Forensic epidemiology. Vaccine theory of AIDS origins disputed at Royal Society

At center stage at a meeting on the origin of the AIDS epidemic, held here this week at the Royal Society, was a controversial theory that a contaminated polio vaccine tested in Africa more than 40 years ago sparked the epidemic. The theory took a hit when researchers revealed that tests of old samples of the vaccine provided no supporting evidence, and the main proponent of the theory, British writer Edward Hooper, endured a verbal battering himself from several prominent scientists. But Hooper, unbowed, got in plenty of jabs of his own.