2000). "Results make a monkey of OPV-AIDS theory". Nat Med. 6 (10): 1067. doi:10.1038/80356. PMID 11017114. S2CID 10860468.
Cohen J (2001). "AIDS origins. Disputed AIDS theory dies its final death". Science. 292 (5517): 615a–615. doi:10.1126/science.292.5517.615a. PMID 11330303. S2CID 70625478.
Origin of Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV/AIDS) Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website, Accessed 30 January 2007
Worobey M, Santiago M, Keele B, Ndjango J, Joy J, Labama B, Dhed'A B, Rambaut A, Sharp P, Shaw G, Hahn B (2004). "Origin of AIDS: contaminated polio vaccine theory refuted". Nature. 428 (6985): 820. Bibcode:2004Natur.428..820W. doi:10.1038/428820a. PMID 15103367. S2CID 4418410.
Andrew, Christopher; Vasili Mitrokhin (1999). The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB. Basic Books. p. 319. ISBN 0-465-00310-9.
Johanna Lutterroth: Aids-Verschwörung. Das Propaganda-Virus des KGB. Spiegel Geschichte, 2012-06-26 (German)
Carroll, Robert Todd (2003). "Illuminati". The Skeptic's Dictionary: A Collection of Strange Beliefs, Amusing Deceptions, and Dangerous Delusions. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. p. 175. ISBN 9781118045633. Retrieved 17 January 2013.
Fears, Darryl (25 January 2005). "Study: Many Blacks Cite AIDS Conspiracy". The Washington Post. Retrieved 12 June 2017.
Knight, Peter, Conspiracy Culture: From the Kennedy Assassination to the X-files, p. 202 ISBN 9780415189781
Faris, Stephan (10 October 2004). "10 Questions: Wangari Maathai". Time. Retrieved 19 March 2007.
from the Green Belt Movement website- Wangari Maathai's "The Challenge of AIDS in Africa" Archived 6 October 2011 at the Wayback Machine.
"SA Government steps into Aids row". BBC News. 14 September 2000. Retrieved 17 January 2013.

Nattrass, Nicoli (2012). The AIDS Conspiracy: Science Fights Back. New York: Columbia University Press. pp. 4, 23–27. ISBN 9780231149129. Retrieved 17 January 2013.

External links

Cecil Adams (4 June 1993). "Is AIDS a manmade disease?".

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Conspiracy theories
List of conspiracy theories
Overview
Core topics

Antiscience Cabals Civil Criminal Deception Espionage Fiction Political Pseudohistory Pseudoscience Secrecy Secret societies Urban legends and myths

Psychology

Attitude polarization Cognitive dissonance Communal reinforcement Confirmation bias Locus of control Machiavellianism Mass psychogenic illness
Moral panic Paranoia Psychological projection

Deaths and disappearances
Assassination /
suicide theories

Zachary Taylor (1850) Lord Kitchener (1916) Władysław Sikorski (1943) Adolf Hitler (1945) Subhas Chandra Bose (1945) Marilyn Monroe (1962) John F. Kennedy (1963) Lee Harvey Oswald (1963) Lal Bahadur Shastri (1966) Harold Holt (1967) Martin Luther King Jr. (1968) Robert F. Kennedy (1968) Pope John Paul I (1978) Jonestown (1978) Airey Neave (1979) Olof Palme (1986) Zia-ul-Haq (1988) Vince Foster (1993) Kurt Cobain (1994) Yitzhak Rabin (1995) Diana, Princess of Wales (1997) Nepalese royal family (2001) Yasser Arafat (2004) Osama bin Laden (2011) Jeffrey Epstein (2019) Chan Yin-lam (2019) John McAfee (2021)

Accidents / disasters

Mary Celeste (1872) RMS Titanic (1912) Great Kantō earthquake (1923) Dyatlov Pass (1959) Lost Cosmonauts (1950s / 1960s) TWA Flight 800 (1996) Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 (2014)

Other cases

Yemenite children (1948–54) Elvis Presley (1977) Lahad Datu standoff (2013)

Body double hoax

Paul McCartney (1966) Avril Lavigne (2003) Melania Trump (2017)

Energy, environment

Agenda 21 (1992) Climate change denial
False theories Free energy suppression Red mercury

False flag allegations

USS Maine (1898) RMS Lusitania (1915) Reichstag fire (1933) Pearl Harbor (1941) USS Liberty (1967) Widerøe Flight 933 (1982) KAL Flight 007 (1983) Mozambican presidential jet (1986) Pan Am Flight 103 (1988) Oklahoma City bombing (1995) 9/11 attacks (2001)
Advance knowledge WTC collapse Madrid train bombing (2004) London bombings (2005) Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 (2014)

