This is G o o g l e's cache of http://hepatitis-c.de/siv.htm.
----Study Previewed at Houston Conference Provides New Interpretation on How
Chronic Diseases Progress
Findings Suggest Link Between Retrotransposons, Chronic Inflammation
and Contaminated Vaccines
Houston, Texas -- April 12, 1996 -- Speaking to the 8th Annual Houston Conference
on AIDS in America, Dr. Howard B. Urnovitz previewed the findings of a new study
investigating the underlying mechanisms in the progression of HIV-infected patients
to AIDS. The data, to be presented next month at the American Society of Microbiology,
suggest that the presence of antibodies to retrotransposons may provide a window
into the advancement of chronic diseases.
Retrotransposons, or HERVs, are normal genes found in all animals. The detection
of antibodies to these normal genes signals an underlying breakdown of the heavily-regulated
immune system, a critical event known to allow HIV-1 infection to culminate
in AIDS. Using a specially-designed investigational diagnostic test, researchers
were able to measure each subject's retrotransposon antibody level and correlate
it with CD4 count and HIV virus load. The findings suggest that researchers
may be able to track the progression of HIV infection to AIDS through monitoring
retrotransposon antibodies.
"The presence of retrotransposon antibodies may serve as a warning sign
that an underlying persistent inflammation may be occurring. It is similiar
to a wound that will not heal," said Dr. Urnovitz.
Urnovitz went on to describe the role retrotransposons also may play in other
chronic diseases such as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Persian Gulf War Syndrome,
cancer, neurologic disorders and autoimmune diseases. He discussed his current
research efforts, which have shown that retrotransposons may play a role in
"archiving" virus fragments as a way of creating "molecular memory."
Urnovitz used post-polio syndrome as an example of how retrotransposons may
work. The majority of the 1.63 million Americans who had polio 20 to 40 years
ago now suffer from a variety of illnesses described as post-polio syndrome.
According to the scientific literature, post-polio syndrome patients have fragments
of the polio virus left behind in their nerve tissue.
Retrotransposons may have copied these fragments into memory in the form of
host DNA (the patient's own DNA). Although these fragments normally remain benign,
an outside "opportunistic" infection or chemical agent may inflame
the tissue to produce the virus fragments, igniting the symptoms physicians
now refer to as post-polio syndrome -- central nervous system disorders, muscle
fatigue and joint pain, for example. These types of illnesses have been seen
in over a dozenepidemics in the last 60 years. "The result of continually
expressed, archived fragments is the presence of white blood cells in tissues.
These white blood cells may interfer with cellular and tissue activities thus
leading to symptoms such as fatigue."
What may be the source of other "archived" viral fragments in so many
people?
Clearly, naturally occuring infections is a likely source. However, Urnovitz
went on to describe how polio vaccines (given between 1955 and 1961 in the U.S.)
contained low levels of live monkey viruses. "As is commonly known, Americans
were given 'inactivated' polio vaccines that actually contained up to 26 contaminating
monkey viruses.
The viruses were unknowingly introduced into the vaccine because the polio virus
was grown in contaminated monkey kidney cells. Many of the new syndromes have
some association with the possible contaminants in the vaccine," said Dr.
Urnovitz.
It is very likely that HIV-1 may have been a result of the contaminated polio
vaccines due to the presence of its precursor, simian immunodeficiency virus
or SIV, in the African preparations or as an environmental factor. HIV-1 may
in fact be a monkey-human hybrid, part SIV and part normal human gene from the
envelope region of a human endogenous retrovirus.
Dr. Raphael Stricker, a leading AIDS physician at the California Pacific Medical
Center in San Francisco, believes Dr. Urnovitz's new findings could initiate
a major leap forward in understanding immune system diseases. "Dr. Urnovitz
has contributed a major missing piece to the mystery of the possible origins
of chronic diseases such as AIDS, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Gulf War Syndrome.
If this theory holds true, it could be as big a discovery as was the link between
oncogenes and cancer. We must now examine two new issues: first, whether exposure
to contaminated polio vaccines of the late 1950's is a risk factor in progression
from HIV-1 to AIDS and second, whether we should look for ways to minimize the
inflammatory response to fragmented viruses."
Dr. Adan Rios, the conference director and another leading AIDS physician, characterized
Dr. Urnovitz's presentation as an example of why he feels the annual conference
is so important. "This AIDS conference is designed as an open forum to
invite scientific challenges, present new research and ideas as Dr. Urnovitz
has done, and most importantly, allow the Houston community to participate in
the discourse."
http://www.chronicillnet.org/news/releases/release_7.html#RTFToC1
JAMA 1998 Jan 28;279(4):292-295
Contamination of poliovirus vaccines with simian virus 40 (1955-1963) and subsequent
cancer rates.
Strickler HD, Rosenberg PS, Devesa SS, Hertel J, Fraumeni JF Jr, Goedert JJ
Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, National Cancer Institute,
National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Md 20852, USA.
CONTEXT: Poliovirus vaccine contaminated with live simian virus 40 (SV40), a
macaque polyomavirus that is tumorigenic in rodents, was used extensively in
the United States between 1955 and 1963. Simian virus 40 DNA has recently been
detected in several rare human tumors, including ependymomas, osteosarcomas,
and mesotheliomas.
OBJECTIVE: To determine the risk of ependymoma,osteosarcoma, and mesothelioma
among Americans who as children received SV40-contaminated poliovirus vaccine.
