-Caveat Lector- Wistar Responds to Claims on AIDS Origin ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ -- By David Morgan PHILADELPHIA, Nov 10 (Reuters) - An eminent US medical research center will release lab specimens from a 1950s polio vaccine project in Africa in hopes of dispelling claims that its scientists inadvertently caused the AIDS epidemic, officials said on Monday. For more than a decade, the Wistar Institute and two of its leading scientists have been dogged by speculation that the AIDS virus was transmitted from chimpanzees to humans through an oral polio vaccine given to more than 1 million people, mostly children, in central Africa. Officials at the private, nonprofit institute said it would allow two independent labs to test material from the 1957-1960 vaccine trials in hopes that this will end the controversy by showing no evidence of simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV), which affects chimpanzees. Scientists believe the AIDS epidemic, which has stricken 33 million people worldwide, began after SIV was transmitted from chimpanzees to human beings in western central Africa. Officials at the US Centers for Disease Control say it probably occurred during the slaughter of chimpanzees as early as the 1930s. Recently, however, the polio vaccine theory has been thrown back into the spotlight by a new book by British journalist Edward Hooper, whose research suggests that vaccine batches may been made from chimpanzee kidneys and tainted with SIV. Two Wistar scientists who led the polio research, former institute director Dr. Hilary Koprowski and his former deputy Dr. Stanley Plotkin, reject this suggestion. "The idea is a house of cards built on circumstantial evidence, and whatever doesn't fit has been ignored. It's also, frankly, an attack on people's reputations, and I feel it has to be dealt with," said Dr. Plotkin, 67, who developed the modern rubella vaccine before leaving Wistar for France's Pasteur Merrieux Connaught. Two laboratories, which will be selected by Dr. Plotkin, will conduct the tests and will have the specimens by the end of this year. "We just feel we can put that issue to rest if it's tested. Then...we've done exactly what people feel would be necessary at least to relieve the tension over this issue," Wistar Chief Administrator Clayton Buck said. DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance�not soapboxing! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory', with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright frauds is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRL gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credeence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. ======================================================================== Archives Available at: http://home.ease.lsoft.com/archives/CTRL.html http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ ======================================================================== To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
