Wow, lots of replies!
How do you find an AIDS vaccine that early on?
You don't.
The AIDS virus is thought to have been in humans for decades before it became widespread IOTL. My purpose in writing this TL is, at least in part, to show what kind of bullet we dodged...
Looks like this will destroy the British Empire. And the, er, sea men of the Royal Navy are the culprits. Irony on so many levels.
Hardly. In fact it may prolong it. With the disease propagating as OTL many colonies in Africa are hardly going to be in a good state for independence. Of course OTOH the expense may cause the colonial powers to cut them loose that much faster...
The Spanish flu may actually be a blessing since VID carriers would be more likely to die of it; the spread will be slowed, at least for a while.
Just had a nasty thought for WWII (assuming it isn't butterflied); weaponized VID. It wouldn't be like normal biological weapons; it would be a suicide weapon. During an equivalent to Barbarossa, the Soviets inject women left behind to the Nazi advance with AIDS-infected fluid. They then try to seduce as many invaders as they can, to incapacitate the Nazi soldiers. This kind of thing would only be possible in totalitarian dictatorships; the Soviets I see as the principle users of such a tactic, possibly the Nazis adopt it during the final days, and Japan may make plans to use it, or try to spread it in China.
That's nasty. And rather plausible...
I can see a slightly earlier rise of the Nazis in this scenario. If there is a significant VID outbreak in Germany, I can see them blaming it on the Jews, as the Black Death was. And it can be called a disease of homosexuals, who the Nazis also hated.
Definitely.
The worst thing about all of this is that it's happening just as blood transfusions become possible on a large scale. Especially since, at least according to the Genocide, contaminated blood transfusions are by far the most consistent source of infection (about 90% of those exposed to HIV that way end up infected). And I have no idea how long it would be before they'd have any way to reliably test for the presence of HIV.
The blood test for HIV was discovered about 3 years after the disease was. Blood testing for diseases was already discovered at the time of the POD: the blood test for syphilis was invented in 1906, for instance. However the method was very unrefined and tested false positives for other diseases as well. The modern test method used to detect AIDS antibodies was discovered in 1971. TTL I suspect it will be discovered earlier...
Blood banks became widespread before tests for many diseases such as hepatitis were available; TTL I think the most common response will be to hold on to the blood for several months and monitor the donors for symptoms before using it.
We could also see an enhanced conservatism on all sexual and cultural habits, as this early AIDS epidemy will kill the Sexual Revolution before it even came to existence. The Roaring Twenties will not be as free as in our timeline. A return of Victorian values, maybe?
Probably not the return of Victorian values. The sexual revolution was only made possible by birth control and condoms are an effective barrier against AIDS. What we may see is a focus on safe sex and less... enthusiastic free love movements.
I plan to update this TL once a week or so, RL permitting. Stay tuned...