DESIGN: Retrospective cohort study using data from the Surveillance, Epidemiology,
and End Results program (1973-1993) and the Connecticut Tumor Registry (1950-1969),
as well as national mortality statistics (1947-1973).
SETTING: United States.
PARTICIPANTS: Birth cohorts that were likely to have received SV40- contaminated
poliovirus vaccine as infants, born 1956 through 1962 (60 811730 person-years
of observation); as children, born 1947 through 1952 (46430953 person-years);
or that were unexposed, born 1964 through 1969 (44959979 person-years).
MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Relative risk (RR) of each cancer among exposed compared
with unexposed birth cohorts.
RESULTS: Age-specific cancer rates were generally low and were not significantly
elevated in birth cohorts exposed to SV40- contaminated vaccine. Specifically,
compared with the unexposed, the relative risk of ependymoma was not increased
in the cohorts exposed as infants (RR, 1.06; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.69-1.63),
or as children (RR, 0.98; 95% CI, 0.57-1.69) nor did the exposed have an increased
risk of all brain cancers. Osteosarcoma incidence also showed no relation to
exposure as infants (RR, 0.87; 95% CI, 0.71-1.06) or children (RR, 0.85; 95%
CI, 0.59-1.22). Last, mesotheliomas were not significantly associated with exposure,
although the cohorts studied have not yet reached the age at which these tumors
tend to occur.
CONCLUSIONS: After more than 30 years of follow- up, exposure to SV40-contaminated
poliovirus vaccine was not associated with significantly increased rates of
ependymomas and other brain cancers, osteosarcomas, or mesotheliomas in the
United States.
_____________________________________________________________________
THE POLIO VACCINE AND SIMIAN VIRUS 40
After Thirty Years, Prominent Polio Vaccine Researcher Confirms Suspicions About
Monkey-Virus Contamination
By T.J. Moriarty
Over the past fifteen or more years, the immune system has been increasingly
more challenged. Indefensible disorders such as AIDS and HIV as well as conditions
like Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) and Persian Gulf War-Related Illnesses are
the new epidemics of the Silicon Age. By comparison, the days of polio and small
pox epidemics seem crudely forgiving when we consider that today's viral mutants
repeatedly outsmart gains made in vaccine development.
However, it seems the days of polio are still with us - not in the form of acute
viral outbreaks of fever and paralysis - but in the "uncharted" data
on the long-term effects from the simian (monkey) viral contaminated polio vaccines
given to countless children and adults three decades ago. Even more, what other
"undetectable" monkey viruses have been transmitted in the vaccine
batches of late? These unanswered questions continue to resurface in today's
research and still riddle retired scientist Ben Sweet. "No one really knows
if there are any dangers, but no scientist can definitively say there aren't
any, that is what's scary," says Sweet.
As a senior research scientist for a major pharmaceutical company from 1959
to 1964, Dr. Sweet was one of those responsible for the research, development
and field testing of the killed respiratory virus vaccine.
Contaminated Polio Vaccines
Scientific literature states that some polio vaccines given between 1955 and
1961 may have contained low-levels of live monkey viruses. As many as 26 of
the simian contaminants were readily detected but still other viruses, like
SV40 slipped past rigorous quality control testing procedures available at that
time. The simian viruses were inadvertently introduced into the vaccine pool
because the polio virus was grown in monkey (Rhesus, Patas, or Cynomolgus) kidney
cells.
In his 1960 paper, "The Vacuolating Virus : SV40" Sweet and co-author
M.R. Hilleman write, "This new virus represents the detection for the first
time of a hitherto "non-detectable" simian virus of monkey renal cultures
and raises the important question of the existence of other such viruses. All
three types of Sabin's live polio virus vaccine were contaminated."
Dr. Sweet told Chronic Illnet about the alarm that circulated around the discovery
of the SV40 virus in 1960, "It was a frightening discovery because, back
then, it was not possible to detect the virus with the testing procedures we
had. It only showed up in the cells of the African Green monkeys -- the species
being used exclusively by our company. We had no idea of what this virus would
do thirty years ago."
Sweet says there were two things that the research team had determined: "First,
we knew that SV40 had oncogenic properties (cancer-causing) in hamsters which
was bad news. Secondly, we found out that it hybridized with certain DNA viruses
- like adeno virus - such that the adeno virus would then have SV40 genes attached
to it. We couldn't clean up the adeno virus vaccine seed stocks grown in monkey
kidney cells only". The seed stocks apparently were always contaminated
but the vaccines were still administered.
Confusion Surrounding the "Killed" Vaccine
Possibly the most unsettling part of his research that he carries with him thirty
years later, is knowing that an untold number of people (possibly in the 10's
of millions) were exposed with this virus whether they were given the "live"
or "killed" polio vaccine.
"Even the people who received a killed polio virus vaccine could have been
infected. Those papers we wrote were incorrect at the time, stating that formalin
killed vaccines were free of simian SV40 virus. But the new information regarding
the killed ones was never published," he added. By then it was too late.
These findings came after the mass inoculations with the polio vaccine.
