I was talking with the IT person for the county, who was on the County Y2K Task Force me, right before the rollover. We were talking about so many of us involved in y2K had an underlying knowledge of government, corporate lies and misconduct and therefore didn't trust them to begin with. Here is just another example...

LINK New York Times, November 30, 1999 THE DOCTOR'S WORLD By LAWRENCE K. ALTMAN, M.D. Is AIDS a disaster inadvertently brought on by humans that arose from early testing of a polio vaccine in Africa in the 1950's? This provocative theory seemed far-fetched when it first came to public attention in an article in Rolling Stone in 1992. Most AIDS experts dismissed it after a scientific committee reviewed the theory and deemed the probability very low. But that panel based its conclusion in part on a published finding that was later shown to be in error. And now a remarkable new book by a British journalist offers tantalizing clues to revive and expand the polio vaccine theory. In "The River" (Little, Brown, $35), Edward Hooper suggests that an experimental oral polio vaccine might have been made with chimpanzee tissue contaminated with an ancestor of the virus that was to cause AIDS. Although he has no medical expertise, Hooper, 48, has done a prodigious amount of research since 1990. In 1,070 pages, including extensive footnotes, he builds a case based entirely on circumstantial evidence that he accumulated in hundreds of interviews and exhaustive library research. He finds close coincidence in both time and place between the earliest cases of AIDS and the testing of an oral vaccine developed at the Wistar Institute in Philadelphia and, later, in two laboratories in Belgium. From 1957 to 1960, the vaccine was given to a million people in what are now Rwanda, Burundi and Congo. If the experimental vaccine was contaminated, nothing could have been done about it because tests for the ancestor virus did not exist then. And it would have been a one-time event because standard polio vaccines were not made from chimpanzee tissues. Of 28 cases of AIDS acquired in specified towns in Africa through 1980, 23 were from the same towns where the experimental vaccine was given or within 175 miles of them. The area is the epicenter of the African epidemic, which is the worst in the world. And there is precedent for a simian virus's lurking in polio vaccine: millions of Americans were inadvertently infected with such a virus, SV-40, in the 1950's and early 1960's. (Fortunately, it was not harmful.) But in 1967, several laboratory workers in Germany died from the newly discovered Marburg virus after it had been imported in African green monkeys. The virus is harmless for the monkeys but lethal for humans. The similarities Hooper describes could be coincidence. "The River" does not prove his extraordinary theory, nor does it claim to. But it builds a sufficiently detailed case to require serious examination of his theory. Attempts to find answers require extensive research, and in the book and in subsequent interviews Hooper has offered a long list of suggestions, including laboratory testing of the small amounts of vaccine that still exist after having been stored for more than 40 years. Because the vaccine may have degraded over the decades, performing all the proposed research might still not determine whether it accidentally touched off the AIDS epidemic. And even if a simian virus turned up in the stored samples, it would not prove that it started the epidemic. Still, even if the vaccine thesis is disproved, Hooper's research has embarrassed scientists. He has found that leading researchers kept sloppy records and that prestigious peer-reviewed medical journals published reports that omitted crucial details. Despite a diligent search, Hooper could turn up no records of what primate tissues were used to prepare the first experimental polio vaccines, which were tested mostly in Africa but also in the US and Europe. Though the government requires more record keeping today, scientists say there is ample room for improvement. With the exception of a negative review in the journal Nature, experts writing in scientific journals have praised Hooper's diligence and scholarship and the plausibility of the thesis, even if they are skeptical of it. In the journal Science, Dr. Robin A. Weiss, a leading virologist in London, wrote that Hooper had written the most exhaustive history of polio vaccine trials and early AIDS cases.

