The Newsletter of the National Association of Science Writers Vol. 32

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AIDS/HTLV STORY RAISES
TROUBLESOME ISSUES

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by William A. Check
(On Aprli 23, the U.S. Deparment of Health and Human Sertnces ( HHS:
sponsored a press conference in Washmngton. D.C.. announcing rmportanr
14 new researcn results about a vzrus that represents a possible cause of AIDS
The conduct of that news conference and subseauenr press coverage shed
light on the way sczentzific fhndings about public health issues are communicated to the public in this era of fascinatzon with medzczne and science
But the storv goes back much further. The sczentific and,ournalistc e-,enrs
leadzng up to the press conference are at least as reveairng as those that
occurred on Aprl 23 and thereafter.)
Before The Press Conference: The Science
The AIDS story began in a public way with the lune 5, 1981, issue
of the Morbiditi and Mortalitu Weeklv Rerorts which caried a descnption of "Pneumocustzs Pneumona--Los Angeles." The tive
patients described in this report are. in retrospect. the first recogruzed victims or what we now know as Acquired immune Dehciencv Syndrome or AIDS. A convenient starting point for the
public entry of retroviruses into this tale as a possible causative
agent of AIDS is the May 20. 1983. issue of Science in which
mvestigators from the L.S. and France published a total or tour
articles reporting evidence for infection by retroviruses in patients
with AIDS or lymphadenopathv. Because of current implied or
express claims about who 'discovered" retrovirus involvement mn
AIDS, it is worth bnefly recapping those articles.
The U.S. research groups reported evidence that AIDS patients
were miected with HTLV-1, a known virus, although one or very
recent vintage. HTLV, or human T-cell leukemiaulvmphoma virus
(now called human T-lvmphotropic retrovirus), had been isolated
only a few years eariter by Robert Gallo and his group at the
National Cancer institute (NCI) from patents with T-lymphocyte
cancers endemic in southern lapan and the Caribbean.
The evidence presented in the May 20 Science articles, much or
it from Gallo's laboratory, included the finding of antibodies against
HTLV-1 in a high percentage o AIDS paents and vir,~-:e.
nucleic acid in two others. A virus "related to HTLV subgroup 1
was also isolated from an American AIDS patient.
The Institut Pasteur group chose to search for a virus in the
lymph nodes of patients with AIDS or "pre-AIDS. Histologic
evidence had suggested that multiple swollen lymph nodes or
lvmphadenopathy syndrome, which often precedes frank AIDS
and is sometimes found as part or the debilitating illness looseiv
called "pre-AIDS", indicated active nfection. while the end-stage
disease that ensued in some men represented 'burn-out of the
immune systems. From the lymph node of one patient with
William A. Check is a Ph.D rnicrooioiogzst and a former associate eat:,
of the Medical News section of the Journal of the American Medical
Association. Holt, Rinehart and Winston has;ust publshed The Truth
About AIDS: Evolution of an Epidemic by Check and Ann Giuaic:
Fettner
5571095.0488.002

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