Wistar researcher claims AIDS

Hilary Koprowski wants to set the record straight. Koprowski said yesterday that allegations in last month's issue of Rolling Stone magazine which link his polio vaccine to the origin of AIDS are mere speculation and have no scientific merit. Koprowski, the former director of the Wistar Institute, said the article, written by Tom Curtis, is an example of irresponsible journalism. "He is not a responsible journalist," Koprowski said. "He is creating unnecessary panic and fear about a polio vaccine that has saved millions of lives." And Tom Sprague, Koprowski's attorney, also denounced Curtis' article yesterday. "Rolling Stone did not use scientific proof," Spague said. "This has been sensationalized in the media and caused people to be concerned about a safe polio vaccine." Sprague also said the National Center for Disease Control and the Food and Drug Administration have both issued statements refuting the connection between the polio vaccine and the origin of the AIDS virus. In his article, Curtis alleges that a batch of Koprowski's polio vaccine, which was grown in the kidneys of monkeys and orally administered to children in Africa between 1957 and 1960, was responsible for the outbreak of the HIV-1 virus in humans. Curtis' theory involves three main allegations, each of which Koprowski said is based wholly on circumstantial evidence and support from non-scientists. First, Curtis asserts that Koprowski used both African green monkeys and Asian rhesus monkeys for his vaccine. Curtis says these monkeys carry SIV, a harmful simian retrovirus. In response, Koprowski said he only used Asian rhesus monkeys for his vaccine, and that the monkeys were not infected with any harmful simian viruses. And according to The Washington Post, scientists agree that while green monkeys carry a strain of SIV, it is too different from HIV-1 to have evolved into the virus now recognized as the cause of AIDS in people. Curtis also alleges that Koprowski's vaccine was contaminated with SIV because the polio virus used in the vaccine was grown in the kidneys of monkeys. But Koprowski said that even if SIV/HIV-1 did exist in the kidneys he used, it could not have survived in the kidney cell culture while the polio virus used for his vaccine was being grown. Gerald Quinnan, acting director of the Food and Drug Administration's Center for Biologics, confirmed this in a statement to The Washington Post. "When our lab and other labs tried to grow SIV in monkey kidney cell culture, we couldn't do it," Quinnan said. "There aren't enough cells in the culture capable of supporting the virus." Curtis also asserts that the AIDS virus was orally transmitted to the African children through the vaccine. But Koprowski said the possibility of transmitting AIDS through a drop of vaccine in the mouth is virtually nonexistent. "People in Africa have been eating green monkeys for centuries," Koprowski said. "There is a much larger chance of getting a disease from monkey meat than from a drop of vaccine placed on the tongue." Koprowski said the AIDS virus may have once been a mild disease, but that numerous transmissions of it through blood rituals and sexual activity caused the disease to become more virulent. But Koprowski stressed that this theory is only his speculation about the origin of AIDS. Koprowski added that he thinks the medical world should not be concerned with finding the original cause of the fatal disease. "We must find cures and vaccines -- not origins," he said. "We must find them as quick and effective as possible." Despite Koprowski's defense, the Wistar Institute has named a committee of scientists to review Curtis' theory. "There has been a rather complex series of conjectures," Wistar's Director of External Affairs Warren Cheston said. "Things have to be checked out -- we have a responsibility to investigate." Sprague said he agrees that an investigation is warranted. "There should be a scientific investigation, not just wild speculation, as we see in Rolling Stone," he said.

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