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Could the eradication of smallpox have been a factor in the spread of HIV? That’s the question posed by researchers in the journal BMC Immunology, who think that the vaccine might have offered partial protection against HIV. As smallpox was wiped out, fewer people received the vaccine. The HIV explosion followed.
In this small study, the researchers exposed immune cells from 10 smallpox-vaccinated people to HIV. Cells from 10 people never vaccinated against smallpox were also exposed. And HIV did replicate much more successfully in the cells from the non-vaccinated subjects. [Raymond S. Weinstein et al., http://bit.ly/co5llO]
Further research confirming the relationship between stopping the smallpox vaccine and the rise of HIV would not surprise William McNeill. The author of the classic book Plagues and Peoples also wrote a chapter titled "Patterns of Disease Emergence in History" for the 1993 book Emerging Viruses. He mused on our ability to “insulate ourselves from local and frequent disasters.” But doing so comes at the cost of “creating a new vulnerability to some larger disaster.” McNeill concluded: “Perhaps what we face as humans is a conservation of catastrophe.”
—Steve Mirsky
[The above text is an exact transcript of this podcast.]
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11 Comments
Add CommentIt would seem relatively simple to take an age matched group of high risk people (drug use, gay, hemophilia) and if possible find out if they had received cow pox vaccination for small pox. If the vaccination group showed a lower incidence of HIV or less severe immune compromise when infected we would have another, stronger indication of any value of small pox vaccination for HIV. Has this been looked at? Will it be looked at? Yes, older people are more likely to have been vaccinated but vaccination and HIV are both common enough that this should probably be possible.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOh, great...more ammunition for the pro-death crowd. "See?? If we hadn't vaccinated, we wouldn't have HIV!!"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisInteresting, but I do hope they have tested cells from the same age-group for the vaccinated and the non-vaccinated?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo the small pox vaccine provided protection against the replication of HIV cells. That sounds like SUPPORT for vaccination if you ask me. This is really interesting, the eradication of one enemy paved the way for a new one.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this...the eradication of one enemy actually helped LIMIT the spread of the new one, if this study plays out.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThey also should check people whom the doctors have given large amounts, and unnecessary amounts, of antibiotics. Over use of antibiotics have greatly weakened peoples immune systems; opening them up to numerous diseases and allergens.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf the Smallpox vaccine did slow down the HIV virus, then maybe they should start giving people who are affected with the HIV Smallpox vaccine. If you can vaccinate people against Smallpox, then you should be able to vaccinate people against HIV.
I first know Smallpox Vaccine can protection against HIV .I think the viruses may be have the same struction at some way.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt seems to me that the spread of HIV during the late 1970's and 1980's certainly would have been among people who had been vaccinated against small pox as children. This small study may seem interesting, but I doubt the premise. Yes, children in the 1970's were no longer vaccinated for small pox, but those children were not those who were infected with HIV during the initial worldwide spread.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisM G, Ph.D.
The worldwide epidemic of HIV began in the late 1970's and 1980's. Those who were infected and who transmitted the disease through sexual contact or through shared needles or blood products would definatelyvhave been vaccinated with small pox as children, since vaccination was not discountinued until 1972!!!!!.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMEG Ph.D.
Vanpouille et al. 2007 showed that vaccinia infects CCR5+ cells, so thre are fewer of these available for HIV infection. JOURNAL OF VIROLOGY, Nov. 2007, p. 1245812464 Vol. 81, No. 22.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAn interesting study that gives some hope to the majority of us. Maybe HIV is a mutation of Small-pox, which may be a mutation of Cow-pox! We might be onto something here. Our Cow-pox-based vaccine might prove to be the foundation launcher of the illusive HIV vaccine.
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