Precedents do exist for immune interference in development. Arif et al. [37] showed that when affinity purified antibody to a protein involved in insect metamorphosis was injected into late stage larvae, the development of the larvae into adult moths was defective. Other studies in rabbits [38] and mice [7] have shown Table 2 . Detection of viral DNA in treated and control animals. that the immune response to an antigen can be enhanced by viral delivery. However, all indications are that targeting autoimmune responses in larval amphibians may not be a useful strategy as the capacity of tadpoles to respond to immunological stimuli may be too weak to affect the chain of events at metamorphosis.