The origin of AIDS?

[brian]

This seems like an interesting idea that's been put forward after study.

The short of it is that two viruses met in Chimpanzees - then mixed - then matched - to create the progenitor of the human HIV virus.

'Dual source' caused Aids-like virus

[scifimoth]

Facinating stuff. Have you ever read "The Coming Plague" AIDS is discussed at some length in that book. Including how you could literally trace the advance of the disease across Africa....
Virology is scary stuff....I read a book about bactrial resistance not too long ago, there are some frightening implications there.

[brian]

Absolutely, The laissez-faire attitude to anti-biotics in the intensive farmed animal industry has been pretty shocking.

One of my girlfriend's friends has a small skin cancer removed - only to find she'd caught the "superbug" - MRMA or something- I forget the acronym.

Anyway, what was most astonishing was the way the NHS dealt with it - there she is on the ward with her knee cut wide open to drain the pus, pumped full of reserve antibiotic - only to some bloke with a flesh-eating infection placed in the bed directly next to her and her open wound!

Or so is told - quite believably so as well. Apparently not at all uncommon either (my family has a small nursing/carer tradition).

[scifimoth]

Yes, stuff like that is not uncommon. Not as uncommon as it should be. I most major hospitals it is fairly easy to find multi-drug resistant bugs. There are a couple of bacteria out there that have strains that are completely resistant to all but a couple of drugs, and partly resistant to a lot of what remains.
They are doing research into phages, have been for years to hopefully find an alternative to the usage of anibiotics. We are not to far away from the days where our "silver bullets" will no longer kill the monsters.