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AIDS: Contagion and Confusion

Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) is a disease that results from a viral infection that damages the immune system. A damaged immune system cannot protect the body from other infections and cancers, and these secondary illnesses often result in death.

There are actually at least 10 strains of the AIDS virus, called the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), with different strains existing in different geographical areas. People may carry more than one strain in their bodies.

How AIDS is Transmitted

Non-animal clinical, epidemiological, and in vitro studies successfully isolated the virus that causes AIDS and demonstrated how the virus is transmitted in people. Clinical evidence shows that AIDS is transmitted only through blood, semen, and vaginal fluids. The virus dies quickly outside the body, so it cannot be transmitted through the air or through casual contact. Because AIDS can develop years after initial infection, it is impossible to predict how many people might get the disease.

The origin of the AIDS virus is unknown. The AIDS virus is similar to a virus found in African green monkeys, but there is no evidence that the simian virus caused the human virus. Other theories suggest that the AIDS virus was genetically engineered in a laboratory studying simian viruses, or that it resulted from live viral vaccines, particularly the smallpox vaccine, altering the immune system.

Infecting Primates

Animal experiments are neither necessary nor useful in studying how AIDS infects or affects humans. Even when injected with the AIDS virus, chimpanzees do not develop the disease. Experimenters continue to use them in AIDS studies because chimpanzees and humans share 99 percent of their genetic composition.

Experimenters have reported that two baboons infected with the H.I.V. virus beginning in 1988 have developed AIDS-like symptoms.(1) However the "achievement" of subjecting another species to this horrible disease has not produced any benefits to human patients and draws precious research funds away from the study of the disease in infected humans, who are already in abundant supply.

An increasing number of scientists are questioning the appropriateness of using endangered species, including chimpanzees, in such harmful tests. The National Academy of Sciences' Institute of Medicine issued a report stating that they are "gravely concerned that chimpanzees have been and might be used for experiments for which the rationale is not compelling in light of the scarcity and irreplaceable nature of these animals." (2)

Chimpanzees Isolated

Experimenters often keep AIDS-infected chimpanzees locked in small steel-and-glass isolation chambers in laboratories, where these highly social animals often become insane from stress and loneliness. The stress of confinement also suppresses the chimpanzees' immune systems, making accurate AIDS studies impossible. According to the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, "chimpanzees and other animals have contributed nothing to progress in AIDS research that could not have been gained in other ways." (3)

Despite the repeated failures of the chimpanzee experiments, the National Institutes of Health spent more than $10 million in 1987 to fund them, and an additional $4.5 million has been allocated for a chimpanzee breeding program called the Chimpanzee Management Plan.

Education Is Needed

Although AIDS research first focused on ways to prevent infection, the difficulty of producing a vaccine for a virus that attacks the immune system has prompted scientists to shift their efforts toward finding drugs that slow the virus' progression.

Many scientists believe that the only way to stop the disease is through public education about the way it is transmitted. In a speech at Ohio Wesleyan University, former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop stressed the need to focus on AIDS education and prevention, saying, "There never will be a cure, and the likelihood of a vaccine is dim."(4)

Given the evidence, our limited resources would be better spent teaching people how to avoid AIDS, rather than attempting to spread the disease to other primates.

References

1. Altman, Lawrence K., "AIDS Drugs Fail to Curb Dementia and Nerve Damage," New York Times, Nov. 1, 1994.
2. Institute of Medicine, "Confronting AIDS," National Academy of Sciences, 1986, pp. 207-8.
3. Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, "AIDS Research: Problems With the Animal Model," PCRM Update, March-April 1987.
4. Koop, Dr. C. Everett, speech at Ohio Wesleyan University, quoted in The Advocate, Oct. 18, 1994.