The current worldwide AIDS crisis is about 20 years old, but the disease itself is much older. In fact, AIDS is only the latest chapter in the evolution of the complex retrovirus we call HIV. Where was HIV lurking before it emerged in the early 1980s? There is some evidence that the Western strain of HIV arose in Europe as early as 1939. There is even more evidence that HIV is a direct descendant of a virus which has long infected certain African apes and monkeys, a virus called SIV--simian immunodeficiency virus. But why is a virus that is harmless in monkeys so lethal in human beings? And why, after millennia of contact between African monkeys and humans, is SIV only now entering the human population in plague proportions?
In Viral Sex, leading AIDS researcher Jaap Goudsmit illuminates the origins and nature of the world's most lethal disease. He provides an eyewitness account of sciences effort to understand and control the spread of this deadly virus, in a fascinating journey that reaches from the deepest recesses of the African rainforest, to ancient Egypt and the mummified remains of Barbary apes, to pioneering research labs in the U.S. and Europe. A key idea in understanding the AIDS crisis, we discover, is the concept of "viral sex." We learn that HIV not only produces offspring that are almost exact copies of the parents, as do most other viruses, but that it can also reproduce sexually, creating a recombinant population of subtly varying members. This "viral sex" gives HIV an edge in adapting inside a foreign body, and this is why the virus could survive the leap from ape to man. But Goudsmit presents devastating evidence that the real villain of the AIDS epidemic is not HIV, but the ongoing
destruction of the Western Equatorial rainforest and the wild monkeys and apes who once thrived there. Goudsmit argues that human encroachment on the African monkey habitat provided the opportunity for the SIV virus to jump to its new host, human beings. He also describes how humans then brought HIV out of the rainforest at the turn of the century, most probably to Cameroon. From there some strains went to German East Africa, where the virus evolved into the African AIDS virus we see today, while other strains left Cameroon for Germany on the eve of World War II.
Goudsmit is uniquely qualified to provide readers with vital perspective on this worldwide crisis. Provocative, vividly written, and impeccably researched, Viral Sex instills readers with a new sense of the urgent need to contain HIV and other similarly lethal viruses before they spread beyond the grasp of even the most sophisticated science.
Industry Reviews
"This [book's]...appeal reaches far beyond just fellow scientists. It is full of astonishing and interesting facts not only about viruses but about the humans studying them."--Frank Ryan, The New York Times Book Review
"A well-written and provocative treatise about the origins of HIV and about the evolution of this most perplexing virus."--The Lancet
"Viral Sex is an engrossing account of the science and the ideas behind HIV research. In particular this book presents original and sometimes provocative thoughts and hypotheses about the earliest entry of HIV's into humans. It describes its spread, evolution, and how medical science will need to be both aware and ready to tackle new variants of these and possibly other viruses emanating from the steadily dwindling rain forests. Author Jaap Goudsmit is
uniquely qualified to take us on this journey. Since the earlieest period he has been the world's leading thinker on HIV evolution and one of the field's greatest scientists."--Dr. Robert Gallo, Professor and
Dirctor, Institute of Human Virology
"An articulate, engaging explanation of what scientists now know about HIV and how the spread of AIDS might be controlled, from a leading AIDS researcher.... Alternately alarming and reassuring, but always engrossing."--Kirkus
"A provocative treatise by a leadings AIDS researcher on the origin and evolution of the dreadful microbe of our time."--David Ho, Director, Aaron Diamond AIDS Researach Center
"...provides important information on the past and future of AIDS."--Library Journal
"[Goudsmit] takes readers on a tour--introducing us not only to the monkeys and apes of tropical forests and the viruses that they transmit but also to the mysterious AIDS-like diseases that appeared in Europe and America during this century, discussing possible historical intersections between viruses, humans, and other mammals dating back to the Stone Age. All the while he works circuitoulsy toward his goal: to understand where AIDS and AIDS-like diseases
have come from, where they are going, and what we can do about them."--Paul W. Ewald, Natural History
"An exploration of viral behavior that is both fascinating and disturbing....There is a great deal of technical information in this book, but its appeal reaches far beyond just fellow scientists. It is full of astonishing and interesting facts not only about viruses but about the humans studying them."--Frank Ryan, The New York Times Book Review
"A well-written and provocative treatise about the origins of HIV and about the evolution of this most perplexing virus."--The Lancet
