26th April 2000
Study refutes Aids link to Fifties polio vaccine.

In the Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/) Roger Highfield, Science Editor, writes:

THE theory that the Aids epidemic was created as an accidental by-product of experiments with a polio vaccine in about 1950 has been undermined by a study suggesting that the virus first crossed from a chimpanzee to a human 20 years earlier.

Aids, which has infected up to 40 million people, is now the leading cause of death among adults in sub-Saharan Africa. Some claim that the disease emerged in humans when the kidneys of chimpanzees infected with a form of the virus were used to make a polio vaccine tested on people in the Belgian Congo in the early Fifties. This theory, which originated in the Eighties, has been given a new lease of life by The River, a book by Edward Hooper.

Now a genetic study of the virus, conducted by Dr Bette Korber and Dr Tanmoy Bhattacharya in New Mexico, has shown that the last common ancestor of the virus that caused the Aids pandemic appeared before the vaccine was developed, in about 1930 - with "error bars" over 20 years in either direction.

It is not possible to say, based on this analysis, whether the last common ancestor resided in a human host or a chimpanzee, but it does undermine the vaccine theory by suggesting that multiple strains of the Aids virus were well established in humans by 1950, several years before the polio vaccines were made.

Thus for the transfer to have taken place through the vaccine, and to be consistent with their analysis, multiple strains of the virus would have needed to have been introduced through the vaccine. Dr Korber believes this makes the vaccine theory unlikely. The preliminary results of the study were presented in February at a conference in San Francisco and the final data will be published later this year in Science.

Part of the reason that many have concentrated on a post-war origin of Aids is that the oldest specimen of HIV was found in blood taken in 1959 in Leopoldville, now Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo, when a Bantu man turned up at a clinic with symptoms resembling sickle-cell anaemia.

But those sceptical of the vaccine theory argue that the virus has jumped from chimpanzees to humans many times over thousands of years and, until this century, affected individuals had died before spreading the virus.

Additional evidence to clarify any role of the polio vaccine in the Aids epidemic is being sought by the Wistar Institute in Philadelphia, the research centre that made the vaccine more than 40 years ago. Wistar has always denied that chimps were used to make it, explaining that Asian rhesus macaques were used which do not support the monkey or human virus.

The institute has asked three laboratories in the United States and Europe to carry out independent tests on the seed stocks for the vaccine to look for Simian Immunodeficiency Virus, the monkey or chimp equivalent of Aids, which had not been found by an earlier study.

Test laboratories will also use forensic methods to identify which animals were used to make the vaccine by hunting for mitochondrial DNA, which is most likely to be detected in the vaccine samples. Proponents of the vaccine theory consider these tests to be crucial. As a result, a Royal Society conference on the origins of Aids has been delayed so that the new results can be presented.

The polio-Aids theory was one trigger for the conference, championed by the original organiser, Prof William Hamilton of Oxford University, who died last month of malaria-induced haemorrhage after conducting an expedition to the Congo to find new evidence for the vaccine theory.

One of the conference's organisers, Robin Weiss, a professor of virology at University College London, denied that the delay in holding the conference - originally to be held next month, now rescheduled for September - had anything to do with pressure from opponents of the theory.

The vaccine theory was first publicised in the American magazine Rolling Stone a decade ago. It was dismissed, however, because it then claimed that the vaccine was made using green monkeys, which are infected by a virus that does not match the human virus. More recently, it was suggested that chimpanzee kidneys were used, because the chimp SIV (simian immunodeficiency virus) well matches HIV (human immunodeficiency virus).

Most scientists support the idea that both versions of the virus jumped to humans when a hunter in Africa was infected by blood while slaughtering an animal. Aids may have exploited the enormous social and technological upheaval in the wake of the Second World War. Greater access to transport, increasing population density and more frequent sexual contacts may have been important. Large-scale vaccination campaigns, perhaps with multiple use of non-sterilised needles, may also have spread the virus.

The complete text of the news report can be found at http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/
et?ac=003176033963759&rtmo=LlixdGLd
&atmo=hhhhhhhe&pg=/et/00/4/26/waids26.html

Notification of the above news item was received via NewsIndex http://www.newsindex.com/

For Polio eradication and vaccine related resources see our directory Polio Virus, Vaccine and Eradication

Related NewsBites reports:
30th March 2000 - Royal Society accused in row over origins of HIV.
15th December 1999 - Researchers Challenge Theory That Polio Trials Led to AIDS.
30th November 1999 - Is AIDS a Man-Made Plague? New research revives the theory that HIV may have originated in a polio vaccine.

17th April 2000
Polio Survivors in the News: Mayor's wheelchair marathon.

The Glenwood Post at SearchGlenwood.com (http://www.searchcolorado.com/glenwood/) carried the following Associated Press report from Salida, Colorado:

Salida Mayor Jaimie Lewis says he'll spend five days in his wheelchair, pushing it 500 miles through five states, to raise money for the R-32J School District.

"Our schools have been running at a deficit for several years. I started thinking of how I could possibly help out with a fund-raiser and had done some fund-raisers in the past with my wheelchair," said Lewis, who has used a wheelchair since 1964 because of polio.

Lewis, 41, plans a wheelchair trek beginning May 19 that begins in Cortez and takes him through western New Mexico; Window Rock, Ariz.; Tuba City, Ariz.; Fredonia, Ariz.; St. George, Utah; and Panaca, Nev.

Donations will be placed into the Support Our Schools Salida (SOSS) trust, making it possible for many of the educational programs that have been eliminated to be reinstated. "Last year they cut their budget by $300,000 and this fiscal year by $380,000," Lewis said of the three-school district with 1,218 students.

