In 1970, the U.S Department of Defense gave a $10m contract to WHO reference centres in the U.S to develop a "synthetic biological agent with no natural immunity". Thousands of viral strains were cultured & developed, but three received "special attention"

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First it was monkey viruses, primarily the simian pox virus; but more interesting were the "slow" viruses, which became of greatest interest to WHO and CDC scientists between 1968 and 1974.

A slow virus, as the name suggests, is a virus that causes a disease that, after an extended period of incubation, starts a slow, progressive course over months to years, and generally ends in death. The WHO was involved in developing such a virus

Two of the viruses that were paid special attention to were two naturally occurring viruses known as visna and scrapie - sheep and goat viruses.

Another virus WHO focused on was kuru, "a degenerative disease of the central nervous system of man restricted to the Fore people of [Papua] New Guinea and their immediate neighbours."

The first two slow viruses (scrapie and visna) cannot infect humans, the other one - kuru, was as WHO said, "restricted" to Papua New Guinea. So, why was the World Health Organisation so invested in studying these if there was no need to ever develop defences against them?

The interest in the scrapie virus seems to have been in it's features: "it can't be destroyed by heat, ether, formalin, or any other enzymatic & chemical agents", as well as having a very small particle size. The DOD, WHO & the CDC were looking to recreate something similar

DOD documents reveal that they wanted "a NEW infective micro-organism which could differ in certain important aspects from any known disease-causing organisms". Yes, the World Health Organisation was contracted to create an indestructible virus

And they knew what they were doing: "most important of these is that it might be [resistant] to the immunological and therapeutic processes upon which we depend to maintain our relative freedom from infectious disease", they said

"It is a highly controversial issue and there are many who believe such research should not be undertaken lest it lead to yet another method of massive killing of large populations. . . .", continued the DOD contract brief.

In 1971, the U.S launched "the war on cancer" and a Dr. Robert Gallo was given acclaim as having found the cause of leukemia: an "RNA-retrovirus."

At around this time, Gallo described methods of injecting ribonucleic acids from one strain of virus into other strains in an effort to create mutants that functioned just like we know the AIDS virus to work today. Basically, they had developed AIDS-like viruses by 1971.

The stated aim of Gallo's experiments was "produce leukemias, sarcomas, and opportunistic infections in chickens, mice, rats, sheep, cats, monkeys, and HUMANS"

In 1982 public health officials began to use the term "acquired immunodeficiency syndrome," or AIDS, to describe the occurrences of opportunistic infections, including sarcoma, and other cancers that Gallo had been studying in the early 70s

In 1983, Dr Gallo was hailed as having discovered the AIDS virus. On why the virus was claimed to have originated in West equatorial Africa in the 50s but was now somehow exclusively targeting gay men in the United States was never explained

Another thing, HIV is a single-stranded RNA 'slow' virus. The DOD wanted research into to prompting human immune response by injecting double-stranded RNA. In the 70s, splicing techniques were advanced enough to have been able to create a single stranded virus like HIV-1

The origins of both AIDS and HIV still remain shrouded in mystery, obfuscation and vitriol. However, "connecting the dots" leans more towards a more deliberate effort rather than simply a natural incident

Source: Emerging Viruses: AIDS and Ebola. Nature, accident or intentional? Tetrahedron, Inc. 1996. by Leonard G. Horowitz, D.M.D., M.A., M.P.H.