The Wistar Institute, the first independent medical research center in the US, appointed the 1992 panel to examine the theory that its vaccine might have touched off the AIDS epidemic. Now it says it is trying to find independent experts to do what they were unwilling to do seven years ago, when the panel recommended testing the remaining stocks of the experimental polio vaccine. One aim is to detect evidence of simian cousins of HIV-1, the virus responsible for the overwhelming majority of AIDS cases in the world. A second is to determine the primate species from which the vaccine was prepared. Ever since American doctors first recognized AIDS in 1981, the origin of the viral disease has been a mystery. Scientists have dismissed many theories, including those that held that the CIA or KGB concocted it, because they lacked evidence or did not fit the facts. What is known is that the earliest documented HIV-1 infection is from 1959 in a man in Kinshasa in what was then the Belgian Congo, was later Zaire and is now Congo. Scientists generally agree that HIV-1 derives from a simian virus in chimpanzees. But the unanswered question is how the virus jumped to humans. The usual view is that passage must have occurred in blood-to-blood contact, like a bite or cut during the slaughter of chimpanzees. But humans have killed chimpanzees for centuries. So why did transmission not occur until the late 1950's? The conventional explanation cites the vast social changes that occurred after World War II: mass migration, urbanization and sexual freedom. Monkey cells were routinely used to make polio vaccines then and now. But Hooper theorizes that chimpanzees were also used to prepare the experimental polio vaccine. As circumstantial evidence, he points to a large colony of chimpanzees at the Lindi River in central Congo, where the primates were caught for research. (The river of the book's title is a metaphor for the search for the source of AIDS.) Only a small percentage of chimpanzees are believed to carry the HIV-1 ancestor virus. But if chimpanzee tissues sent to a laboratory in Philadelphia or Belgium were infected, they might have found their way into one or more batches of experimental polio vaccine, particularly the strain known as CHAT, prepared at the Wistar Institute. In such an event, HIV's simian ancestor might have grown in the batches of polio vaccine used in experimental trials only. When the vaccine was squirted into human mouths, the simian virus could have passed through a sore or ulcer and entered the bloodstream, subsequently to evolve into H.I.V.-1. From there it would have been transmitted through sexual or blood-to-blood contact. Any contamination would have been accidental, because specific tests could not have been performed before 1985, when a simian counterpart of HIV was first isolated. Whether chimpanzee tissue was used should be easily confirmed or refuted by checking laboratory records and scientific journals. But Hooper said he could not find out precisely how the vaccine was made, and neither could the committee that the Wistar Institute appointed in 1992 to examine the theory. The committee was justifiably skeptical of the theory, in part because British scientists had reported that a seaman from Manchester died of AIDS in 1959 and probably was infected for about 10 years, thus placing the origin of HIV-1 before the development of polio vaccines. Also, the experimental Wistar vaccine had been given in Poland and Sweden, and AIDS was not reported there in the critical years. Despite the committee's skepticism, it recommended that two independent laboratories test the remaining vaccine. In seeking such cooperation, Wistar officials found only one lab, at the federal CDC, willing to do the work, so it was dropped because it would have been impossible to obtain confirmation, Dr. Clayton Buck, Wistar's deputy director, said in an interview. The testing has taken on new urgency because further research has shown that the Manchester man did not die of AIDS: that the HIV thought to have been isolated from his body was actually from someone else infected more recently. Nevertheless, the misdiagnosis of AIDS in the seaman does not alter any of the committee's other conclusions. Even if chimpanzee tissue was used, the vaccine theory remains a long shot, the head of the committee, Dr. Claudio Basilico of New York University, said in an interview. Still, the committee was so concerned about the theoretical dangers from primate tissues that it urged vaccine manufacturers to make "a serious effort" to stop using them. Dr. Basilico says his committee may be reactivated to oversee the preparation of the stored vaccine for testing. And the Wistar Institute has pledged to find two or three independent laboratories to do the tests. "It ought to be done because it can be done," Dr. Basilico said, though he added that the testing might not provide a conclusive answer, in part because of the difficulty of disproving a theory. In preparing the material for the independent laboratories, the Wistar Institute will include samples other than polio vaccine for purposes of scientific controls. The committee will code all the material to keep the testing laboratory from knowing which is which, Dr. Basilico said. The Wistar polio vaccine was also given to a small number of Swedes. When some of the remaining vaccine was tested in 1995 as a result of Hooper's work, Swedish scientists found no evidence of simian viruses in it. But the findings do not refute the theory, because different vaccine batches may have been used in Africa and Sweden. Nor did the Swedish scientists try to determine the source of the primate species for the vaccine. Dr. Hans Wigzell, the director of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, said in an interview that he was skeptical of the vaccine theory but assumed the Swedish government would be willing to do more laboratory testing to try to find out.

