Documentation of an AIDS virus infection in the United States in 1968
R. F. Garry, M. H. Witte, A. A. Gottlieb, M. Elvin-Lewis, M. S. Gottlieb, C. L. Witte, S. S. Alexander, W. R. Cole and W. L. Drake Jr
Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Tulane University School of Medicine, New Orleans, LA 70112.
The acquired immunodeficiency syndrome was first recognized as a clinical
entity in the United States in the early 1980s; however, the issue of when
human immunodeficiency virus, the causative agent of the acquired
immunodeficiency syndrome, was introduced into at-risk populations in the
United States is unresolved. Previously, we reported the case study of a
15-year-old black male who was admitted to St Louis City Hospital in 1968
for extensive lymphedema of the genitalia and lower extremities. Chlamydial
organisms were widely disseminated and isolated from numerous body fluids
and organs. Over a 16-month clinical course his condition progressively
deteriorated, and at autopsy there was widespread Kaposi's sarcoma of the
aggressive, disseminated type. Recently performed Western blot and antigen
capture assays on serum and autopsy tissue specimens frozen since 1969 have
disclosed that this sexually active teenager was infected with a virus
closely related or identical to human immunodeficiency virus type 1. The
clinical and immunologic findings together suggest that an
immunosuppressive retrovirus existed in the United States before the late
1970s.
