Saturday, February 11, 2012

Dr. Mikovits and Retrovirology 101

Dr. Mikovits about human retroviruses:
We don't know where any of the human retroviruses come from. We've been studying them now a hundred years. There are quite a few of them in nature in all animals. The human retroviruses nobody knows how they got into the human population from another animal.
What utter BS.

First of all, we have been studying animal retroviruses for a hundred years. Human retroviruses on the other hand were thought not to exists until HTLV and HIV were found in the eighties. So we have been studying "them" now for almost three decades – not for "a hundred years".

And no, actually we have a pretty good idea how HIV came from another animal.
A *very* common exchange I have with the general public regarding HIV-1:
Person-- Where did HIV-1 come from?

Me-- HIV-1 is related to a virus we can find in African primates, SIV. SIV crossed over from chimpanzees to the human population to make 'HIV' sometime in the late 1800s, early 1900s. This event happened at least three times, giving us the three groups of HIV-1, Groups M, N, and O, however it most likely has occurred numerous times over the course of human evolution, it just never lead to a pandemic like what we have with HIV-1 today. You can go get blood samples from African hunters right now and find viruses not found in any other human.

Person-- *makes a face* From eating monkeys? It wasnt from (whispers) having sex with monkeys?

Me-- I seriously doubt it. People in other parts of the world hunt and eat monkeys the same way we hunt and eat deer. Technically, I would actually bet it would be easier to have sex with an unwilling deer than an unwilling chimpanzee. Opposable thumbs and like twice the strength of a human and such.
Dr. Mikovits has a problem, that she is unable to represent reality.

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