WI: HIV doesn't exist

No one knows where HIV/AIDs first originated for sure, but scientists believe HIV has it's origins with a similar disease that affects primates called SIV (Simian Immunodeficiency Virus). What they believe happened is SIV-afflicted chimps, living in southwestern Cameroon near the forests of the Congo, first infected humans with HIV in 1908. In the 1920s, HIV spread through Leopoldville (now known as Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of the Congo) by way of anti-venereal disease needles, which were being reused repeatedly instead of being disposed of. (In fact, it is believed that the needles were only cleansed with alcohol before being used again). As a result of this, people were infected with HIV.

Around this time, HIV, as with most diseases, mutated into subtypes, 9, to be exact. Subtype C went to India, whereas the following is believed to be the fate of Subtype B.

In the 1960s when the Belgians left the Congo, French-speaking Haitians acquired jobs in the Congo as lawyers, doctors, etc, where they were infected with Subtype B of HIV. When Zaire was created, the immigrants felt unwelcome so they went back to Haiti, bringing the disease with them. HIV spread throughout Haiti, aided unknowingly by a plasmapheresis centre which mixed the blood plasma of different donors, spreading the virus.

Around 1969, HIV entered the United States. In the 1980s, the HIV epidemic in the US began, leading to not only a staggering death toll, but the vilification of minorities, such as homosexuals, who were (and in some cases, still are) often branded as spreaders of HIV.

So, what if for some reason, HIV never made the jump from simians to humans? What if HIV never existed?

(I wasn't sure where to put this thread. I know stopping a disease is somewhat ASB, but I didn't feel like it belonged in the ASB thread)
 
...

Around 1969, HIV entered the United States. In the 1980s, the HIV epidemic in the US began, leading to not only a staggering death toll, but the vilification of minorities, such as homosexuals, who were (and in some cases, still are) often branded as spreaders of HIV.

...

I recall discussions of DNA evidence that HIV has been in the US since the 1950s, possibly earlier. The hypothesis is the disease was so rare it was routinely misdiagnosed. Until in the 1970s when enough examples turned up to become clear there was a unidentified disease.

This trivial point does not undercut the OP.

I suspect the effects would include continued failures in keeping blood transfusions safe, until some other problem forces the issue. Many other effects.
 

BlondieBC

Banned
No one knows where HIV/AIDs first originated for sure, but scientists believe HIV has it's origins with a similar disease that affects primates called SIV (Simian Immunodeficiency Virus). What they believe happened is SIV-afflicted chimps, living in southwestern Cameroon near the forests of the Congo, first infected humans with HIV in 1908. In the 1920s, HIV spread through Leopoldville (now known as Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of the Congo) by way of anti-venereal disease needles, which were being reused repeatedly instead of being disposed of. (In fact, it is believed that the needles were only cleansed with alcohol before being used again). As a result of this, people were infected with HIV.

Around this time, HIV, as with most diseases, mutated into subtypes, 9, to be exact. Subtype C went to India, whereas the following is believed to be the fate of Subtype B.

In the 1960s when the Belgians left the Congo, French-speaking Haitians acquired jobs in the Congo as lawyers, doctors, etc, where they were infected with Subtype B of HIV. When Zaire was created, the immigrants felt unwelcome so they went back to Haiti, bringing the disease with them. HIV spread throughout Haiti, aided unknowingly by a plasmapheresis centre which mixed the blood plasma of different donors, spreading the virus.

Around 1969, HIV entered the United States. In the 1980s, the HIV epidemic in the US began, leading to not only a staggering death toll, but the vilification of minorities, such as homosexuals, who were (and in some cases, still are) often branded as spreaders of HIV.

So, what if for some reason, HIV never made the jump from simians to humans? What if HIV never existed?

(I wasn't sure where to put this thread. I know stopping a disease is somewhat ASB, but I didn't feel like it belonged in the ASB thread)

Bit off on facts. HIV jumped to Humans from at least two species (Chimps and a monkey). The main type has multiple subtypes, and if memory serves me right, each of these may subtypes may be a different primate to human event. Given this background, it is very unlikely that HIV jumping to humans can be prevent, but it of course can take a different path.

The Kinshasa spread probably has more to do with big population movements, big populations and improving sanitation/health care. Since AIDS spreads so poorly, the disease would be unlikely to survive in a non-mobile population of low density. Especially if these people had regular exposure to disease like smallpox. AIDS is not a disease that survives epidemics well.

