From: ncostello@vms.eurokom.ie
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic
Subject: Re: AIDS corrections
Date: 13 Nov 92 16:39:21 GMT
Followup-To: sci.skeptic
Organization: EuroKom Conferencing Service

Since there is so much discussion about what that Times article
said, here it is:

 1    TMS 11 May 87 Smallpox vaccine 'triggered AIDS virus' (1086)

      By PEARCE WRIGHT, Science Editor
   The AIDS epidemic may have been triggered by the mass vaccination campaign
   which eradicated smallpox.
   The World Health Organization, which masterminded the 13-year campaign, is
   studying new scientific evidence suggesting that immunization with the
   smallpox vaccine Vaccinia awakened the unsuspected, dormant human immuno
   defence virus infection (HIV).
   Some experts fear that in obliterating one disease, another disease was
   transformed from a minor endemic illness of the Third World into the current
   pandemic.
   While doctors now accept that Vaccinia can activate other viruses, they are
   divided about whether it was the main catalyst to the AIDS epidemic.
   But an adviser to WHO who disclosed the problem, told The Times: 'I thought
   it was just a coincidence until we studied the latest findings about the
   reactions which can be caused by Vaccinia. Now I believe the smallpox
   vaccine theory is the explanation to the explosion of AIDS. '
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   'In obliterating one disease, another was transformed. '
   Further evidence comes from the Walter Reed Army Medical Centre in
   Washington.
   While smallpox vaccine is no logner kept for public health purposes, new
   recruits to the American armed services are immunized as a precaution
   against possible biological warfare. Routine vaccination of a 19-year-old
   recruit was the trigger for stimulation of dormant HIV virus into AIDS.
   This discovery of how people with subclinical HIV infection are at risk of
   rapid development of AIDS as a vaccine-induced disease was made by a medical
   team working with Dr Robert Redfield at Walter Reed.
   The recruit who developed AIDS after vaccination had been healthy throughout
   high school. He was given multiple immunizations, followed by his first
   smallpox vaccination.
   Two and a half weeks later he developed fever, headaches, neck stiffness and
   night sweats. Three weeks later he was admitted to Walter Reed suffering
   from meningitis and rapidly developed further symptoms of AIDS and died
   after responding for a short time to treatment.
   There was no evidence that the recruit had been involved in any homosexual
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   activity.
   In describing their discovery in a paper published in the New England
   Journal of Medicine a fortnight ago, the Walter Reed team gave a warning
   against a plan to use modified versions of the smallpox vaccine to combat
   other diseases in developing countries.
   Other doctors who accept the connection between the anti-smallpox campaign
   and the AIDS epidemic now see answers to questions which had baffled them.
   How, for instance, the AIDS organism, previously regarded by scientists as
   'weak, slow and vulnerable,' began to behave like a type capable of creating
   a plague.
   Many experts are reluctant to support the theory publicly because they
   believe it would be interpreted unfairly as criticism of WHO.
   In addition, they are concerned about the impact on other public health
   campaigns with vaccines, such as against diptheria and the continued use of
   Vaccinia in potential AIDS research.
   The coincidence between the anti-smallpox campaign and the rise of AIDS was
   discussed privately last year by experts at WHO. The possibility was
   dismissed on grounds of unsatisfactory evidence.
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   Advisors to the organization believed then that too much attention was being
   focussed on AIDS by the media. It is now felt that doubts would have risen
   sooner if public health authorities in Africa had more willingly reported
   infection statistics to WHO.
   Instead, some African countries continued to ignore the existence of AIDS
   even after US doctors alerted the world when the infection spread to the
   United States.
   However, as epidemiologists gleaned more information about AIDS from
   reluctant Central African countries, clues began to emerge from the new
   findings when examined against the wealth of detail known about smallpox as
   recorded in the Final Report of the Global Commission for the Certification
   of Smallpox Eradication.
   The smallpox vaccine theory would account for the position of each of the
   seven Central African states which top the league table of most-affected
   countries; why Brazil became the most afflicted Latin American country; and
   how Haiti became the route for the spread of AIDS to the US.
   It also provides an explanation of how the infection was spread more evenly
   between males and females in Africa than in the West and why there is less
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   sign of infection among five to 11-year-olds in Central Africa.
   Although no detailed figures are available, WHO information indicated that
   the AIDS league table of Central Africa matches the concentration of
   vaccinations.
   The greatest spread of HIV infection coincides with the most intense
   immunization programmes, with the number of people immunised being as
   follows:
   Zaire 36,878,000; Zambia 19,060,000; Tanzania 14,972,000; Uganda 11,616,000;
   Malawai 8,118,000; Ruanda 3,382,000 and Burundi 3,274,000.
   Brazil, the only South American country covered in the eradication campaign,
   has the highest incidence of AIDS in that region.
   About 14,000 Haitians, on United Nations secondment to Central Africa, were
   covered in the campaign. They began to return home at a time when Haiti had
   become a popular playground for San Francisco homosexuals.
   Dr Robert Gello, who first identified the AIDS virus in the US, told The
   Times: 'The link between the WHO programme and the epidemic in Africa is an
   interesting and important hypothesis. 'I cannot say that it actually
   happened, but I have been saying for some years that the use of live
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   vaccines such as that used for smallpox can activate a dormant infection
   such as HIV.
   'No blame can be attached to WHO, but if the hypothesis is correct it is a
   tragic situation and a warning that we cannot ignore. '
   AIDS was first officially reported from San Francisco in 1981 and it was
   about two years later before Central African states were implicated. It is
   now known that these states had become a reservoir of AIDS as long ago as
   the later 1970s.
   Although detailed figures of AIDS cases in Africa are difficult to collect,
   the more than two million carriers, and 50,000 deaths, estimated by the
   World Health Organization are concentrated in the Countries where the
   smallpox immunization programme was most intensive.
   The 13-year eradication campaign ended in 1980, with the saving of two
   million lives a year and 15 million infections. The global saving from
   eradication has been put at dollars 1,000 million a year.
   Charity and health workers are convinced that millions of new AIDS cases are
   about to hit southern Africa.
   After a meeting of 50 experts near Geneva this month it was revealed that up
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   to 75 million, one third of the population, could have the disease within
   the next five years.
   Some organizations which have closely studied Africa, such as War on Want,
   believe that South Africa's black population, so far largely protected from
   the disease, could be most affected as migrant workers bring it into the
   country from the worst hit areas further north.
   The apartheid policy, they predict, will intensify its outbreak by confining
   the groups into comparatively small, highly populated towns where it will be
   almost impossible to contain its spread.

   The Times
   Issue   62765.

  
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic