The Latest HIV Origin Bombshell Mockumentary Blaming Vaccines Is a Dud
The Real Truth About Vaccines
Another day, another anti-vaccine influencer with a conspiracy theory about how a vaccine caused the AIDS epidemic… That’s right, a bombshell mockumentary is claiming that the hepatitis B vaccine spread HIV and caused the AIDS epidemic.

A mockumentary hyped as another bombshell, which is, of course, just another dud!
The Latest HIV Origin Bombshell Mockumentary Blaming Vaccines Is a Dud
And it isn’t even an original theory…
There have long been conspiracy theories trying to connect the AIDS epidemic to vaccines.
There was the conspiracy theory about smallpox vaccines and HIV.
“Since the Soviet press launched its campaign in October, 1985, more than 200 newspaper stories, radio reports and forged documents have surfaced in 74 countries attributing the AIDS epidemic to American military research gone awry, according to U.S. tabulations. This year alone, more than 80 such reports have appeared, about one-third of them in the state-run Soviet media.
Although most non-Soviet stories have appeared in left-wing publications, others that have picked up the thread are the sensational London tabloid Sunday Express and even the staid and prestigious Le Monde in Paris. In addition, government analysts said, Moscow has beamed radio broadcasts to every country where the United States has military bases.”
AIDS: A GLOBAL ASSESSMENT : Soviets Suggest Experiment Leaks in U.S. Created the AIDS Epidemic
A theory that turned out to be a Cold War disinformation campaign created by the Soviet Union!
Then there was the conspiracy theory about oral polio vaccines and HIV. This theory had more humble origins, an investigative journalist, but was just as wrong.
Also wrong was the first vaccine related conspiracy theory related to HIV - connecting the AIDS epidemic to the hepatitis B vaccine.
And that gets us back to the new bombshell mockumentary by Aaron Baalbergen.
A ‘new’ bombshell mockumentary that mostly seems like a repackaging of the same old propaganda he has been pushing for years!
So what’s his theory?
He seems to believe that the original plasma derived hepatitis B vaccines were contaminated with HIV because they used chimpanzee plasma and this caused the AIDS pandemic.
“A key focus is the 1982 WHO Symposium, held two months after AIDS recognition, where the use of chimpanzee plasma-derived vaccines on humans was discussed, and concerns linking it to AIDS were raised. Despite this, officials publicly claimed all vaccines were made from human plasma with no AIDS link. These vaccines were then banned in many developed countries but continued to be marketed in Africa without safety-testing lots.”
Chimpanzee-Plasma-Derived Hepatitis-B Vaccines: A Historical Review and Call for Transparency
He’s wrong.
For one thing, we know that HIV made the jump from chimpanzees to humans in the 1930s.
“This indicates that after pandemic HIV-1 first emerged in colonial west central Africa, it spread for some 50 to 70 years before it was recognized. The probable location of the early epidemic has also been identified. Molecular epidemiological studies have indicated that most, if not all, of the early diversification of HIV-1 group M likely occurred in the area around Kinshasa, then called Leopoldville. All of the known HIV-1 group M subtypes were identified there, as well as additional lineages that have remained restricted to this area.”
Origins of HIV and the AIDS Pandemic
And that HIV made its way to the Americas later, in 1966.
“Using HIV-1 gene sequences recovered from archival samples from some of the earliest known Haitian AIDS patients, we find that subtype B likely moved from Africa to Haiti in or around 1966 (1962–1970) and then spread there for some years before successfully dispersing elsewhere.”
The emergence of HIV/AIDS in the Americas and beyond
From Africa to Haiti and then to the United States.
“Our results suggest that HIV-1 circulated cryptically in the United States for ≈12 years before the recognition of AIDS in 1981.”
The emergence of HIV/AIDS in the Americas and beyond
It had nothing to do with hepatitis B vaccines and chimpanzee plasma contaminated with HIV.
“We serologically screened >2000 1970s serum samples and developed a highly sensitive new approach for recovering viral RNA from degraded archival samples. Here, we report eight coding-complete genomes from US serum samples from 1978–79 – eight of the nine oldest HIV-1 group M genomes to date. This early, full-genome ‘snapshot’ reveals the US HIV-1 epidemic exhibited surprisingly extensive genetic diversity in the 1970s but also provides strong evidence of its emergence from a pre-existing Caribbean epidemic.”
1970s and ‘Patient 0’ HIV-1 genomes illuminate early HIV/AIDS history in North America
Patient Zero has even been identified.
And guess what?
The clinical trials that Aaron Baalbergen is talking about started later…
And anyway, the genetic diversity they found in HIV at the time is not what you would have seen if it had come straight from vaccines contaminated with chimpanzee HIV strains!
His ideas make no sense.
And they aren’t even original!
HIV conspiracy theorists have been pushing the idea that hepatitis B vaccines are the source of spreading HIV to humans for over 40 years, including:
Robert Strecker - a pathologist, he created a videotape in the 1980s, The Strecker Memorandum, pushing the idea that HIV was created in a lab, likely in connection with the hepatitis B vaccine clinical trials.
Jakob Segal - the lab leak crowd would have loved this guy! He published a pamphlet in 1986 saying the HIV was artificially created in a U.S. military laboratory at Fort Detrick in Maryland by combining viruses and then releasing it to the public. His work was famously part of Operation INFEKTION, a Soviet disinformation campaign during the Cold War. Not surprisingly, he also suggested that HIV originated in the hepatitis B vaccine trials.
William Campbell Douglass - he wrote several books in the late 1980s pushing the idea that HIV was created in a lab, likely in connection with the hepatitis B vaccine clinical trials.
Alan Cantwell - a dermatologist, he also wrote several books in the late 1980s and early 1990s pushing the idea that HIV was created in a lab, likely in connection with the hepatitis B vaccine clinical trials.
Milton William Cooper - he also wrote several books in the early 1990s pushing the idea that HIV was created in a lab, likely in connection with the hepatitis B vaccine clinical trials.
Edward Hooper - although he mostly talked about oral polio vaccines as a source of HIV, in the late 1990s, he also had a theory that HIV originated from the hepatitis B vaccine trials.
Leonard Horowitz - a dentist, in 1996, Horowitz wrote the book Emerging Viruses: AIDS & Ebola: Nature, Accident or Intentional?, in which he pushed the idea that HIV originated from the hepatitis B vaccine trials, probably because they had also had oral polio vaccines…
Ideas that were debunked and dismissed long ago.
Which leaves us with one remaining question - how many anti-vaccine influencers will jump on board and launder those ideas across their social media sites and websites?
More on HIV Conspiracy Theories
Were Smallpox Vaccines Ever Contaminated With the AIDS Virus?
1970s and ‘Patient 0’ HIV-1 genomes illuminate early HIV/AIDS history in North America
America’s HIV outbreak started in this city, 10 years before anyone noticed
Rumors and Realities: Making Sense of HIV/AIDS Conspiracy Narratives and Contemporary Legends
Fact Sheet: Correcting the Record on HIV/AIDS Misinformation Online
Rumors and Realities: Making Sense of HIV/AIDS Conspiracy Narratives and Contemporary Legends
AIDS: A GLOBAL ASSESSMENT : Soviets Suggest Experiment Leaks in U.S. Created the AIDS Epidemic
Judgment Entered On Application Of Premier Financial Services, LLC Against Aaron Baalbergen


