Koprowski: AIDS story defamatory

Former Wistar Institute Director Hilary Koprowski, who is also a microbiology professor at the University, is suing Rolling Stone magazine for libel because of a story it printed last March. The story, entitled "The Origin of AIDS," suggested that the virus that causes AIDS in humans might have been unwittingly created as a by-product of large-scale testing of Koprowski's oral polio vaccine in Africa in the late 1950s. The lawsuit, which indicates that Koprowski will be seeking unspecified monetary damages, maintains that "the entire article, and the title of the article . . . defamed, injured and destroyed" Koprowski's reputation. The suit charges that the defendants, Straight Arrow Publishers -- which publishes the magazine -- Rolling Stone Publisher Jann Wenner, and the story's writer, Tom Curtis, "published the article with knowledge of the falsity, or with a reckless disregard for the truth or falsity" of what it printed. The article described Koprowski, Jonas Salk and Albert Sabin, who were the leaders in the search for a vaccine for polio, as racing to be the first to develop the vaccine. The article suggests that in their haste, they may have failed to consider potential dangers involved in the vaccine's creation. "Monkey kidneys [in which Koprowski's vaccine was cultivated] contained innumerable monkey viruses," the article states. "Might the one that causes AIDS be one of them?" The article also claimed that Koprowski originally tested his polio vaccine on children in a mental health facility in New York, and on babies of institutionalized mothers in New Jersey. "If the Congo vaccine turns out not to be the way AIDS got started in people, it will be because medicine was lucky, not because it was infallible," the article concluded. Last year, attorney Tom Sprague, while representing Koprowski, cited statements by the National Centers for Disease Control and the Food and Drug Administration denying that there was a connection between the polio vaccine and AIDS. James Beasley, who is representing Koprowski in this suit, could not be reached for comment last night. Koprowski is not the only one who has disputed the article's conclusions. A report issued by a panel of Wistar-commissioned scientists in October labeled the possibility that Curtis' hypothesis is valid "extremely low." Rolling Stone Executive Editor Bob Wallace said yesterday that the magazine believes the suit, filed last month, "has no merit." "We stand behind the reporter and the reporting," he said. "We stand behind what we presented to our readers." Wallace said Rolling Stone is not currently considering settling out of court.