Dr. David Ho, head of the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center at Rockefeller University and Dr. Toufu Zhu, of the University of Washington in Seattle, presented their joint findings which were based upon 1,213 blood samples gathered in Africa between 1959 and 1982.

Previously, AIDS researchers had claimed—and media had dutifully reported—the AIDS virus had somehow jumped species after originating in green monkeys.

Dr. Alan Cantwell, author of several books on the origins of AIDS (published by Aries Press) has, for many years, laughed the "green monkey tale" to scorn.

"On first thought," said Cantwell to GayToday, it (the new origins theory) is probably another of the many disinformation stories to cover-up the man-made origin of AIDS."

Cantwell argues—citing records-- that biowarfare experiments conducted in unison with pharmaceutical companies and—with deliberately chosen "promiscuous gay males" as test subjects—injected these U.S. males as part of a program of "preventive" inoculations for hepatitis. (See GayToday's continuing series on AIDS)

Both Drs. Zhu and Ho, on the other hand, have announced they've found clear signs of the AIDS virus taken in 1959 from a Bantu male who resided in Leopoldville, Belgian Congo (now Kinshasa, Republic of Congo).

They say that though the sample was a degraded one, they've been able, in fact, to pinpoint four tiny fragments from two viral genes. Though the existence of these genes are claimed as representative of a more primitive stage of the virus' development, Dr. Ho said, "We realized that if we had an old sequence (of HIV genes) "it would serve as a yardstick to measure the evolution of current HIV."

Dr. Cantwell questioned such linkages. "First question I have is if AIDS 'all of a sudden' came to the U.S. to exclusively affect 'only white gays in Manhattan'—then why is the U.S. strain so different from the African strain?"

Convinced of the man-made origins of AIDS, Dr. Cantwell wrestled with the new claims which clearly sought to supplant or add to the "green monkey theory." He accused Ho and Zhu of "stopping at nothing" to diffuse the continuing underground rumors that AIDS is a man-made disease linked to gay experiments and African vaccine programs."

Wondering openly if "the virologists, geneticists, molecular biologists, gene splicers, biowarfare people, epidemiologists, drug manufacturers, animal experimenters, vaccine makers," are not "running scared" as they reflect that "HIV did not just fall out of the sky," Dr. Cantwell insists, "some of them must know that it didn't."

Dr. Cantwell sees AIDS origin "cover-ups" as a valid reason for more serious concerns. "Problem is," he told GayToday," the public and the medical profession will swallow this (new origins) story hook, line and sinker."

He warns, "Don't be surprised if this story makes a big splash…they're readying populations for 'emerging viruses' which will be seeded and 'introduced' into 'special' populations to decrease world population, or at least the people they don't want around."