Hooper's recommendations go beyond such testing. One proposal is to conduct a formal investigation into the missing information and how the vaccine was made. If the precise technique could be determined, then scientists could investigate whether a contaminating simian virus was capable of surviving the vaccine-making process. A second recommendation is to conduct a vast search of blood and tissues for evidence of HIV in blood or tissue taken before the polio vaccine era; detecting the virus would strongly challenge the vaccine thesis. A third proposal is to find out whether another early case of HIV, in a baby born in 1973 to a teenager in New Jersey, could have been linked to the testing of the experimental vaccine at a women's prison in Clinton, N.J. With 16 million people dead and 33 million more infected, AIDS is among the worst epidemics in history. A seriously researched theory about something so devastating deserves a full scientific investigation even if the theory is unlikely and chances of proving or disproving it are slim. Since the credo of science is to seek the truth, science should assure the public of its integrity. Vaccines are unquestionably one of medicine's great triumphs, and they have nearly eradicated polio from the world. But if experimental batches of polio vaccine were inadvertently contaminated with an ancestor of the AIDS virus when immunizations were made by much cruder techniques than those used today, then scientists and government officials would have to accept responsibility for a historic blunder. Yet many scientists say privately that publicizing Hooper's theory would risk tarnishing public confidence in the safety of vaccines. Scientific groups that could have sponsored scientific meetings to discuss the vaccine theory, or taken an interest in testing the vaccine, have not done so. Hooper said an official of the WHO told him that the origin of AIDS was "certainly of no interest today." But that attitude is surely shortsighted. As Dr. Peter Piot, the head of the United Nations AIDS program, said in a recent interview, "If it were possible to determine where AIDS came from, that would be important for science and the world to now." ------------ Letter to the editor... Susan Kreider wrote: Attached please find my Letter to the Editor of the NY Times.

Susan Kreider 169 W. Queen Lane Philadelphia, PA 19144 (215) 849-1698

December 6, 1999

Dear Editor of the New York Times,

I read, with interest, Lawrence K. Altman, MDs review of the "The_River", by Edward Hooper. While I have not personally reviewed the 1,000+-page book, I have received email previously about it. I found the review interesting, and am compelled to make a few points. The book review acknowledges a precedent for presence of a simian virus in polio vaccines, SV-40, affecting millions of Americans in the 50s and 60s. This NY Times reporter, Lawrence K. Altman, MD assures "(Fortunately, it was not harmful.)" Or perhaps he is quoting an Edward Hooper assertion.

I dont know who is responsible for this claim. But I do not necessarily accept the assuring statement that SV0-40 virus is not harmful. In a July 7, 1999 story by Nicholas Regush of ABC News it is reported that Howard Urnovitz, a microbiologist at the Chronic Illness Research Foundation in Berkeley, CA believes that the virus called SV40, which contaminated polio vaccines given to millions of people from 1955 to 1963 (100 million in the U.S. alone), may be causing a variety of cancers, including childhood brain tumors, bone cancers and mesothelioma, a cancer associated with asbestos exposure.

