The River: A Journey to the Source of HIV and AIDS

by Edward Hooper

Book Overview

Examines the possible source of HIV, analyzing a number of theories concerning its origins and investigating current scientific inquiries into HIV, AIDS, and the search for a cure.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0316371378
• ISBN13: 9780316371377
• Release Date: December 2000
• Publisher: Back Bay Books
• Length: 1168 Pages
• Weight: 3.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 2.1" x 6.0" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

well explained, documented, and plausible

What led me to get this book is that I have still not heard anything convincing as to what caused the AIDS pandemic. Particularly, the "monkey bite" or "sexual transmission during intercourse with monkeys" explanation doesn't seem to make much sense to me, nor do any of the many "conspiracy theories" out there. So I figured, I see what this author has to say and whether or not it makes any more sense in explaining where AIDS came from than what I've come across so far. The sheer number of pages in this book has originally scared me a little, and I was also concerned whether or not I'd be able to understand the scientific background this author bases his theory on. So I started the book almost reluctantly, but after the first 100 pages or so, I was completely hooked. It is voluminous, but easy to read and, despite its actually dry subject, a surprisingly suspensefull read. The points made appear to be well researched and backed up, and all is explained in a fashion that can be followed by a non-scientist. And even more importantly, the book presents a theory of the origin of AIDS that is at least as plausible, if not much more so than any other I've ever come across. I would even go as far as to say that if the theory presented in this book has been or were to be proven wrong, it would still be a very worthwhile read as a throught-provoking fiction thriller. In any case and at the very least, it is a testimonial of incredible research and writing skills, not to mention invested effort, and worthwhile a closer look.

A word of caution

A wonderful book which clearly explains some intriguing, if unproven, theories. As much a cautionary tale as a scientific work.In reference to the Clinical Infectious Diseases article (2001;32:1068-1084), it should be noted that the author of this article was one of the scientists possibly implicated by this book.Hooper experienced many roadblocks during his research for the book and many of them were placed before him by eminent scientists who preferred not to get involved in a book which might harm the reputation of their profession by suggesting that it may have been responsible (accidentally or otherwise) for disastrous wrongdoing during the development of the OPV.In the article, the author acknowledges the assistance and input from many of his colleagues in the scientific profession. Personally, I believe this is further proof that the medical/scientific community are more than happy to work together to protect the reputation of their profession but are less inclined to involve themselves in a project aiming to reveal the truth, no matter how horrifying and sinister that truth may turn out to be.

Tremendous Piece Of Investigative Journalism

If there was a Nobel Prize for Journalism, Hooper should get it. Step by step he takes you through his investigations and interviews, seeking to prove the link between the sudden appearance of HIV-1 and some shabbily-constructed mass trials of a polio vaccine in the 1950s. In a vanity contest with Sabin and Salk, the lesser-known Koprowski took various experimental shortcuts that seem reckless in hindsight. It's amazing to see the way Hooper cuts through the obfuscations and obstructions of the science establishment, and sifts facts from the few living people associated with the trials. With the casual racism of the day, these were mostly conducted in the Congo, or on handicapped children or newborns at prisons and hospitals in the US. A sneaking suspicion that 'Hooper may be right' builds into almost total conviction that this theory bears intensive investigation by the time you reach the halfway mark. Almost incredibly, the records of these 'trials' -- I put them in quote marks because they were not properly conducted, by any scientific standards of today, or of the time -- are either incomplete, or 'missing.' The book reflects no credit on the drug industry, doctors' codes of secrecy, or medical ethics. Quite probably, if Hopper has it right -- and it seems he does -- some of the living players ought to be facing a grand jury investigation, in view of the millions who have suffered in the resulting plague of AIDS. It's the science book of the year, unparalleled since Rhodes' "Making Of The Atomic Bomb."

LOTS OF PAPERCLIPS

When I read a book that tells me new and important things about the world that I have been living in, i note the pages with important info with paperclips. This book is easily a 100-200 paperclip book.Only other books that compare to this in my large library, devoted to the history of the USA since 1933, are THE MAKING OF THE ATOMIC BOMB by Richard Rhodes and THE ORIGINS OF THE KOREAN WAR by Bruce Cumings.I have yet to finish the book, I am only finished with chapter 39[out of 58], but these 535 pages were consumed in two evenings, late.The fascination for me was learning about a set of medical research activities of which I was unaware. From my high school biology I had learned that vaccines were cultured in eggs. What a shock to learn that live polio vaccines were cultured from the cuisinarted kidneys of wild primates. As of page 535, my only complaint is that I would have liked Hooper to have spent a chapter, with photos, illustrating the mechanism[s] of vaccine production.As Hooper has developed the recounting of his odyssey, so far, it seems to me clear that there have been a number of knowledgeable medicos who looked the other way when confronted with the Koprowski procedures, a number of medicos who buttoned their lips after the loose scientific procedures went astray.In closing, I want to add that I passed this book by for weeks because I felt that there was nothing new that I could learn about viral diseases[HIV, AIDs]. And then I read a squib in a newspaper recently where the CDC was recommending that live[oral] polio vaccinations be discontinued as the entire method of polio vaccination. When I read that, I immediately ordered this book.Vaccines as a business. As a claim to gold and glory.A perfect sidelight history on the postWW2 era.Indispensable for understanding the investigative process as it pertains to causation.The best investigative book of the decade.

The RIVER travels to the source of the medical endeavor

Perhaps it is because I am a physician with a background in public health who also had polio as a child that I am so captivated by the narrative that Mr.Hooper tells. In spite of its length (and weight) I could not put the book down till I finished it. Mr. Hooper is an extraordinary persistant journalist and detective as well as raconteur, ferreting out details of process, politics, culture, and personality to weave an extraordinary story about the possible origins of the AIDS epidemic. In spite of the fact that he is the ardent advocate of a horrific iconoclastic hypothesis he tells the story of his searches in a most honest andeven handed way. His laying out in fine detail the history of the development of the polio vaccine, of medical research in tropical Africa, Europe and the United States both in technical terms and in the personalities involved, and the investigation of the earliest AIDS cases is a tour de force. All this in a first person narrative that reads like a detective story. As a reader I felt introduced on intimate level to the many people and locales on three continents where these events unfold. This book teaches us to admire the verve, creativity, and daring of medical innovators as well as their arrogance, while at the same time, whatever actually happended, the events in retrospect constitute a spiritual lesson in humility.