Vanity Fair has come up with some excellent articles on occasion. I can believe they'd have had something to say about it all. The earliest articles I remember, however, were long before it was even agreed that an infectious agent was involved; and were well before the names AIDS and HIV were invented.

The references to the genetically ancient orang epidemic, when that was proposed much later, didn't cause much of a flap; so it must be assumed that by the time that theory was proposed it was fairly well accepted that the virus had been around for a rather long time, and probably that it had affected humans in some isolated areas long before it was recognized as a serious public health issue.

My main interest, at the time, for looking for the original article was that it totally refuted the nut cases who were claiming it was a newly minted "God's punishment," specially created (last week or the week before according to some) as retribution for a "moral crime."

I suppose, by now, it doesn't much matter except as a matter of curiosity.

John