The distinction between "live" and "killed" vaccines is
a critical one. The scientific community and the American public was told that
"killed" vaccines were undoubtedly safe because formalin was used
to destroy any contaminating simian virus. The thirty-nine or so simian viruses
prior to SV40, were probably inactivated with formalin, but not SV40. The virus
eluded the virus- killing behavior of formalin. This now meant even the "killed"
vaccines unintentionally contained small amounts of active virus. "So it's
a likely possibility that a some of those individuals injected with supposedly
inactivated adeno virus vaccines that had the SV40 contaminant or SV40/adeno
hybrid could also be producing antibodies to it."
Due to the molecular "kinetics" of virus inactivation, Sweet and other
researchers believe other viruses -- similar to SV40 -- could also have been
present in the vaccines if they too could circumvent formalin inactivation.
There were specific laboratory difficulties associated with adeno virus -- now
carrying an attached form of SV40. Sweet describes, "When we started growing
the vaccines, we just couldn't get rid of the SV40-contaminated virus. We tried
to neutralize it, but couldn't. Either adeno or SV40 would come out down the
line."
Chronic Illnet: What were you thinking at the time when you realized people
were being exposed to SV40 about the long-term effects, considering we're still
in the dark?
Sweet: "We really didn't think about it until we found out it was oncogenic
and now, with the theoretical links to HIV and cancer, it just blows my mind."
Chronic Illnet: Was there any temptation to just scrap the whole project, make
an announcement and move on?"
Sweet: "Sabin and, more specifically, Salk vaccines were already widely
in use by then. We were, of course, always worried about possible vaccine contaminants
present because we didn't know what these monkey cell cultures were carrying.
We were always worried about encountering a new, undescribed virus. Always.
When we found out there were viruses present in the Rhesus -cynomolgus monkey
systems, and the possibility that each monkey assay system was different from
another, the temptation was there to transfer the studies to another system.
But it was too late to switch gears and start using raccoon or chicken systems,
because then you could be dealing with another whole set of viruses."
Chronic Illnet: What was the political climate?
Sweet: "You had to be careful, very careful. When the virus appeared oncogenic
in hamsters, we wanted to do tests to determine if it caused malignant transformation
of normal cells in culture. In reality, we did not although an outside agency
confirmed the findings."
Sweet also described another inherent problem in vaccine development -- the
controversy and competition between the Salk (killed) and Sabin (live) formulas.
Despite common knowledge, both Salk and Sabin were definitely contaminated.
The Salk vaccine had already garnered prestigious appeal as a "safe vaccine".
Long-term Studies Encouraged Three Decades Ago
In his 1960 paper, Sweet, et al. stressed the need for studies on the long-
term effects on humans to determine the pathogenicity of these agents for man.
"When the 'contaminated' vaccines were released, we really felt confident
patients needed a substantially higher level of infectious SV40 and/or they
had to receive multiple shots to elevate the body's viral count high enough
to cause the harm." To some, the term "contaminated" carries
with it an intent of malice, but Dr. Sweet says this is clearly not the case.
Sweet noted that persons fed live SV40 contaminated polio virus vaccine orally,
or inactivated Salk-type vaccine intramuscularly, showed strong evidence of
antibody production to polio viruses. In additon, the vaccine recipients were
not showing significant harmful effects or antibody production, in the short
term, to SV40 - which was encouraging. "Less concerning long-terms effects
could be noted," he says.
At the time of the discovery of the human exposure to SV40, there was no evidence
that the virus was present or active in vaccine recipients. In recent years,
however, SV40 has been isolated in human tissue, two from the brains of patients
with PML (progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy) and another from a metastatic
melanoma patient. Results of this study appeared in the paper "Human Exposure
to SV40 : Review and Comment" by Shah and Nathanson in the Journal of Epidemiology
in January of 1976. Important from that report is the only definitive origin
of where human exposure came from, "With the exception of viral vaccines,
no pharmaceutical product intended for human use requires the use of simian
cultures." Based on their interpretations, the authors estimate somewhere
between 10-30 million people of the 98 million injected were exposed to at least
SV40.
Today's Polio Vaccine Research - Long-Term Effects
To date, the polio vaccine has been administered to an estimated ninety-seven
percent of children in the United States. Although there are no "proven"
scientific facts about the possible perils of contaminated or even "purified"
polio vaccines, there are a handful of credible researchers with theories too
intriguing and carefully outlined to disregard. Their theories, if proven, may
offer a new link in conquering the immunodeficiency diseases of this century.
Microbiologist Howard Urnovitz is one member of a team who believes many of
today's "new" syndromes like Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Gulf War-Related
Illnesses and even HIV have, "some association with the possible contaminants
in the vaccine." He says we may be paying the price for "prevention"
years later, as the uncertainty about the effects on our immune system from
the vaccine continues to unfold.
Was SIV Also Present? Is There an Evolution of HIV from the Vaccines ?
There is also a concern whether another virus of primate origin -- Simian Immunodeficiency
Virus (SIV) -- could also have been present in the original vaccines. That possibility
cannot be ruled out. But only testing of the original polio vaccine samples
and seed stocks would give a reliable or closely definitive answer. Sweet stressed
the need for studies on the original simian isolates and the antisera prepared
against them and their possible relationship to SIV. At this point, future studies
may be lost due to the impossibility of retrieving such samples.
