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So now we have three comments, supposedly from three different people, though they have the same basic comment, all implying that science has been misused to "blame" a given nationality.

The science of the original article is never once addressed in the comments above. Nor were was it discussed in the link referenced by the second commentor. All three instead use invective to cast dispersion on the motives of the scientists and finally on this website.

First, the science and the evidence does indeed suggest that HIV first evolved in Africa. Second, it happens that Haiti does have a greater range of HIV DNA sequences found in the human population. When *any* virus is found in a population, the range of nucleotide sequences is usually interpreted (based on solid theory and corrobarating observation) to mean that the virus has been in a population mutating for a time. The greater the divergence from one another, the greater the time that the virus has been in that population. Thus, if we find that the range of nucluotide sequences is greater in one population than another, we may safely conclude that it has been spreading in the first population longer than the second. Further, if the range of the nucleotide sequences found in the second population is a subset of the first, then we may also surmise that it came from that first population.

This is science. This is evidence. This is not "racism", "imperialism", etc.

This then begs the question, "Why are these commentors making these ugly assertions?"

Science is morally neutral. Epidemiology is morally neutral. But HIV, being primarily transmitted by sex or reuse of needles by drug users, is viewed by some people as being a marker of moral behavior. The commentors seem to hold such a view... and feel that any science that points to the Haitian people as having been infected first and longer than their neighbors, have a misplaced sense of internalized and externalized guilt and anger. Further, from some comments about the colonial victimization, they wish to view this in a political, as well as moral, light...

... while seeking to evoke a sense of moral guilt in the scientists and the editors of this blogsite.

The commentors are wrong, both on scientific and on moral grounds. The evidence is what it is, and trying to suppress that knowledge through invective or guilt mongering is reprehensible. I invite the commentors to examine their own motives and misplaced values. Having a disease is *not* a moral question... and silencing the truth will not absolve your own misplaced feelings of guilt or anger.

--Candice H. Brown Elliott