Been on vacation so, I'm just now catching up on email.  In light of recent
discussions, thought you might be interested in the following article:


No AIDS-Related Viruses Or Champanzee DNA Found In 1950's-Era Polio Vaccine

      http://www.eurekalert.org/releases/wi-nar091100.html

      Tests performed by three independent laboratories on 1950s-era polio
vaccine samples from The Wistar Institute, Philadelphia, PA, failed to find
any traces of SIV, HIV-1, or DNA indicating that chimpanzee cells were used
to prepare the vaccine, according to the scientist who coordinated the
testing. Dr. Claudio Basilico, chairman of microbiology at New York
University Medical Center and head of Wistar's external AIDS/Poliovirus
Advisory Committee, announced the findings today at a Royal Society meeting
in London entitled "Origins of HIV and the AIDS Epidemic."
      Taken together, the findings provide strong evidence to refute the
theory that an oral polio vaccine prepared at The Wistar Institute and
administered to people in the then Belgian Congo in the late 1950s provided
the route of transmission for HIV or HIV-related viruses from chimpanzees to
humans, as has been proposed by Mr. Edward Hooper in his book The River
(Little, Brown and Co., 1999).
      A linchpin in Hooper's theory is the supposition that chimpanzee cells
were used in the preparation of the vaccine. For this reason, it is
significant that the tests identified DNA from only one species of primate -
the Asian macaque monkey, not the chimpanzee - in the Wistar vaccine
samples. The two former Wistar scientists who developed the vaccines, Dr.
Hilary Koprowski and Dr. Stanley Plotkin, have long maintained that no
chimpanzee cells were used in their preparation.
      "There is nothing in the results from these tests to support the
theory that HIV entered the human population during the late 1950s
poliovirus clinical trials in Africa," Dr. Basilico says. "The different
tests performed by the three independent laboratories did not find any
evidence of SIV or HIV in the samples nor did they find chimpanzee DNA. In
fact, the laboratories were able to determine that all of the Wistar samples
were grown in monkey cell cultures rather than chimpanzee cell cultures."
      "We want to thank Dr. Claudio Basilico and the Wistar external
AIDS/Poliovirus Advisory Committee, as well as the laboratories who
generously donated their resources to this project, for shepherding these
tests through to a conclusion," says Dr. Clayton Buck, acting director of
The Wistar Institute. "We trust that these results will put to rest any
remaining concerns of a link between a Wistar-produced oral polio vaccine
and AIDS. The findings should also serve to restore public confidence in the
production and administration of vaccines and in the response of science to
public inquiry."
      For the tests, the Wistar samples were subdivided and coded by Dr.
Vincent Racaniello, Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons,
New York, NY. Sets of the samples were then delivered to the three
independent laboratories who had agreed to perform the tests: Dr. Shirley
Kwok, Roche Molecular Systems, Pleasanton, CA; Dr. Svante Paabo, Max Planck
Institute, Leipzig, Germany; and Dr. Simon Wain-Hobson, Institut Pasteur,
Paris, France. Dr. Kwok tested for the presence of SIV/HIV in the samples;
Dr. Paabo tested for the presence and species origin of mitochondrial and
nuclear DNA in the samples; and Dr. Wain-Hobson's laboratory performed both
tests.
      Additional sets of samples, including control samples, were prepared
and coded by the Centers for Disease Control, Atlanta, GA, and delivered to
the three testing laboratories. All codes were provided only to Dr. Basilico
for later interpretation of the results.


Elizabeth H. Thiers, OTR/L
homepage: http://www.bv.net/~john
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