At the 8th Annual Houston Conference on AIDS, Urnovitz suggests that HIV-1 may
have also originated from the contaminated polio vaccines through the recombination
with normal human genes. "It is very likely that HIV-1 may have been a
result, and that it may in fact be a monkey-human hybrid. His theory states
that the contaminating viruses have "archived" themselves in the body's
nerve tissue. These virus fragments then resurface at a later date when the
immune system becomes challenged. An opportunistic infection or exposure to
toxins could be the "trigger" that stimulates the reappearance of
these virus fragments.
"This virus 'archiving' could be igniting the symptoms of central nervous
system disorders, chronic fatigue and joint pain that have been linked to more
than a dozen unexplained epidemics," he added.
Dr. R. Stricker's paper entitled "The Polio Vaccine and the Origin of AIDS"
that appeared in the January 1994 edition of Medical Hypothesis is yet another
theory highlighting a potential link. Stricker states, "The transfer of
monkey viruses to man via vaccines is particularly relevant to AIDS since the
causative agent HIV, is thought to be derived from a simian precursor virus."
He says the evolution of HIV remains to be proven but is nonetheless startling,
"Is it only a coincidence that HIV infection manifested itself at the same
time as the introduction of vaccines that are now known to have been contaminated
with simian viruses?"
The collection of theories on the origins, pathways and the sheer number of
potential "victims" from the contaminated vaccines is certainly unsettling.
Although each theory has its own individual elements, a cohesion exists: The
cross-species cultivation of vaccines is clearly laden with risks -- risks that
may be irreversible, carrying consequences too great to endure. But to what
extent, if any, irreparable damage has been inflicted upon humanity is still
blurry.
For consumer activist Barbara Loe Fisher, co-Founder & president of the
National Vaccine Information Web Site, the fact that the original vaccines were
contaminated and current polio vaccines are still grown on African Green monkey
tissues, is just one more indication that government vaccine officials have
created dangerous public health policies without making sure they have the solid
science to back them up.
"Who is minding the public health when the FDA allows drug companies to
produce vaccines grown on animal tissue cultures and they don't even know if
this practice is facilitating cross species transfer of animal viruses into
man?" says Fisher.
Highlighting the fact that American parents are legally required to vaccinate
their babies with 10 different viral and bacterial vaccines, Fisher warns, "No
one really knows the latent, long term effects on the human immune and neurological
systems. With 200 vaccines in the research pipeline, more than 100 in clinical
trials and scores on the brink of being licensed, vaccine research had better
get back to the basic science before another AIDS epidemic is created in a vaccine
lab."
______________________________________________________________________
Reprinted from Medical Hypotheses, vol. 42, 1994, pp. 347-354, with permission
of the publisher.
Polio Vaccines and the Origin of AIDS
B. F. ELSWOOD and R. B. STRICKER*
University of California San Francisco, Mission Center, 1855 Folsom Street,
Suite 566, San Francisco California 94143-0286, USA. *California Pacific Medical
Center, California Campus, 3700 California Street, PO Box 7999, San Francisco,
California 94120, USA (Correspondence to RBS).
Abstract -- Although mass vaccination programs have resulted in the eradication
of a number of human infectious diseases, vaccine contamination has been a persistent
concern. In particular, it is now known that the early polio vaccines were contaminated
with at least one monkey virus, SV40. The transfer of monkey viruses to man
via contaminated vaccines is particularly relevant to the acquired immunodeficiency
syndrome (AIDS), since the causative agent of AIDS, human immunodeficiency virus
(HIV), is thought to be derived from a simian precursor virus. Furthermore,
human infection with this virus appears to be a relatively recent event. We
hypothesize that the AIDS pandemic may have originated with a contaminated polio
vaccine that was administered to inhabitants of Equatorial Africa from 1957
to 1959. The mechanism of evolution of HIV from this vaccine remains to be determined.
Date received 21 September 1992
Date accepted 5 January 1993
Introduction
The development of vaccines against infectious diseases has been a boon to mankind.
For example, the global eradication of smallpox was announced by the World Health
Assembly in May 1980. This long-dreaded disease was defeated with a vaccination
program that extended throughout the poorest countries and reached the most
inaccessible areas of the world (1). There are now vaccines that are effective
in preventing such viral infections as rabies, yellow fever, poliovirus and
hepatitis B. Eventually, vaccines will probably prevent malaria, some forms
of heart disease and cancer. Even venereal diseases may someday be a target
of vaccination programs.
Modern vaccine technology originated with the work of Pasteur in the late 19th
century. Pasteur created his successful vaccine against rabies by weakening
the virulence of the rabies virus, repeatedly passing virus-laden saliva from
the mouths of rabid dogs through the brains of rabbits. The rabbit brains were
then allowed to age in glass bottles. Graded doses of emulsions made from the
infected rabbit brains were given in a series of injections to people bitten
by rabid animals. The injections gave these individuals immunity to the virus
before disease symptoms had a chance to appear (1).
Pasteur's technique was the first step in the giant strides of vaccine technology
that would lead to health improvements for the future. However along with the
benefits of vaccines would come some serious new risks. Some of these risks
were tragically unforeseen. In 1902, 19 Punjabi villagers given an experimental
plague vaccine died of a tetanus contaminant (2); and in 1906 an American scientist
in the Philippines inoculated 24 prisoners with an experimental cholera vaccine
that inadvertently had been contaminated with plague. 13 of the men died (3).
