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A NEW TECHNOLOGY REVEALS THE HIDDEN DANGER

In 1988, Dr. Robert Garcea and Dr. John Bergsagel were investigating common human viruses in childrens' brain tumors with a new technique called polymerase chain reaction or PCR. The technique allows researchers to identify small bits of DNA in tissue samples. As they conducted their tests, half of the brain tumor samples showed signs of an unidentified DNA strand. Concerned, they continued to investigate and discovered that the DNA they kept finding was from the SV 40 virus. What was a particular concern to the researchers was that the tumor samples had all come from children too young to have been infected from batches of the polio vaccine known to be contaminated.

At about the same time, Dr. Michele Carbone of the National Institutes of Health discovered a type of tumor called a mesothelioma in hamsters injected with the SV 40 virus. What concerned Carbone was that the SV 40 had been injected into the hamsters hearts, but the tumors were on the lining of their lungs. This suggested that extremely small amounts of the virus carried by the tip of the needle used to inject the hamsters' hearts had caused the cancer.

It was present in 60% of the test animals

To confirm his suspicions, Carbone injected the SV 40 virus directly into the mesothelial walls (linings of the body's major cavities) of hamsters. Every animal so treated developed the rare cancer mesothelioma. What concerned Carbone even more was the fact that although most cases of mesothelioma in humans was linked to asbestos exposure, roughly a fifth of the cases involved people who had not been exposed to the carcinogen. Could SV 40 be the missing link?

Carbone decided to find out by running PCR tests on four dozen samples of human mesothelioma tumors stored at NIH. To his shock, 28 of them contained the SV 40 virus.

Carbone's findings were a signal to other cancer researchers to look for the SV 40 virus in connection with other rare cancers. Over the next several years, the evidence mounted.

By 1996, the evidence was becoming clear. Scientists around the world were discovering the SV 40 virus present in a wide variety of bone and brain cancers. More important, the incidence of all of these cancers had been rising sharply over the previous two decades. Still, the question remained of how the virus had become so widespread. Then, Italian scientists made a startling discovery.

In 1996, Italian researchers tested blood and body fluid samples from a number of healthy individuals. Fully 45 percent were found to have the SV 40 virus in their semen, and 23% in their blood. This meant that even people who had not taken the vaccine might be at risk.

Despite these increasingly strong indications that something was amiss, the medical establishment resisted the notion that the SV 40 virus was a problem. At the National Cancer Institute, Dr. Fraumeni the author of the studies which said that SV 40 was not a problem, was now head of the Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics. Since his findings were being challenged he dispatched one of his employees, Dr. Howard Strickler, to do yet another study of SV 40.

Strickler tested 50 samples of mesotheliomas taken from military hospitals for SV 40 using the PCR technique. His findings were negative. He then embarked on a study measuring cancer rates among persons who were born between 1947 and 1961, the age cohort that had received the contaminated vaccine. He compared them with people born after 1963 when the vaccine was supposed to be SV 40 free.

Strickler presented his findings at a conference in January of 1997 along with additional results from a study comparing cancer rates among people born between 1947 and 1963 with those among people born after 1963. There was no difference in the rates he concluded, and therefore no problem.

Or was there?...

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