"I had a mother come to me saying her daughter went into first grade last year and was able to learn about computers," Lewis explained. "She said she's a single mom who didn't have the money to buy a computer.

"Her daughter came back to school this year and the computers were sitting there dusty, but they couldn't have any classes because they didn't have a teacher. These are the types of examples and horrors I hear that's prompted me to do something."

Lewis said that for the most part his ride has been met with positive community feedback. He said the only negatives he's heard are "rumor-mill" comments to the effect that "the schools got themselves in this problem, why should we bother to get them out?"

He hopes to raise half a million dollars but realistically looks toward somewhere between $50,000 to $100,000 from pledges made for his ride.

The complete text of the news report can be found at http://www.searchcolorado.com/glenwood/
stories/041700/reg_0417000023.shtml

Notification of the above news item was received via NewsIndex http://www.newsindex.com/

16th April 2000
Polio vaccine exhibit.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (http://www.post-gazette.com/) reports:

A permanent display of images and highlights of the efforts to create a polio vaccine was unveiled yesterday at the University of Pittsburgh, which is marking the 45th anniversary of Dr. Jonas Salk's work.

Members of Dr. Salk's family, including his son, Dr. Darrell Salk, were present for an invitation-only tribute in Salk Hall. Speakers included John Troan, who was science editor of The Pittsburgh Press at the time of the vaccine's development.

The display will be open to the public during normal building hours.

The complete text of the news report can be found at http://www.post-gazette.com/neigh_east/20000416dig.asp

Notification of the above news item was received via NewsIndex http://www.newsindex.com/

12th April 2000
U.K.: Parents of brain-damaged children launch payments protest.

In the Guardian (http://www.newsunlimited.co.uk/) Lucy Ward, Political correspondent, writes:

Parents of children severely brain damaged by vaccines under government-promoted immunisation programmes will today accuse ministers of inaction over compensation.

Over 100 victims and campaigners for justice will march on the Department of Health, claiming that the original £10,000 interim payments they received when their children were left disabled after receiving jabs for whooping cough, measles, smallpox and polio are inadequate to pay for round-the-clock care.

Parents from the 300-strong Vaccine Victims Support Group will warn that their children, many of whom are now in their 20s and 30s, are dying, or that they are themselves are too elderly to provide full-time care.

The demonstration comes days after health ministers disclosed to MPs that talks with drugs companies over securing contributions to a payments fund had broken down.

The pharmaceutical industry claims that its £40m annual profit from vaccines in the UK does not leave sufficient margins to allow it to pay a levy into a fund for the families of damaged children.

Under the 1979 vaccine damage payments act, some families of children suffering 80% or more brain damage following immunisation received a one-off payment of £10,000, a sum which has now risen to a maximum of £40,000. Parents claim the payouts are still "paltry" compared with the cost of 24-hour care.

Olivia Price, chairwoman of the vaccine victims' support group, said: "Where there is vaccination, there are going to be casualties. But for the benefit of the majority, our children have suffered and we feel as though nobody cares."

The complete text of the news report can be found at http://www.newsunlimited.co.uk/
politics/story/0,3604,158444,00.html

Notification of the above news item was received via NewsIndex http://www.newsindex.com/

For Polio eradication and vaccine related resources see our directory Polio Virus, Vaccine and Eradication

6th April 2000
Songs and laughter at Ian Dury's final gig.

In the Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/) Nicole Martin writes:

FRIENDS heard tributes and shared tears and laughter yesterday at the funeral of Ian Dury, who died last week after a battle against cancer.

Two black-plumed bay horses pulled a carriage containing the singer's coffin from his home in Hampstead, north London, to the Humanist service at Golders Green crematorium where his band, the Blockheads, performed a song.

The singer Robbie Williams and the Cabinet Office minister Mo Mowlam, who saw Dury perform weeks before he died, were among 250 mourners, including members of the group Madness. Dury's widow, Sophy Tilson, and their two young sons, Bill and Albert, were joined by Jemima and Baxter, the singer's grown-up children from his first marriage.

Annette Furley, who took the service, described Dury as one of the "few original personalities" in the music business. She said: "He used to write music that made you want to dance and also made you laugh."

She said Dury, who died aged 57 with his family by his side, reacted with humour to the news that his illness was fatal. "In true Ian style his reaction was 'Oh blimey'. His spirit carried him through. He continued to gig through his illness and he never lost his sense of humour. Even on the day he died he was still telling jokes."

Dury contracted polio as a child and he teamed up with Unicef to promote its efforts to eradicate the disease. Robbie Williams, who joined him in Sri Lanka to boost a vaccination drive, described the singer as an inspiration. He said: "I am honoured to be here. I am off to Mozambique this year to carry on Ian's work."

Among floral tributes to the singer was a wreath in the shape of a pint of Guinness. Members of Madness sent a message which adorned the carriage saying "Uncle Ian from Madness". Dury's chart success burned intensely but briefly in the late Seventies with hits including Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick and Reasons To Be Cheerful (Part 3).

The complete text of the news report can be found at http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/
et?ac=000140326706927&rtmo=qubesMe9
&atmo=qubesMe9&pg=/et/00/4/6/ndury06.html

Notification of the above news item was received via NewsIndex http://www.newsindex.com/

Related NewsBites reports:
30th March 2000 - Diet link to cancer that killed Dury.
27th March 2000 - Obituaries: Ian Dury: diamond geezer, masterful songwriter.
23rd September 1999 - Ian Dury "On My Life".
6th July 1998 - Ian Dury & the Blockheads are back.