1) A RECIPE TO combat world hunger being
cooked up by the UN Food and Agriculture
Organization has rabbit as its key ingredient.

Rabbits produce low-fat, protein-rich meat.
And because they breed fast, producing as
many as forty young a year, they are relatively
cheap to farm. Cattle and sheep only give birth
to one or two offspring a year.

"Backyard rabbitries are the perfect answer
to today's demand for sustainable
development," says Rene Branckaert, an animal
production officer with the FAO in Rome.
Worldwide, nearly a million tonnes or rabbit
meat is produced annually.

The FAO has established an information
network covering 14 countries around the
Mediterranean to promote rabbit farming.

The one drawback of rabbit farming is the
animals' vulnerability to epidemics. In the
1980s, European stocks of wild and domestic
rabbits were devastated by viral haemorrhagic
disease. Now Europe's rabbits are suffering
from a form of enterocolitis, believed to be
due to a virus. "Rabbit breeding is not easy,"
warns Pierre Coudet, a rabbit pathologist from
the French National Institute of Agronomical
Research in Tours.


2) A FATTY SUBSTANCE originally
isolated from sharks could explain Gulf War
syndrome. Blood tests on sick veterans in the
US show that nearly all produce antibodies to
squalene, a component of some experimental
vaccines.

Congress's General Accounting Office (GAO),
which was asked to investigate, can't say for
sure whether squalene was used on Gulf War
troops. But it is now demanding further tests
for squalene antibodies in military personnel.
The Department of Defense is opposed to this.


Around 100 000 troops who served in the 1991
Gulf conflict with Iraq developed a mysterious
illness involving memory loss, thyroid
disorders, allergies, fatigue, rashes and
persistent pain. Military authorities and
sufferers have long argued over the cause of
the symptoms and whether a distinct syndrome
even exists.

Bob Garry, a virologist at Tulane University in
New Orleans, has now tested 400 Gulf War
veterans for antibodies to squalene, a polymer
of fatty acids found in small quantities in human
cell membranes. Ninety-five per cent of the
veterans suffering from Gulf War syndrome
(GWS) had high levels of squalene antibodies.
People don't usually have enough squalene in
their blood to prompt the production of
detectable levels of antibodies, and none of
the veterans without symptoms had antibodies.
Garry's results have been peer reviewed, he
says, and await publication.

Squalene can be released into the blood by
physical injuries, where it boosts the immune
system's response to foreign antigens. This
"adjuvant" effect means it is widely used in
animal vaccines. Squalene is not licensed for
use as an adjuvant in people, although it has
been used experimentally on about 12 000
people.

Garry also tested two volunteers who had
received experimental herpes vaccines
containing squalene in trials run by the US
National Institutes of Health. Both have high
levels of squalene antibodies and symptoms
similar to GWS. This suggests that GWS could
be caused by the body turning against its own,
natural squalene.

Jim Turner, a spokesman for the Department
of Defense, says: "During the Gulf War, we
never used squalene in vaccines." But many
soldiers' vaccination records have been lost,
which makes this difficult to verify. Jack
Metcalf, a Republican member of Congress
from Washington state, who asked the GAO to
investigate, says: "In light of the number of
misstatements DoD made to the GAO during
this investigation, we cannot be expected to
simply accept their denial of squalene use."

Vaccines have often come under suspicion as a
cause of GWS. Gulf War soldiers were the
first to be systematically vaccinated against
anthrax and plague because Iraq was thought
to have biological weapons. France was the only
country not to vaccinate its troops, and only
French veterans are free of GWS. In January,
researchers at King's College Hospital in
London reported that exposure to plague and
anthrax vaccines was the factor that
correlated most strongly with GWS in British
veterans. GWS activists claim that some British
soldiers received American vaccines.

GWS has also been blamed on exposure to
chemicals in Iraq. But Garry found squalene
antibodies in six soldiers who were vaccinated
but never went to the Gulf.

The Gulf War Veterans Association, based in
Versailles, Missouri, suspects that most cases
of GWS were caused by experimental vaccines.
If so, says the association's Dave vonKleist,
this would violate the Nuremberg Convention.
"Military personnel are not subjects for
experimentation," he says.


--
[log in to unmask] (Liza May)