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Discovery of HIV
From the earliest reports of
a new disease, scientists around the world focused their efforts on finding
the cause of AIDS. They circulated information informally; they held meetings
to exchange ideas; and they published promising findings. A pioneer in
this effort was Dr. Robert Gallo of the National Cancer Institute, who
only recently had discovered the first two human retroviruses, HTLV-I
and HTLV-II. In 1984, research groups led by Dr. Gallo, Dr. Luc Montagnier
at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, and Dr. Jay Levy at the University
of California, San Francisco, all identified a retrovirus as the cause
of AIDS. Each group called the virus by a different name: HTLV-III, LAV,
and ARV, respectively. As has happened many times in scientific history,
contention emerged about who had been first. In 1987, the president of
the United States and the prime minister of France announced a joint agreement
on the issue–the first time a medical research question had reached
this level of political negotiation. More importantly, the identification
of that virus, renamed human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV, provided
a specific target for blood-screening tests and for scientists around
the world conducting research to defeat AIDS.
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 AIDS being identified right after the discovery of the first and the
second human retroviruses is one heck of an extraordinary phenomenon.
- Dr. Robert Gallo
Download Audio Sample | Transcript |
 …we had not seen
a new virus in the blood supply in thirty years, and retroviruses
did not cause human disease, we thought, with the possible exception
of T-cell leukemia. So these were all disturbingly new concepts.
- Dr. Harvey Klein
Download Audio Sample | Transcript |
We felt that the blood test was, in fact, an emergency, and to say
that this was the etiology of AIDS was the right thing, and that it
was urgent to do so.
- Dr. Robert Gallo
Download
Audio Sample | Transcript |
My impression is that, until the virus was isolated, it was relatively
hard for most scientists to get a good handle on how to attack AIDS.
- Dr. Robert Yarchoan
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Back To Top | Photography
Credits
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| Schematic of HIV |
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| The virus that causes AIDS is shown budding out
of a human immune cell, which the virus infects and uses to replicate. |
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Upon recognizing that HIV could contaminate
the blood supply, government scientists sought ways to keep it safe.
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Researchers and healthcare workers
took precautions when handling potentially infected blood.
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| Scientists found out how the virus
attaches to an immune cell and reproduces, the challenge was how to
prevent that process. |
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