The Pasteur technique was used in 1936 by Dr Max Theiler of the Rockefeller
Institute to create a vaccine against yellow fever. To produce the new vaccine,
virus strains obtained from infected individuals were passed through the tissues
of mice instead of rabbits. Fertilized chicken eggs were then seeded with these
weakened yellow fever viruses. After a week of incubation, the chick-embryos
were removed from the eggs and finely minced. Human blood serum was then added
to stabilize the viruses. In 1938 more than one million Brazilians were inoculated
with the vaccine before it was discovered that it had been contaminated with
hepatitis B virus (1). Despite this disaster, human blood serum continued to
be used as a stabilizer in yellow fever vaccines until 1942, when approximately
330 000 people came down with hepatitis B virus infection linked to vaccine
lots given to approximately 50 000 US Army personnel. There were at least 84
deaths from the 1942 hepatitis outbreak (4).
However, the largest vaccine contamination in medical history occurred from
1954 through early 1963, when millions of people around the world received polio
vaccines that had been contaminated with a monkey virus.
Killed and live polio vaccines
The road to the successful Salk and Sabin polio vaccines was a difficult one.
The first attempt at a killed polio vaccine ended in complete failure. In 1935,
a young researcher at the New York University School of Medicine isolated a
poliovirus strain and injected it into monkeys. He then ground up the spinal
cords of the infected monkeys and put the tissues into formaldehyde, which was
supposed to kill the virus. The researcher then inoculated monkeys, as well
as hundreds of children, with the 'killed' virus.
When some of the vaccinated monkeys were challenged with live poliovirus, however,
they promptly died of the disease. Investigation then revealed that at least
1 child had died and 3 others had become paralyzed after receiving the 'killed'
vaccine (5).
It was thought for some time that, since laboratory signs of poliovirus infection
were found in the nervous system, the virus could only be grown in nerve tissue.
After the 1935 disaster, scientists were afraid to use monkey nervous tissue
to make a killed vaccine. Then it was discovered that the poliovirus could grow
in monkey kidneys. This finding allowed Dr Jonas Salk to begin producing polio
vaccines with factory-like efficiency in 1952.
Eventually, the laboratories making these vaccines would consume 200 000 monkeys
a year (6).
As in 1935, formaldehyde was used by Salk to kill the polioviruses that he had
isolated. Initial tests of his vaccine showed efficacy in preventing disease
upon challenge of inoculated laboratory animals with live virus. The largest
testing of a medical product in the history of man was then organized by the
March of Dimes organization (5). But just before the mass public inoculations
began in 1954. a worrying incident occurred. Monkeys at the National Institutes
of Health (NIH) collapsed and died after receiving an injection of the Salk
vaccine. Scientists, however, were relieved to discover upon postmortem examination
that the monkeys had not died of polio but of some other disease frequently
found in monkeys (5).
The Salk vaccine trials were interrupted again when it was discovered that vaccine
lots produced by the Cutter Company had caused some monkeys and a total of 250
children and their contacts to develop complete or partial paralysis. 11 of
the victims died. The Cutter product was hurriedly withdrawn, and the vaccine
trial continued. It was later determined that bottles of tissue culture fluid
containing the virus had been stored at Cutter before going through the formaldehyde-inactivation
process. Bits of monkey kidney tissue debris had then settled to the bottom
of the containers and covered virus particles, protecting them from the formaldehyde
(5).
Like Salk with his killed vaccine, Dr Albert Sabin had to isolate viable virus
from polio victims in order to develop his live oral polio vaccine. The virus
strains had to be potent enough to cause immunity when ingested, but not so
strong as to return to virulence after undergoing Pasteur's method of repeatedly
infecting laboratory animals and harvesting the weakened viruses.
Sabin grew his viruses in monkey kidney tissues, as Salk had done. But unlike
Salk, he did not treat the viruses with formaldehyde (5).
Beginning in 1956, Sabin's live polio vaccine was tested in the Soviet Union
and Eastern Europe by the administration of sweet syrup and sugar cubes to over
77 000 000 people. The live oral vaccine was then adopted in 1962 as the polio
vaccine of choice for the United States and most of the world (5).
The discovery of Simian Virus 40 (SV40)
Euphoria at the triumph over the crippling disease of polio came to an abrupt
end among some members of the scientific community when it was discovered in
1960 that both the Salk and Sabin vaccines had been contaminated. As a result,
10 to 30 million Americans and hundreds of millions of other people world-wide
had been exposed to a simian virus called SV40 (7). This virus was found to
produce a latent infection in monkey kidneys and had a cancer-causing potential,
as indicated by its ability to produce tumors in laboratory animals. Tumors
caused by SV40 in these animals were often sarcomas occurring at the site of
inoculation, but were also found in kidneys and lungs. 3-week- old hamsters
infected with SV40 produced a wide variety of tumors, most of which were lymphomas
and bone cancers. SV40 was also discovered to transform human cells in vitro,
and the transformed cells could then produce localized tumors when injected
back into the human donors (7).
Initially, there was no definite evidence that SV40 was active in humans. Even
as late as 1975, the journal Science wrote: Who could have argued against the
benefits of polio vaccine in the 1950s --yet the vaccine received by millions
of people in the United States and abroad is now known to have been contaminated
with SV40, a monkey virus which causes tumors in hamsters, though not, as luck
would seem to have it, in man. (8)
However, by then SV40 had been isolated from the brains of 2 patients with progressive
multifocal leukoencephalopathy (PML) (9) and from an advanced melanoma (10).
