He mentioned his observations to a microbiologist colleague, who had read about a new species of chlamydia with a peculiar pear shape. The colleague referred Shor to an expert on the subject, Cho-Chou Kuo, of the University of Washington School of Public Health, in Seattle. After Shor shipped Kuo the curious coronary tissue, Kuo found that the clogged coronary arteries were full of C. pneumoniae. Before long, others were reporting the presence of live C. pneumoniae in arterial plaque fresh from operating tables. By the mid-1990s a radical new view was emerging of atherosclerosis as a chronic, lifelong arterial infection.
Big questions remain, of course.
A few early studies suggest they might. Researchers in Salt Lake City infected white rabbits with C. pneumoniae, fed them a modestly cholesterol-enhanced diet, killed them, and found thickening of the thoracic aortas, in contrast to the condition of uninfected controls fed the same diet. Additionally, treatment of infected rabbits with antibiotics in the weeks following infection prevented the thickening. Saikku and colleagues reported a similar finding, also in rabbits. Coronary patients in Europe who were treated with azithromycin not only showed a decline in antibodies and other markers of infection but in some studies had fewer subsequent cardiovascular events than patients who were given placebos.