I had the occasion to meet Howard Urnovitz, waiting in line to attend the August 3, 1999 congressional hearings about vaccine safety chaired by republican Dan Burton. He was supposed to testify at this hearing. Born in 1957, I wonder if I was one of the millions of Americans whose immune system has been exposed to SV-40. Truly, it is something else to worry about. The reporter asserts that the earliest documented HIV-1 infection was in 1959 in a man in Kinshasa, now Congo. I question the means by which these findings are established and verified. Dr. Urnovitz said that there is knowledge of a case of HIV infection discovered in a woman living in rural France in 1957.

"The River" discloses that scientists failed to maintain documentation of the experimental vaccines manufacturing process. This information might have been helpful in establishing whether the ancestral HIV virus might survive manufacturing conditions. How widespread a problem is it is that researchers fail to document such details? Public and private research projects should be registered, for a better-informed consuming public and in order for results to be published in a way that is consistent and unbiased.

The review reports that when the Wistar Institutes advisory panel in 1992 called for two independent laboratories to research the simian virus contamination theory, they only found one laboratory at the Center for Disease Control willing to do the work. I cannot imagine why they were unable to locate a second laboratory for confirmation?

The review reports that the committee was so concerned about the theoretical dangers from primate tissues that it urged vaccine manufacturers to make "a serious effort" to stop using them? What would a serious effort include? Should manufacturers alert the public and issue a recall of all such lots of vaccines that were distributed to healthcare providers? Might that not undermine the progress manufacturers have made in convincing the public that every infectious and chronic disease will someday be fixed with the development of a vaccine? Think of the loss of profits that might be a result of trashing existing vaccine stores, not to mention the loss of public confidence.

It is interesting that Dr. Claudio Basilico will be in control of preparing the material for the independent laboratories, but it doesnt sound foolproof to me. Who will be watching Dr. Basilico? What makes him resistant to corruption? (Coincidentally, while walking down Spruce Street yesterday I found a lost Wistar Institute employee I.D. badge. Just for fun I was half tempted to see how deeply I could penetrate the bowels of the Wistar Institute, prior to doing the right thing and dropping it into a US mailbox.)

The casual reference to an HIV infected baby born in 1973 to an imprisoned woman in New Jersey was way disturbing. Is it just me, or does anybody else have issues with using a teenage female prisoner for the purpose of drug experimentation? Is this still going on  using inmates as lab rats?

Finally, it is unbelievable that Hooper said an official of the World Health Organization told him that the origin of AIDS was "certainly of no interest today!" That doesnt sound like the kind of person I would want even as an official in a corner candy store, let alone making decisions about world health policy! That kind of short-sighted thinking is not acceptable.

Thank you for this interesting review of "The River," which sounds like an excellent book to give for the holidays; a little light reading.

