A simian virus known as SV40 has been associated with a number of rare
human
cancers. This same virus contaminated the polio vaccine administered
to 98
million Americans from 1955 to 1963. Federal health officials see little
reason for concern. A growing cadre of medical researchers disagree
by Debbie Bookchin and Jim Schumacher
HARVEY Pass, the chief of thoracic surgery at the National Cancer Institute,
in Bethesda, Maryland, was sitting in his laboratory one spring afternoon
in
1993 when Michele Carbone, a wiry young Italian pathologist who was
working
as a researcher at the NCI, strode in with an unusual request. Pass
had
never before met Carbone, and had talked to him for the first time,
on the
telephone, only a few hours before. Now Carbone was asking Pass for
his help
in proving a controversial theory he had developed about the origins
of
mesothelioma, a deadly cancer that afflicts the mesothelial cells in
the
lining of the chest and the lung. Mesothelioma was virtually unheard
of
prior to 1950, but the incidence of the disease has risen steadily
since
then. Though it is considered rare -- accounting for the deaths of
about
3,000 Americans a year, or about one half of one percent of all domestic
cancer deaths -- the disease is particularly pernicious. Most patients
die
within eighteen months of diagnosis.
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Related links:
"The Lethal Dangers of the Billion-Dollar Vaccine Business," by Andrea
Rock
(December, 1996)
"With government approval, drug companies sell vaccines that can leave
your
child brain damaged, can spread polio from your baby to you -- and
can even
kill. Safer stuff is available. Here's why you haven't been getting
it." (A
health report in Money Magazine.)
"SV-40 Contamination of Poliovirus Vaccine," by Dr. John Martin (July,
1997)
An article by a doctor at the Center for Complex Infectious Diseases
in
Rosemead, California.
National Vaccine Information Center
"The National Vaccine Information Center is a national, non-profit
educational organization founded in 1982. It is ... dedicated to the
prevention of vaccine injuries and deaths through public education."
The Vaccine Page
"The Vaccine Page provides access to up-to-the-minute news about vaccines
and an annotated database of vaccine resources on the Internet."