Millions of people across the globe erroneously believe America manufactured the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) to be used as a biological weapon. Ironically, the idea grew from a real conspiracy theory hatched by Russian and East German intelligence officers in the mid-1980s, in the hopes of spreading misinformation about the disease. Yet while the cold war is over, the biological weapons myth continues to resonate on both sides of the Atlantic. Nicoli Nattrass explores the social and political factors prolonging this fiction, especially within African American and black South Africa.