HIV and other viruses are naturally occurring and are not man-made bioweapons, scientific evidence shows HIV has likely affected humans for a century.
Context:
An episode of the Stew Peters Show invites on guest Judy Mikovits who claims that every virus since HIV in the 1980s has been caused by vaccines and is a bioweapon. Mikovits claims that HIV was caused by hepatitis b vaccinations. Both Mikovits and the shows host Stew Peters are known to spread anti-vax conspiracy theories. The episode originated from Rumble and the Stew Peters website and was uploaded to Facebook where it has gained over 1000 views.
In Fact:
The Human Immunodeficiency Virus also known as HIV is a virus that attacks the body's immune system. As mentioned by the World Health Organization, HIV weakens people’s defenses against many infections and some types of cancer. The virus gradually destroys and impairs immune cells, creating immunodeficiency, with the most advanced form of HIV being Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS). In 1981 a global AIDS/HIV epidemic began with the virus still being a major public health issue.
Scientific evidence and research show that HIV is a naturally occurring virus and neither AIDS nor HIV were developed as man-made bioweapons. For example, As mentioned by a 2008 research paper published in the journal Nature, analysis of a biopsy sample suggests that the virus was likely present and affecting humans for nearly a century. Furthermore, as mentioned by the CDC, HIV infection in humans is related to the Simian Immunodeficiency virus found in chimpanzees, and infections in humans came from chimpanzees in Central Africa. The virus slowly spread across the world and has existed in the US since at least the 1970s. However, HIV may have infected humans as early as the 1800s. Logically also reached out to the AIDS Research Institute and the Office of AIDS research but at the time of publication has not heard back. Furthermore, there is no scientific evidence that hepatitis b vaccines caused HIV.
Conspiratorial claims and rumors of HIV being a manufactured bioweapon are not new and are linked to a Soviet disinformation campaign. As mentioned by the Wilson Center, a KGB campaign in the mid-1980s claimed the US military had manufactured AIDs as a bioweapon in the Infectious Diseases lab at Fort Detrick. While other conspiracies claiming AIDS was a bioweapon had arisen in 1983, it was the KGB’s disinformation campaign that popularized the rumor that it was created in Fort Detrick. These claims can still be found across the internet and in the Stew Peters Show episode, Mikovits claims that all the viruses in the last 40 years were created at Fort Detrick in collaboration with Russia and China. However, there is no evidence to suggest any viruses originated from Fort Detrick. Similarly, Logically recently fact-checked a claim that Covid-19 originated from Fort Detrick and found it to be false.
Peters and Mikovits not only claim that HIV is a bioweapon but also assert that Covid-19 and all other viruses since 1980 are bioweapons. There is no evidence to support the idea that any recent viruses are bioweapons. Logically has previously investigated claims that Covid-19 and Ebola are bioweapons and found them to be false.
As mentioned in a 2020 Science fact check, Mikovits was a medical researcher who co-authored a research paper that claimed an agent called "xenotropic murine leukemia virus related-virus" caused chronic fatigue syndrome. The study's findings couldn't be replicated and eventually, the paper was retracted and her work was discredited. Following this, Mikovits started to spread conspiracies about vaccines and how health department heads colluded against her.
Stew Peters is also the producer of the anti-vax documentary Died Suddenly which was released in November 2022, the claims made in the documentary were extensively covered by Logically and found to misrepresent statistics or spread false information.
The Verdict:
HIV and other viruses are naturally occurring and not bioweapons. These claims are part of anti-vax conspiracy theories and are not based on any factual evidence. Therefore, we have marked this claim as false.
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