Nobody is arguing that current polio vaccine supplies are contaminated. All sides in this fight urge worldwide vaccination. The debate centers on vaccines used in Central and Western Africa between 1957 and the mid-'60s. Hooper alleges that Belgian, French and American scientists unwittingly made contaminated vaccines. Beyond intellectual interest in learning the origins of the HIV pandemic, which has cumulatively infected 50 million people and killed 16 million, the debate raises serious concerns.
Professional reputations are at stake.
The credibility of western public health efforts in Africa is questioned. We are now in the last stages of polio eradication in black Africa, and attacks on earlier strains of OPV are of no small interest to us. Vaccine researchers in Uganda were delayed two years in conducting tests of a potential HIV vaccine because of strong suspicions of western intentions. Coverage of Hooper's hypothesis in African newspapers has largely been favorable. If Hooper is correct, a grievous error was made-and the largest pandemic of our time was the result of a terrible medical mistake.