Moreover, an Australian study demonstrated a correlation between polio immunization
and the development of cancers in children over 1 year of age (11). In other
reports, footprints of SV40 were found in adult and pediatric brain tumors (12),
(13), and an increased occurrence of intracranial tumors was noted among persons
who had received the contaminated vaccines (14). SV40 was also implicated in
the development of bladder, oromaxillofacial, and parotid gland tumors (15),
(16), (17). More recently, it has been discovered that endothelial cells transformed
by SV40 cause Kaposi sarcoma-like tumors in immunodeficient mice (18), and that
latent SV40 infection can be reactivated by simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV)
to cause kidney cancers and PML in monkeys (19). Yet despite these findings,
no major studies of the possible consequences of the massive population exposure
to SV40 have been conducted to date.
However, in 1988, a study conducted between 1959 and 1965 in 58 807 pregnant
women was reviewed (20). Data from this Collaborative Perinatal Project demonstrated
that the risk of brain tumors among offspring of mothers who had received the
Salk vaccine was 13 times the risk among offspring of mothers who had not. The
stored serum samples of the mothers of offspring with cancers were tested for
antibodies to SV40. Despite the association between the vaccine and the occurrence
of brain tumors in vaccinee offspring, none of the mothers' sera were positive
(20). The conclusion of the reviewers was intriguing: the cancers were probably
caused by a still-unidentified infection originating in the polio vaccine. which
(according to the reviewers) was known to have been contaminated with numerous
simian viruses (21).
What happened when SV40 was discovered in the vaccines? The Director of the
Division of Biologics Standards of the NIH issued a memorandum to manufacturers
of the live oral polio vaccine on June 30, 1961, ordering them to exclude SV40-contaminated
lots from all vaccines used in the United States (7). Since the Asian monkeys
used in vaccine production were up to l00% infected with SV40, the manufacturers
began to import large quantities of African green monkeys which did not naturally
harbor the virus or show antibodies to it upon capture in the wild (22). Thus
vaccine production switched from predominantly Asian monkeys to African green
monkeys in 1961.
A new human disease emerges
Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) is a pandemic disease of high mortality
afflicting all countries of the world. The majority of cases reported to date
have been in North America, Western Europe, Equatorial African and Brazil. The
pandemic is also rapidly spreading among other Third World countries such as
Thailand and India, and has reached such high levels in parts of Africa that
some countries are now threatened with negative population growth.
AIDS first came to the attention of medical researchers in early 1981 when the
Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia, reported some unusual infections
and cancers occurring among homosexual men in New York, Los Angeles and San
Francisco. Epidemiologists then began looking for more cases in other cities
around the United States. What they discovered was that the first cases of the
disease in the homosexual community had probably occurred in New York City in
1978 (23).
Also occurring in New York City's homosexual community that same year was the
first large scale clinical trial of a new vaccine against hepatitis B virus.
This vaccine was derived from the blood of healthy human carriers of the virus.
The New York City Blood Center trials were placebo-controlled, double-blind
randomized tests conducted in 1083 male homosexual volunteers (1). Hadthis medical
experiment anything to do with the outbreak of AIDS in the homosexual community?
Since the 1000 medical workers in other parts of the country were also given
the experimental vaccine and had not come down with AIDS, the timing was thought
to be only coincidental.
By the fall of 1981, AIDS had apparently spread beyond the homosexual communities.
The Montefiore Hospital in the Bronx began treating cases in heterosexual intravenous
drug users, and the New York and New Jersey state health departments reported
that some prison inmates had the tell-tale opportunistic infections. The Jackson
Memorial Hospital in Miami then reported that Haitians were coming down with
the disease. Soon hemophiliacs and recipients of blood transfusions were also
dying of it (23).
In October 1983, French physicians reported that a deadly disease almost identical
to AIDS was raging in Equatorial Africa. It was readily apparent that a contagion
was causing the deaths. A breakthrough in the mystery came when Drs F. Barre-Sinoussi
and Luc Montagnier of the Pasteur Institute in Paris discovered an unusual new
retrovirus in the blood of two victims. A year later. US researchers led by
Dr Robert C. Gallo confirmed the French finding of the retrovirus implicated
in AIDS. The new retrovirus was called human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) (23).
The notion that AIDS was a new disease in the Western hemisphere was supported
by the fact that no hemophiliac in the United States had died from the disease
before 1980, even though blood from Haiti was often used to produce the coagulant
factor that the patients' lives depended on (23). That the disease was also
a recent occurrence in the rest of the world was shown by the fact that the
earliest detection of HIV in the tissues of a European was in a British sailor
who died inManchester, England in 1959 (24). The earliest known serum sample
containing antibodies against HIV also dates from that same year (25). The serum
was collected from an unknown patient visiting a clinic in Leopoldville, the
Belgian Congo (now Kinshasa, Zaire). There is no laboratory evidence of HIV
infecting humans before 1959 (26).
Simian AIDS
In February 1983, veterinary scientists made a startling discovery. Monkeys
at the University of California Primate Research Center and at Harvard's New
England Primate Center were suffering waves of illnesses strikingly similar
to those seen in AIDS patients. These monkey epidemics actually had begun in
1969, but were not thought of as significant (monkeys often died in captivity)
until the recognition of AIDS in 1981 (23).
