What is the origin of the HIV virus?
The disease entity that later came to be known as AIDS seemed to pop out of nowhere about the year 1981. For the general public, awareness began as a series of rumors that gay men were getting sick with illnesses that were rarely seen in modern America, and almost never seen in young men. Many people, including some scientists and journalists attributed it to the gay lifestyle, since it seemed to be confined to that population. In 1982, the term “AIDS” was first used to describe the syndrome. It was not until 1984 when Dr. Robert Gallo claimed to have discovered the virus that it became widely known that AIDS was linked to a specific disease causing entity, and not simply to lifestyle issues. (In reality, the virus was first isolated at the Pasteur institute in France the year before, but the full implications of the discovery were not recognized at that time.) As the biological characteristics of the virus were discovered over the next few years, scientists noted its similarity to SIV