Sincerely, Susan Kreider, RN

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RAYMOND GALLUP wrote: The following excerpts from The River: A Journey to the Source of HIV and AIDS by Edward Hooper, Little, Brown and Company, 1999. The following excerpt on attentuated virus vaccines (measles). Page 333-334. "We don't use live virus. We don't have to," Gard (Professor Sven Gard of Sweden) went on. "With the inactivated virus properly produced, we achieve immunity levels much higher than you ever get with....attentuated strains." I asked if he was totally opposed to OPVs (Oral Polio Vaccines). "Yes," he answered, "With attentuated virus, you introduce millions of infection sources into the community each year.....The so-called attenuated virus strains ----- we know that they are not stable." I could see his point, but it occurred to me that whereas IPV (Intravenous Polio Vaccine) could work well in an orderly country with a strong tradition of communal responsibility, such as Sweden, it would be far more problematical in other countries that enjoyed less than 100 percent vaccination cover. Gard added that he was suspicious about the safety of other attentuated virus vaccines (such as, for instance, that against measles), which, perhaps, he felt, had the potential to "go underground" and then re-emerge in virulent form many years later. Some people, he added, suspected that multiple sclerosis might be a rare late effect of the measles vaccine virus, because monoclonal antibodies against measles appeared in the spinal fluid of many MS cases. OPV/AIDS Page 363: It seemed clear that Wain-Hobson (Simon Wain-Hobson of Paris, France) would have no problems with a hypothesis of iatrogenic origin of AIDS --- one in which medicine was mooted as the cause --- so I asked about the OPV/AIDS theory. He told me that it was "a theory which merited discussion" and that he had been surprised to find out that "they hardly knew which {species} of animal they were using" to make the vaccine. "Why not discuss it?" he asked. "I would have thought only those people who've got something to hide don't want to discuss it." I gave him quite a lot more background, and explained that there seemed to be a possibility that chimp kidney might have been used to make some of the vaccine, and he responded: "If there was a chimp connection....then that becomes fascinating. You're just given me even more ammunition for my belief in the human foibles theory. And just hearing that, and knowing Koprowski (Dr. Hilary Koprowski) a little bit, I mean.....I must confess that I'm not surprised." I asked what he meant, and he told me of an episode in which Koprowski and other researchers (including Robert Gallo) had announced a link between "Gallo's human retrovirus" and multiple sclerosis, when it was "obvious from the outset they had PCR contamination." (He went on to tell me in virology circles the joke was that PCR stood for "Probably a Contaminated Reaction.") OPV vaccine Pages 382-383: Several of Koprowski's papers about the early work on his Type 2 vaccine, TN, are remarkably detailed. They record, among other things, the first trial feedings of children, chimpanzees, and (at the suggestion of Albert Sabin) cynomolgus monkeys. They also contain, however, several rather intriguing discrepancies and anomalies, none of which appear to have unduly alarmed the authors, or other polio researchers of the era. For instance, the very first paper on OPV feeding, published in the American Journal of Hygiene in 1952, reveals that it was pool 16 of TN that was fed (in February 1950) to the very first vaccinee, and to nine of the original twenty child "volunteers" at Letchworth Village (a home for mentally handicapped children at Thiells, New York), who are described as "non-immune." It also records, however, that twenty-two of the forty-four rhesus monkeys injected intracerebrally with this same pool 16 went on to develop either moderate or severe clinical signs of poliomyelitis, and that ten of them died. In fact, of all the five pools of TN discussed in this paper, pool 16 was far and away the most virulent, being the only one to cause severe clinical symptoms or death in the monkey safety test. The fact that it was used so prominently in the first human trials is remarkable, and would seem to bring into question the most basic principles of safety testing.

And there was more. A paper by Koprowski, Norton, and George Jervis published in an Austrian journal in 1954 reveals the exact dates between 1949 and 1952 when various early pools of TN and virulent poliovirus were fed experimentally to sixteen young chimpanzees. The article explains, quite correctly, that the first feedings of TN to chimps occurred in September 1949, five months before the first human feeding of TN. It also claims that TN pool 16 was fed to two chimpanzees before it was fed to humans. However, the accompanying tables reveal the exact opposite --- that pool 16 was first fed to chimps on July 27, 1950 --- which is after the first seven Letchworth Village children were vaccinated with the same pool.

What this shows is that the first humans to be fed OPV used a pool of vaccine that had proved highly virulent in the monkey safety tests of the day, and one that (despite claims to the contrary) had not been tested by prior feeding to chimpanzees. These would have been remarkable errors at the best of times, let alone when reporting the first human trials of a new vaccine.

-- Sheri (wncy2k@nccn.net), February 09, 2000

Answers

Sheri this stuff really gets me because of things that has happen in my region. please send me any email informant on this. My emaial is valid.

-- ET (bneville@zebra.net), February 10, 2000.

Sheri,

Thank you for putting this information up.

Your "...underlying knowledge of government, corporate lies and misconduct and therefore didn't trust them to begin with..." observation pretty well sums it up.

Oh, there are certainly days when I find myself wishing that this world was a whole lot simpler place!

Oh well, gotta remember that, for me at least, it has always been out of my hands in the larger sense.

-- Redeye in Ohio (cannot@work.com), February 10, 2000.