A retrovirus which was 40% identical to HIV was soon isolated from an ailing
macaque monkey. It was called simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV). The monkey
had probably been infected with SIV while in captivity, since it was discovered
that the natural hosts of SIV were African green monkeys, just as Asian macaque
monkeys had been found in 1960 to be the natural hosts for SV40 (27).
The discovery of a virus related to HIV occurring naturally in the monkey species
that was preferred for vaccine production caused the World Health Organization
(WHO) to convene two 'informal' meetings of experts in 1985. At the time, the
conclusions issued by WHO seemed reassuring: first, live polio vaccines prepared
in African green monkey kidney cultures during the 1970s had been tested for
retroviruses using reverse transcriptase assays and electron microscopy, and
(given the nature of the tests) none had been found; second, WHO had tested
vaccine seed stocks as well as 20 batches of vaccine for retroviruses, and again
(given the tests used) none had been found. In addition, WHO had checked 250
vaccine recipients for HIV antibodies, and none were positive. 30 of these recipients
were also tested for SIV antibodies, and all were negative. Finally, WHO said
that long-term follow-up of vaccine recipients had shown no sign of adverse
effects potentially associated with a retrovirus (28).
Apprehensions were revived, however, when it was discovered that some West Africans
were infected with a virus that resembled SIV (29). The virus identified in
their blood was called HIV-2. Like HIV-1, it was soon implicated in the development
of AIDS. Researchers from the Japan Poliomyelitis Research Institute then undertook
their own investigation of vaccine contamination.
They found that approximately 26% of the African green monkeys used in vaccine
production in Japan had antibodies against SIV. They killed 2 of these monkeys
and looked for the virus, but couldn't isolate it in the monkey kidneys -- though
they readily found it in blood, bone marrow, spleen, tonsils and lymph nodes.
Vaccine stocks were then tested, and again (given the tests used) no SIV was
found. In addition, no antibodies to the virus were detected in 190 vaccine
recipients. However, the conclusion of the Japanese researchers was that more
caution should be exercised. They recommended that monkeys infected with SIV
should not be used in the preparation of vaccines (30). And sure enough, in
May 1991, it was reported that researchers using more sensitive tests for SIV
had found virus DNA in virtually all of the tissues and organ systems of infected
monkeys, including the kidneys (31). Furthermore, a SIV not previously known
to infect humans was recovered from the cancer cells of an AIDS patient (32)
and SIV infection has now been discovered in laboratory workers, agricultural
workers and urban dwellers (33), (34).
To some researchers. there appeared little doubt that human AIDS had its origins
in the recent cross-species transfer of African monkey viruses to man (35),
and to others that this transfer took place via contaminated vaccines (36),
(37), (38), (39), (40). Since SIV was quite different from HIV-1, however, it
was unclear exactly how this cross-species transfer could occur through vaccines.
In 1990, 2 wild chimpanzees in Africa were discovered to be infected with a
strain of SIV that was 75-84% identical to HIV-1 (41), leading some researchers
to call it 'the missing link' to the origins of HIV-1 in man (42). It was thought
that the chimpanzees may have been infected through contact with an unknown
monkey species (23). This finding gave no comfort to those who disputed the
vaccination theory, since chimpanzees had been used to attenuate and test viruses
for potential use in vaccines and were often kept in captivity by vaccine laboratories
(43), (44). Chimpanzees, therefore, could be a source of vaccine contamination
and infection of other captive monkeys.
It is now known that HIV can infect at least 1 species of macaque monkey (45),
and HIV antibodies have been detected in captive African green monkeys (46).
Because of the size of the current epidemic in Africa and because of HIV- positive
serum showing up there as early as 1959, it is now generally agreed that AIDS
originated in Africa (23). But if contaminated polio vaccines were responsible
for the introduction of HIV to man, why was its early occurrence so geographically
localized and not more widely distributed? Certainly vaccination programs such
as the Salk vaccine trial in the United States and the Sabin trials in the Soviet
Union and Eastern Europe were affecting millions of people around the world.
If the vaccines were linked to the origin of AIDS, why were Africans the first
to come down with the disease? Perhaps the answer is that Africans were not
immune to polio vaccine trials.
The Congo vaccine
In the 1950s there were other researchers besides Salk and Sabin who were racing
to win the polio vaccine honors. One of them was an American who worked for
one of the largest pharmaceutical manufacturers in the world. Before attempting
to develop an oral polio vaccine, this researcher had done studies on yellow
fever virus in Brazil (47). Like Salk and Sabin, he had to perform successful
isolation of poliovirus strains, weaken the viruses by infecting humans and
laboratory animals with them, test them for virulence, and then make the viruses
proliferate in culture. His supervisor at the pharmaceutical company preferred
using fertile chicken eggs instead of monkey kidney cultures (he was afraid
of the unseen dangers), but kidney cultures were more effective in growing polioviruses,
and so the researcher began to use them in conjunction with chick embryo cultures
(48).
The problem that the researcher faced was in testing his live polio vaccines.
His first attempt to inoculate humans came to light in March 1951, when he announced
at a medical conference that he had given his vaccine in chocolate milk to a
group of mentally defective children in an institution in New York State (49).
When the Salk vaccine trials began, the researcher had to find a population
in another country in order to test his product. He chose Belfast, Northern
Ireland. But his vaccine trial in Belfast was stopped when his weakened viruses
appeared to return to virulence. He then left the pharmaceutical company and
went to head a research institute, announcing, however, that he would continue
to develop a live polio vaccine (5).
