I am not into conspiracy theories either Tidewater, but the fact remains that our government and it's doctors and scientists have induced diseases and it remained secret for many years. Perhaps we are more enlightened now?
Tidewater said
but I seriously doubt any American government official would deliberately and with malice aforethought infect African civilians with a disease which will probably be lethal.
Apparently we infected South Americans with a potentially lethal disease.
http://swampland.time.com/2010/10/0...ntentionally-infecting-guatemalans-with-stds/
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Health and Human Services Director Kathleen Sebelius apologized today for a 1940s U.S. government program that intentionally infected Guatemalans with sexually transmitted diseases without their consent.
[U.S. Public Health Service Dr. John C.] Cutler and the other physicians chose men in the Guatemala National Penitentiary, then in an army barracks, and men and women in the National Mental Health Hospital for a total of 696 subjects. Permissions were gained from the authorities but not individuals, not an uncommon practice at the time, and supplies were offered to the institutions in exchange for access. The doctors used prostitutes with the disease to pass it to the prisoners (since sexual visits were allowed by law in Guatemalan prisons) and then did direct inoculations made from syphilis bacteria poured onto the men’s penises or on forearms and faces that were slightly abraded when the “normal exposure” produced little disease, or in a few cases through spinal punctures.