Jubbergun wrote:
PVC isn't chemically toxic, therefore your analogy is invalid.
You made the argument that what I described - long-term pollution - was "bound to happen" with anything that doesn't break down naturally. PVC, lead and U-238 are all inorganic and don't break down naturally. Lead and U-238 can both be used to make bullets. Lead is toxic, but in practice, millions of discharged rounds didn't cause the kinds of serious mass illnesses attributable to far smaller numbers of U-238 rounds.
Dvergar wrote:
Except that it wasn't done in the past, viruses weren't engineered in 1959.
Not from scratch, no. But people were working to weaponize smallpox, anthrax and other pathogens since before the World Wars. It's entirely possible HIV was weaponized just like other naturally occurring pathogens were, not in 1959, but at some point thereafter.