Quote:
>In Tuesday's lecture, my professor stated that AIDS was put upon humankind
>back in the 50's by 5M doses of a polio vaccine that was prepared from
>monkey's livers, and disseminated throughout Africa.
Here's an article from sci.med.aids discussing that theory:
|
| AIDS INFORMATION NEWSLETTER
| Michael Howe, MSLS, Editor
| AIDS Information Center
| VA Medical Center, San Francisco
| (415) 221-4810 ext 3305
| July 17, 1992
|
| SPECIAL TOPIC ISSUE: ORIGIN OF AIDS
|
| DEBATE ON AIDS ORIGIN
|
| An article featured in Rolling Stone magazine (March 19, 1992)
|that addresses the origin of AIDS has prompted a lot of
|controversy. Tom Curtis' article, "The Origin of AIDS,"
|hypothesizes that HIV first entered humans in Africa via an {*filter*}
|polio vaccine widely administered in the late 1950s. Some
|researchers argue that the article's hypothesis is not impossible
|because simian viruses were found to taint some early polio
|vaccines. However, most AIDS researchers believe the hypothesis
|is inaccurate. The article explains how Hilary Koprowski, former
|director of Philadelphia's Wistar Institute and one of the pioneers
|of the polio vaccine, may have administered an HIV-contaminated
|{*filter*}vaccine which was used to control polio epidemics in the
|Belgian Congo--now comprised of Zaire, Rwanda and Burundi--and
|later used widely in Poland and Switzerland. Curtis indicates that
|HIV infection may have transpired via mucosal cells, lesions in the
|mouth, or through aerosolized virus trickling into the lungs.
|Curtis also suggests Kaprowski believed that uninfected macaques
|from India and the Philippine were used, but the macaques may have
|contracted SIV while caged with other infected animals. (Science.
|1992 Mar 20;255(5051):1505).
|
| RESEARCHERS TO PROBE THEORY ON AIDS ORIGIN
|
| PHILADELPHIA (UPI) -- The Wistar Institute, an independent
|research facility on the University of Pennsylvania campus, is
|assembling a research team to test a theory that AIDS originated
|more than 30 years ago. Wistar Director Giovanni Rovera said he
|is in the process of assembling a team of researchers to evaluate
|the theory which was presented in a Rolling Stone article. The
|article speculates that HIV may have been present in tissue from
|a monkey kidney used by Dr. Hilary Koprowski to grow a polio
|vaccine distributed in the Belgian Congo.
| Koprowski is quoted in the article as saying that samples of
|the original vaccine are still preserved in freezers at Wistar.
|Lisa Dominici, a Wistar spokeswoman, said if the specimens are
|located, scientists should be able to determine if they contain
|HIV. But she said most experts agree it is highly unlikely that the
|current AIDS epidemic originated from a contaminated monkey kidney.
|"The article is highly speculative and the overwhelming reaction
|from the scientific community is that it's totally unreasonable,"
|Dominici said. "But that doesn't mean we're going to dismiss it.
|We plan to handle this in a responsible way."
|(UPI, March 19, 1992).
|
| PANEL APPOINTED TO PROBE THEORY ON AIDS ORIGIN
|
| A blue-ribbon panel of six scientists has been appointed to
|evaluate a theory that AIDS originated in a batch of polio vaccine
|prepared at the Wistar Institute and distributed in Africa. Wistar
|Director Giovanni Rovera said he appointed the panel "in the
|interest of responsible scientific research and accurate
|reporting," after the theory appeared in the March 19 issue of
|Rolling Stone magazine.
| The committee is co-chaired by Dr. Claudio Basilico, chairman
|of the microbiology department at New York University's School of
|Medicine and Frank Lilly, a molecular genetics professor at Albert
|Einstein College of Medicine in New York. The other committee
|members include Ronald Desrosiers, professor of microbiology and
|molecular genetics at Harvard Medical School; David Ho, director
|of the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center and a microbiology
|professor at New York University Medical Center; Eckard Wimmer,
|chairman of the microbiology department of the School of Medicine
|of State University of New York at Stony Brook; and Clayton Buck,
|professor and director of scientific development at the Wistar
|Institute. (UPI, April 13, 1992).
|
| NO AIDS RISK FROM POLIO VACCINES
|
| From the
cooking.net">food and Drug Administration:
|
| Recently several stories have appeared in the media linking
|early polio vaccine trials to the origin or spread of the AIDS
|virus. The Public Health Service has seen no convincing evidence
|to support this alleged connection or even indicates that it is
|remotely possible. On the contrary, PHS, the World Health
|Organization and all other leading medical authorities who have
|evaluated this question have concluded that the polio vaccine does
|not and has never posed a risk of transmitting the AIDS virus or
|any related virus.
