Theory 4: The OPV/AIDS Connection      The OPV/AIDS hypothesis first gained notoriety when Tom Curtis wrote an article published in Rolling Stone magazine titled “The Origin of AIDS”.  Curtis attributes the original OPV/AIDS theory to Blaine Elswood, an AIDS activist from the University of California, but it was his article that opened the door for exploration of this theory.  During the 1950’s the poliovirus was at epidemic proportions in the United States and other parts of the world.  Several doctors were racing against time and each other to be the first to produce an oral polio vaccine (OPV) that would immunize people against polio.   Of these doctors, the controversy of this theory revolves around one man named Hilary Koprowski who developed an OPV called CHAT  in the late 1950’s.  From 1957 to 1960 this vaccine was fed to one million people in Africa while it was in its experimental stages.  A laboratory and chimpanzee camp was set up in the Congo to create and manufacture the vaccine in mass quantities and between three and four hundred chimpanzees were sacrificed in the making of CHAT.  Chimpanzee SIV is the closest known relative to HIV-1, and through the production of CHAT it is possible that a small amount of SIV could have gotten into the vaccine.  The vaccine was fed to children and adults, and it is possible that a teething baby could have ingested the infected vaccine and contracted AIDS through a cut in the mouth.  The time period from when the babies were fed chat until they reached sexual maturity correlates to the amount of time from when the CHAT feedings were done until the beginning of the AIDS epidemic.  In other words, a child could have contracted HIV from the vaccine in 1957 but would not actually pass the disease on to others until they reached age 18 or so in 1975, well within the time necessary to start an epidemic.  There is also a high correlation between the African towns and villages where CHAT was fed to the earliest known instances of HIV infection.  In fact, the earliest known HIV sample (L70 from Leopoldville) is from an area where this OPV was used.       Dr. Hilary Koprowski is a well-known and respected doctor for his work in polio research and vaccination methods.  However, when interviewed about the CHAT feedings and their possible correlation to HIV, he has been less than clear on many important details such as the species of monkey used in the experiments and vaccine production and claims that his research papers were “lost in a move”.  Although there are several reasons that this theory could be possible, there are also reasons why it could not be. ? As far as is known, no sample of the CHAT vaccine has ever been tested and found to contain SIV. ? Because Dr. Koprowski cannot recall the species of chimp used in the vaccine production, there is no hard proof that the species of chimp with the SIV that is most closely related to HIV was used in the making of CHAT. ? Although the vaccine was fed one million people, it would have only infected a minute portion of them (.9 %) and would have had to be passed through dozens of people before beginning an epidemic.   As a result of the research I have done for my module on the origin of HIV/AIDS, I have become a believer of the OPV AIDS theory.  The purpose of this paper was to try to inform others of the few significant theories being discussed in the scientific community today.  Although no conclusion on the actual origins of this disease has been reached, recent advances in medicine have brought us a few steps closer to putting an end to this pandemic.