Ever since HIV/Aids was
first identified in the US in 1981, rumours have persisted as to its cause and
origin.
One of the most outlandish
theories that has nevertheless captured the imagination of conspiracists is
that the deadly virus was created by the CIA to wipe out homosexuals and
African Americans on the orders of US president Richard Nixon.
It boasts a number of
high-profile supporters including former South African president Thabo Mbeki
who once touted the theory, ”disputing scientific claims that the virus
originated in Africa and accusing the US government of manufacturing the
disease in military labs“ says Times magazine. Meanwhile, a number of prominent
scientists, including former Nobel Peace Prize Kenyan ecologist Wangari
Maathai, have also backed the theory.
There is evidence that the
CIA connection was, in fact, created by the KGB as part of a Cold War
disinformation campaign to discredit the US.
Dubbed Operation Infektion,
the USSR published letters from ”anonymous US official sources“ in scientific
journals and newspapers throughout the 1980s claiming that virus was a CIA
experiment gone wrong. This initially remained within the medical community but
as the epidemic grew, the theory took hold and persists to this day.
Despite this, most scientist
and doctors agree that the virus jumped from monkeys to humans somewhere in the
Congo during the 1930s.