In 1955, the researcher attended a rabies course organized by the World Health
Organization in Kenya. There he met the director of a medical laboratory in
Stanleyville, Belgian Congo. He proposed to the laboratory director a program
of experiments administering a new polio vaccine to chimpanzees. The director
agreed, and a colony of chimpanzees was created in Lindi Camp, Belgian Congo,
for the American researcher's use. The animal keepers were inoculated with the
new vaccine, supposedly 'to protect them' from the experiments with the chimps.
The successful inoculation of the animal keepers was the excuse then used to
propose a mass public inoculation program (30).
>From 1957 to 1959, the American researcher's vaccine was given to hundreds
of thousands of inhabitants of the Belgian Congo, including the area which now
comprises Kinshasa and eastern Zaire as well as the countries of Rwanda and
Burundi. Over 320 000 of the vaccine recipients were infants and children (49).
In a preliminary report in the British Medical Journal of July 26, 1958, the
American researcher and his colleagues printed a detailed map of the areas in
which residents had been inoculated with the Congo vaccine (49). This mapcorrelates
with another map provided by authors of a report 30 years later identifying
areas of high levels of HIV infection in Equatorial Africa (51).
Another study in 1985 concluded that HIV infection among adult residents of
this area had probably occurred in childhood (52).
In 1958, another polio vaccine researcher studied the particular strain of attenuated
poliovirus used in the Congo vaccine. He discovered that the strain was contaminated
with an 'unidentified non-poliomyelitis virus' (53). In response, the American
researcher wrote that all vaccines made in monkey tissues were probably contaminated
with unknown simian viruses (54), (55). In addition, because of an embargo in
India that affected the monkey trade beginning in 1955, some of the kidneys
used in producing the vaccine may have been obtained from African green monkeys
or other simian species (6). Thus the origin of contaminating virus, as well
as the exact nature of the manufacture of the vaccine, is uncertain (56), (57),
(58).
Because of independence and resulting tribal chaos and civil war breaking out
in the Belgian Congo in 1960, there was no long-term follow-up of this mass
inoculation. The American researcher claimed that he had the permission of the
World Health Organization to conduct the trial, but WHO later denied it (5).
Since the Congo vaccine was never approved for human use, it was never used
after 1960. (Sabin won the live vaccine honors.) When WHO tested seed stocks
of poliovirus for HIV and SIV in 1985, had it also tested seed stocks of this
researcher's viruses? And when WHO tested actual polio vaccines in 1985, had
his 1957 Congo product been one of them?
It is now known that HIV can readily be transmitted through mucosal tissues
(59). The 1957-1959 inoculations in the Congo were performed by squirting live
polio vaccines from syringes into the mouths of the vaccinees (60). This procedure
would have aerosolized some of the liquid and been a very efficient mode of
HIV transmission. Assuming that the average time between infection with HIV
and development of AIDS symptoms is 8-10 years (as is currently believed), the
first outbreaks of disease occurring in Africa and related to this vaccine would
have taken place in the period from 1965 to 1971. Is it only a coincidence that
this is exactly the same period when scientists now believe that AIDS began
occurring in Equatorial Africa (61)?
It is difficult to believe that the outbreak of HIV infection in Africa at the
same time and location as this mass polio vaccine trial is a coincidence. But
medical scientists also assumed that it was a coincidence when the first cases
of AIDS in the homosexual community in New York followed the first hepatitis
B vaccine trial in that community, just as NIH scientists believed in 1954 that
some monkeys falling down and dying of a monkey disease after receiving the
Salk-vaccine was a coincidence.
Conclusions
Whether the 1957-59 polio vaccine inoculations in the Belgian Congo were the
cause of the cross-species transfer of HIV to man remains to be proven. What
we do know is that the Congo vaccine was passaged in monkey tissue, that it
was contaminated with at least one unidentified non-poliomyelitis virus, and
that it was given to hundreds of thousands of people (including infants and
children) in an area that is now endemic for HIV disease. But instead of acknowledging
the possible role of medical science in the origin of the AIDS pandemic, some
researchers have been throwing stones at the first victims.
Among theories expounded to explain the African genesis of AIDS are: Africans
eating monkeys; Africans keeping monkeys as pets; and Africans engaging in rituals
in which monkey blood is used as a magic potion (51), (62), (63). But Africans
have engaged in these practices for thousand of years, while AIDS is an entirely
new disease. Is it only a coincidence that HIV infection manifested itself at
the same time as the introduction of vaccines that are now known to have been
contaminated with simian viruses? Whatever the case, as one scientist has written:
'The story of AIDS teaches us that animal tissues should not be injected into
humans, because the risk of introducing a new virus is too great' (63).
Acknowledgements
The authors wish to acknowledge Peggy Tahir and Kathy Kimber for research assistance,
and Ann Giudici Fettner and Tom Curtis for helpful discussion. We also thank
Steven Koontz for expert technical assistance. After we independently developed
our hypothesis and original manuscript in September, 1991, we discovered that
Louis Pascal had already proposed a similar hypothesis about the Congo vaccine
(64). We wish to acknowledge Mr Pascal's pioneering work .
Source:http://www.uow.edu.au/arts/sts/bmartin/dissent/documents/AIDS/Elswood94.html
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