Miami Herald - October 31, 2007
Steve Rothaus blog; Via gay journalist Rex Wockner

From: Larry Kramer

To: Dr. Michael Worobey

Subject: from larry kramer re: hiv's path out of africa

dear professor worobey,

i hope my name might be familiar to you. i helped to start two of the earliest of aids organizations, gay men's health crisis and ACT UP.

i read with interest of your discovery about hiv's path out of africa. it is interesting that this story is getting so much play. in the early 80's this theory was widely considered. haitians were one of the highest risk groups at that time and would have remained so-named were it not for considerable protest from the haitians themselves for being so singled out.

i offer these thoughts of mine.

in the agence france-presse version of your announcement, there is this sentence: "The timing suggests that it was more likely to have been a Haitian immigrant or immigrants than U.S. sex tourists returning from Haiti, because it did not become a destination for them until the 1970s, Dr. Worobey said."

i do not believe this to be necessarily true. gays were going to haiti for sex in the 60's, probably in the 50's. true the major numbers were in the 70's, but there certainly were pioneers who had discovered the easy availability of haitian men before then, much as they had discovered thailand and morocco, say.

i also believe that hiv got into the gay population from infected factor viii, which was being sold to hemophiliacs beginning in the 70's, by several companies most particularly baxter-tavanol. they made this factor viii from huge amounts of pooled blood that they collected from all over the world and including from refugees who had fled africa after the terrorist massacres of such as idi amin. laurie garrett has written about this in her book, the coming plague. these companies knew their product was infected with something but they sold it anyway. i believe hiv got into the gay community via a gay hemophiliac on factor viii.

the "single" person coming to america with hiv that you posit need not have been a haitian.

i would be interested in your comments.

larry kramer

***

RESPONSE

Date: Wed, 31 Oct 2007 08:04:12 -0700

From: Michael Worobey

To: Larry Kramer

the "single" person coming to america with hiv that you posit need not have been a haitian.

I agree and have tried to say so to every reporter I've talked to. Check out the "Listen" link here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7068574.stm

Offline for a bit now...

Cheers,
Mike

Dr. Michael Worobey
Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
University of Arizona
Tucson, AZ 85721

071031
MH071006

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