Gender and sexuality

Alpha / beta males Anti-LGBT
Anti-gender movement Drag panic Gay agenda Gay Nazis myth HIV/AIDS stigma
United States Homintern Homosexual recruitment Grooming Litter box hoax GamerGate Incel ideology Larries Satanic panic Soy and masculinity

Health

Anti-vaccination
Autism
MMR in chiropractic Misinformation Aspartame controversy Big Pharma Chemtrails COVID-19
Ivermectin Lab leak Vaccines In Canada / Philippines Ebola Electronic harassment GMOs HIV/AIDS denialism
origins theories oral polio AIDS hypothesis Lepers' plot (1321) SARS (2003) Water fluoridation Pont-Saint-Esprit mass poisoning (1951)

Race, religion and/or ethnicity

COVID-19 and xenophobia Freemasons Gas chambers for Poles in Warsaw (1940s) German POWs post-WWII Greater Bangladesh Israeli animal theories Priory of Sion Product labeling
Halal Kosher War against Islam White genocide

Antisemitic

Andinia Plan Blood libel Cohen Plan Doctors' plot Dreyfus affair during the Black Death George Soros conspiracy theories Holocaust denial
Trivialization International Jewish conspiracy
Judeo-Masonic plot The Protocols of the Elders of Zion Jewish Bolshevism Judeopolonia World War II Z.O.G. Killing of Jesus Kalergi Plan New World Order Rothschilds Stab-in-the-back myth

Christian / Anti-Christian

Anti-Catholic
Jesuits Popish Plot Vatican Bible Siri thesis

Islamophobic

Counter-jihad Bihar human sacrifice Eurabia Great Replacement Love jihad Trojan Horse scandal

Genocide denial (list)

Armenian Bangladesh Bosnian Cambodian The Holocaust Holodomor Nanjing Rwandan Sayfo Serbs during WWII Uyghur

Regional
Canada

Cancellation of the Avro Arrow (1959) Leuchter report

Middle East / North Africa

In the Arab world
10 agorot Cairo fire Western-supported Iranian Revolution

Russia

Alaska payment Dulles' Plan Petrograd Military Organization Romanov family
Murder Rasputin Ukraine bioweapons

South Asia /
Southeast Asia

India
Cow vigilante violence Thailand
Finland Plot Philippines
Tallano gold

Turkey

2016 coup attempt
Ergenekon Operation Sledgehammer Armenian genocide denial Death of Turgut Özal Gezi Park protests Sèvres Syndrome

Other European

Spain
Mano Negra affair Sweden
Lilla Saltsjöbadsavtalet UK
Clockwork Orange plot Harold Wilson Voting pencil

United States

Apollo Moon landings Barack Obama
citizenship religion parentage Biden–Ukraine Black helicopter Business Plot CIA and JFK CIA assistance to bin Laden Clinton body count Cultural Marxism FEMA concentration camps HAARP Jade Helm 15 (2015) Montauk Project October Surprise (1980) Philadelphia Experiment (1943) Pizzagate (2016) The Plan (Washington, D.C.) Project Azorian (1974) QAnon
Pastel incidents Saddam–al-Qaeda Sandy Hook (2012) Seth Rich (2016) Spygate (2018) Trump–Ukraine (2019) "Vast right-wing conspiracy" Vietnam War
POW/MIA issue / Stab-in-the-back myth

2020 election

Italygate "Pence Card" Maricopa County ballot audit Stop the Steal

UFOs

Alien abduction Area 51 Black Knight satellite Cryptoterrestrial / Extraterrestrial / Interdimensional hypothesis Dulce Base Estimate of the Situation (1948) MJ-12 Men in black Nazi UFOs Project Serpo Reptilians

Incidents

Tunguska (1908) Foo Fighters (1940s) Los Angeles (1942) Ghost Rockets (1946) Maury Island (1947) Roswell (1947) Gorman Dogfight (1948) Mantell (1948) McMinnville (1950) Lubbock (1951) Washington, D.C. (1952) Barney and Betty Hill abduction (1961) Kecksburg (1965) Westall (1966) Jimmy Carter (1969) John Lennon (1974) Frederick Valentich (1978) Rendlesham Forest (1980) Cash-Landrum (1980) Japan Air Lines (1986) Varginha (1996) Phoenix Lights (1997) USS Nimitz (2004) Chicago (2006)

Other

2012 phenomenon Bermuda Triangle Flat Earth Illuminati Lake Michigan Triangle NESARA/GESARA New Coke Phantom time / New chronology Pseudolaw
Admiralty law Freeman on the land movement Redemption movement Sovereign citizens Strawman theory Tax protesters Shakespearean authorship

Satirical

Bielefeld Birds Aren't Real Li's field Ted Cruz–Zodiac Killer meme