You also have the Haitians only partially correct. The French speaking Belgians used Haitians well before WW2 as the second tier of colonial control. It is a common colonial practice to create an outgroup not like by the general population to help you rule. Haitians in this case.

As to the effects of no-AIDS, you just have to reverse the known impacts. Africa would have several hundred million more people. Good chance the more swinging lifestyle and higher number of sexual partners in the western world. If everything bad from sex can be cured with a shot of antibiotics, there will be more sex. Minorities will be villified, but by different means.
 

BlondieBC

Banned
I recall discussions of DNA evidence that HIV has been in the US since the 1950s, possibly earlier. The hypothesis is the disease was so rare it was routinely misdiagnosed. Until in the 1970s when enough examples turned up to become clear there was a unidentified disease.

This trivial point does not undercut the OP.

I suspect the effects would include continued failures in keeping blood transfusions safe, until some other problem forces the issue. Many other effects.

Not misdiagnosed so much, but not the final cause of death. In a world of plagues (smallpox, etc) and a world of no antibiotics, a person would die of an opportunistic infection long before the symptoms we associate with AIDS appear. So a share of the men who "died of a tough case of pneumonia" really died of HIV, but would be missed. And even today, I don't know we would catch the HIV.

Bit ASB, but imagine smallpox came back via terrorism. Not OTL smallpox, but the Russian version made to bypass the vaccines. Would we test someone who died of smallpox for HIV anywhere in the treatment process? Or maybe we just have an 100% antibiotic resistant version of pneumonia. Some guy in his 40s is missing a lot of work because he is sickly. On one of these episodes, the catches this version of pneumonia and is dead a week later. Do we test for HIV on the standard protocol? I think we would still miss most of these cases.
 
I wonder if gays in the USA would have gained as many legal rights ie marriage. I remember some of the religious rights verbal attacks on gays and how it made many people uncomfortable with the attacks. The more extreme the attacks the more it sound like the KKK, skin heads, and other extreme groups. Regardless of a person's personal views, a lot of people did not want to be associated with those type of extreme groups.

As more gays came out of the closet, the more people realized that they did not fit the stereotypes that the religious right were pushing.
 
I recall discussions of DNA evidence that HIV has been in the US since the 1950s, possibly earlier. The hypothesis is the disease was so rare it was routinely misdiagnosed. Until in the 1970s when enough examples turned up to become clear there was a unidentified disease.

This trivial point does not undercut the OP.

I suspect the effects would include continued failures in keeping blood transfusions safe, until some other problem forces the issue. Many other effects.
Probably HepB, via whole blood, Anti-D or Factor 8/9. Though syphilis was transmitted via transfused blood since (IIRR) 1941.
 
No HIV would result in far less $$$ for research that spins off into other related areas. Once the Feds started funding HIV research on a large scale we would know far about about genetics, immunology and infectious disease.
 

Philip

Donor
I wonder if gays in the USA would have gained as many legal rights ie marriage. I remember some of the religious rights verbal attacks on gays and how it made many people uncomfortable with the

I wonder if this would, out of apathy rather then malice, actually delay wide-spread acceptance. The contrast of images of people dying of AIDS against the image of rabid preachers proclaiming God's judgement generated a great deal of sympathy among those who were undecided or unaware.

The AIDS crisis also provided a focal point that caused many within the community to decide that they could not remain silent and live in the shadows. Certainly there would still be a political movement, but it may not be as galvanized without life and death staring them in the face. Many who became activists might choose not to.
 
Not misdiagnosed so much, but not the final cause of death. In a world of plagues (smallpox, etc) and a world of no antibiotics, a person would die of an opportunistic infection long before the symptoms we associate with AIDS appear. So a share of the men who "died of a tough case of pneumonia" really died of HIV, but would be missed. And even today, I don't know we would catch the HIV.
The OTL spread of AIDS came when it reached professional gay men in the late seventies. The OP of this thread says the jump into a significant part of the population does not happen. So AIDS remains in Africa, isolated, rare and undiagnosed. Sure, it's ASB to say the disease does not exist, but like the Ebola scare of 2014, it might not have become a crisis if "victim zero" did not get it or transmit it.

