The origin story of syphilis goes back far longer than we thought

A 5,500-year-old fossil from Colombia has scientists rethinking syphilis origins.

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[Chuckstar]

Pre-Columbian findings of Old World syphilis have mostly been made in non-peer-reviewed documentaries, and have not held up to scrutiny.

One 2012 article deriding “science by documentary” walks through a number of issues, including bad carbon-dating, claims of findings that are not actually diagnostic of syphilis, etc.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3413456/

 

[void&]

The story of syphilis: "No, I didn't give it to them. They gave it to me."