| The theory which alleges that polio vaccine is linked to the
|spread of AIDS, postulates that kidneys from monkeys infected with
|various retroviruses are, or were, used in the production of polio
|vaccine. According to the theory, this rendered the vaccine
|capable of infecting humans with the AIDS virus.
| There are several factors which refute the credibility of this
|theory:
| - Monkey kidneys are used as cultures for producing polio
|vaccine, but these monkeys are not infected with the simian
|immunodeficiency virus (SIV)---a retrovirus which affects monkeys.
|The absence of this retrovirus in these monkeys in the United
|States is assured, in that only monkeys from SIV-free colonies are
|used. Every monkey is tested for antibodies to SIV.
| - Even with regard to older polio vaccines produced in kidney
|cells from monkeys that may have been infected (before modern
|screening tests were available), extensive evidence indicates that
|these vaccines did not contain or transmit SIV. Such vaccines were
|tested by various laboratory techniques, and no SIV was detected.
|Individuals vaccinated with such vaccines have been tested and
|found not to have antibodies to SIV. In addition, multiple efforts
|to recover SIV from kidney cells have failed, and attempts to get
|SIV to replicate in monkey kidney cells exposed to a highly
|infectious inoculum have also failed.
| - There are no reliable scientific data which indicate that
|the AIDS virus originated from monkey retroviruses.
| - The World Health Organization has stated that there is no
|evidence of transmission of SIV to humans via polio vaccine.
| In summary, several avenues of research show that the theory
|that links the polio vaccine to the origin or spread of AIDS does
|not make much sense from a virologic standpoint. Additionally, the
|theory does nothing to explain the known epidemiology of the AIDS
|pandemic, and therefore provides no substantive insight into the
|real origin or nature of AIDS.
| The existence of this unsubstantiated theory should not deter
|people from receiving needed polio vaccinations. Polio is a very
|real infectious disease which has killed and crippled millions
|throughout the world. Global polio vaccine immunization efforts
|have saved literally millions of lives, particularly in the Third
|World, and should not be undermined by sensationalized speculation.
|(FDA Release, April 6, 1992).
|
|"Origins of HIV"
|Lancet (07/04/92) Vol. 340, No. 8810, P. 58 (Neal, Keith)
| The urbanization of Africa may explain how two {*filter*}ly
|transmitted strains of HIV suddenly appeared and quickly prompted
|an epidemic, writes Keith Neal of the Westbrook House in Sheffield,
|U.K. Neal disputes Professor Lecatsas's and Professor Alexander's
|conclusion that the simultaneous incidence of HIV-1 and HIV-2 is
|proof that the contamination of poliovirus vaccine was the origin
|of AIDS. Neal argues that changes that occurred in Africa since
|the end of colonialism have affected the HIV epidemic, especially
|rapid urbanization across the continent and a mass movement of
|people due to civil war and starvation. HIV-1 and HIV-2 were
|brought into the cities and towns through the erosion of tribal
|traditions and the resulting increase in {*filter*} freedom, the
|encouragement of multiple sex partners, the rise in poverty among
|women leading to increasing numbers turning to prostitution, and
|the rising demand for prostitution spurred by the migrant worker
|system. In addition, the developing road system transported the
|virus across the continent as indicated by high rates of infection
|among truck drivers.
|
|"Origins of HIV"
|Lancet (06/06/92) Vol339, No.8806, P.1427 (Lecatsas, G. and
|Alexander, J.J.)
| Due to the circumstantial evidence regarding the possibility
|that the poliovirus vaccine could have been the origin of AIDS, to
|ignore it would be ethically and scientifically wrong, write G.
|Lecatsas and J.J. Alexander of the Medical University of Southern
|Africa in Medunsa, South Africa. In the March 7 edition of the
|Lancet, Kyle discussed the possibility of HIV's origin lying in
|poliovaccines, an idea that was proposed in 1989 and again at the
|International Congress of Virology in Berlin, in August, 1990.
|Lecatsas and Alexander have tested a healthy vervet monkey for
|major HIV-1 antigens and the results were positive. Using this
|animal's tissue for human vaccine production would be unethical.
|But this could have happened several times because monkey kidney
|tissue was first used in poliovaccine production in the 1950s.
|These cultures could boost the growth of retroviruses. HIV can
|infect certain CD4 cells and there is evidence that some mouse and
|simian fibroblast cultures encompass the CD4 antigen. A man
...
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