So, what happens? The stigma against gay men is less. There is more tolerance for unprotected sex. A late-seventies attitude towards STD's prevails to this day. The cultural impact is difficult to predict, because that attitude was born only ten years earlier, in the sixties. For it to continue on for forty years, there would probably be greater problems with antibiotic-resistant VD. It means less ammunition for the religious right at first, but it doesn't quiet them down much overall. I don't think it will speed up same-sex marriage, since that issue required generational change.
 

BlondieBC

Banned
The OTL spread of AIDS came when it reached professional gay men in the late seventies. The OP of this thread says the jump into a significant part of the population does not happen. So AIDS remains in Africa, isolated, rare and undiagnosed. Sure, it's ASB to say the disease does not exist, but like the Ebola scare of 2014, it might not have become a crisis if "victim zero" did not get it or transmit it.

So, what happens? The stigma against gay men is less. There is more tolerance for unprotected sex. A late-seventies attitude towards STD's prevails to this day. The cultural impact is difficult to predict, because that attitude was born only ten years earlier, in the sixties. For it to continue on for forty years, there would probably be greater problems with antibiotic-resistant VD. It means less ammunition for the religious right at first, but it doesn't quiet them down much overall. I don't think it will speed up same-sex marriage, since that issue required generational change.

No it did not. At no time in the history of AIDS were gay men the majority of cases. Or even 25% of case. AIDS has been, is, and will be primarily a disease that impacts heterosexuals due to the ratio of straight to gay.
 
No it did not. At no time in the history of AIDS were gay men the majority of cases. Or even 25% of case. AIDS has been, is, and will be primarily a disease that impacts heterosexuals due to the ratio of straight to gay.
The relative infection ratio of straight to gay is not as relevant as the public perception of the role of gays in the spread of the disease. Without AIDS being known, gays would be less feared and as a result, less rejected.
 
I would have to argue that, without the spectre of iconically horrific death transmitted through bodily fluids, the position of queer people--queer men, particularly--would be so much better. HIV literally took the lives of a generation of people, including many of the most prominent political and cultural leaders, and even now is used to attack us. So many of our political energies had to be redirected into a fight for mere survival.

LGBTQ rights would be hugely advanced without the HIV epidemic. I would not think that marriage equality, for instance, would be delayed; there were other incentives for same-sex couples to have their relationships recognized by the state than the HIV catastrophe. Simply not being able to identify queer people as a vector for apocalyptic disease would be a huge advance over OTL.
 
I think social acceptance of LGBT people would advance more rapidly than IOTL, while legal advances would advance more slowly. Without AIDS you probably get a much less powerful Christian Right. There would still be a backlash against the sexual changes of the 60s-70s, but it would be largely confined to the older generations without the prospect of a deadly STD to scare kids into relative chastity. Alot of the energy and political maneuvering that IOTL would be focused on abstinence would shift over to the War on Drugs, which was bipartisan and not really connected to religion. A possible butterly is that Pat Robertson's presidential campaign doesn't happen ITTL and the GOP has a somewhat bigger tent regarding issues such as abortion and gay rights.

At the same time, alot of gay cultural figures who IOTL died of AIDS (Freddie Mercury, Perry Ellis, Keith Haring, and plenty of people who never got the chance to realize their full potential) would have survived and continued to be influential. Combined with the androgynous trends in the early 80s (think Boy George) you could see being gay start to acquire a certain cultural cachet in the right circles. This would make it easier to come out, as would not having death be the first thing people associate with the word "gay," and without the deaths from AIDS the pool of people available to come out would be larger. You would probably get a gradually increasing acceptance of homosexuality once people realize their cousin/childhood best friend/favorite teacher is gay, but about a decade earlier than IOTL.

On the other hand, alot of the gay activist movement in the 80s-90s was a direct response to AIDS. With no AIDS you don't get ACT UP, and the gay activist movement that exists is probably much less radical and focused on combating Anita Bryant types. You would also get less interest in marriage equality among the gay community ITTL. IOTL the initial motivation for domestic partnerships was to get gay men on their partners' health insurance, which becomes a much less pressing matter without AIDS, and people like Andrew Sullivan advocated for marriage as a way to reduce promiscuity. ITTL support for marriage equality would probably be motivated by people like Edith Windsor, so you'd have to wait for a substantial population of older gay couples with property to develop in the 2000s. Once this happens, I could see marriage equality or at least some sort of domestic partnership being much less controversial, and potentially garnering support from Republican opponents of the 'death tax'.
 
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