Origins of HIV and the AIDS Epidemic [Discussion Meeting (2000: London, England)]

Experimental oral polio vaccines and AIDS

Edward Hooper
Writer
Were medical scientists inadvertently responsible for triggering the AIDS pandemic, through the massfeeding of an experimental oral polio vaccine (OPV) in central Africa in the late 1950s? Are there any flaws
in the mainstream theory of origin of AIDS - that the ancestor of HIV-1 crossed to humans after a hunter or
bushmeat-seller with cut hands became infected while capturing, or butchering, a chimpanzee? And if the
"cut hunter" theory does have shortcomings, then why has a section of the scientific community - the very
community that places such faith in rationality and factual data - reacted so emotionally to the OPV theory,
thereby ignoring a growing body of evidence? The speaker will review the arguments in favour of iatrogenic
(physician-caused) origin, as well as those put forward by its critics. He will emphasise the importance of
impartial analysis of all theories relating to the origins of both virus and disease.
Untruths and consequences
Dr Stanley Plotkin
University of Pennsylvania, USA
Several journalists have made the accusation that the CHAT type 1 oral polio vaccine used in the former
Belgian Congo in the late 1950s was produced in chimpanzee kidney cell cultures and was contaminated
with the simian relative of HIV-1, thus launching the AIDS epidemic. My paper will focus on the events that
actually took place in Philadelphia and in the Congo, and will show that there is no evidence that the vaccine
was produced in those cells. Moreover, the relationship between vaccination and putative early cases of
AIDS will be shown to be illusory. Thus, these accusations should be rejected as having no basis in fact.
Polio vaccine development and retroviruses
Dr John Beale
In view of the history of contamination of vaccines by adventitious agents, it is necessary to seriously consider
the suggestion that experimental batches of OPV may have been contaminated with a simian retrovirus. This
paper considers the effect of the various steps involved in the production of Oral Polio Vaccine (OPV) on any
retrovirus that may be present as a contaminant. First there is the question of whether it is likely that
Chimpanzee kidneys from animals infected with SIVcpz were used to prepare experimental OPV. Even if this
did occur, would the retrovirus be likely to survive the successive procedures used to prepare the doses of
vaccine administered in Africa? An attempt is made to answer this question.