There is no vaccine stored at the Wistar Institute
from: Steve
(gerouss@sdrc.com)
Subject: FWD [sci.med.aids]: Koprowski (1992): "There is no vaccine stored at the
Wistar Institute ..."
Newsgroups: misc.health.aidsDate:
2000-10-12 13:26:29 PST
In sci.med.aids Billi Goldberg wrote:
"What, then, was tested by the three independent laboratories if no
samples of the Congo polio vaccine were available at the Wistar
Institute?"
This information casts the spectre of deliberate obfuscation on the
Institute's putative "cooperation" with the process (their supplying
samples to test).
It also spotlights a gullible media who practically stumbled over
themselves trying to be the first to use the "results" of these
dubious tests to slam-dunk Hooper's hypotheses down the memory
hole A.S.A.P., without so much as one single peep of journalistic
inquiry or investigation. Disgraceful.
========================================================================
At the 9/11-12/00 Royal Society meeting on the "Origins of HIV and the
AIDS Epidemic," much "hue and cry" was made concerning the test results
of the "so-called" Wistar polio vaccine samples used in the African
Congo mass immunizations in the late 1950s.
In the various excerpts from major scientific and media outlets shown
below, it is clearly stated that testing of the polio vaccine samples by
three independent laboratories were negative for SIV/HIV and negative
for chimpanzee cells.
Preciseness of language is a critical component of accurate scientific
research, reporting and publishing especially in major journals such as
Nature, Science, and Lancet.
In a 8/21/92 letter to Science, former Wistar Director Hilary Koprowski
takes Rolling Stone author Tom Curtis to task for his impreciseness:
"Curtis does not distinguish between lots of vaccines and seed lots of
virus." (Science 1992, 257:1024-1026)
Then, in a brilliantly lucid and clear statement, Koprowski states:
"There is no vaccine stored at the Wistar Institute, but there are a few
vials of tissue culture supernatants available that may represent seed
lots used for production of vaccines in the years 1957 to 1959."
Koprowski's "may represent seed lots" is a long reach from seed lots
that were actually used for the production of the Congo polio vaccines.
What, then, was tested by the three independent laboratories if no
samples of the Congo polio vaccine were available at the Wistar
Institute?
Of course, there is always the possibility that the Wistar Institute
found stored samples of the vaccine that Dr. Koprowski knew nothing
about, but that would be highly speculative considering that they did
not exist in 1992.
Unlike Curtis, is hard to imagine that Dr. Clayton Buck and Dr. Claudio
Basilico would not know the difference between vaccine and seed lots.
----------------------------
In a 9/11/00 press release from the Wistar Institute titled "No
AIDS-related viruses or chimpanzee DNA found in 1950's-era polio
vaccine" issued under the auspices of Dr. Clayton Buck, acting director
of The Wistar Institute, it is stated: "Tests performed by three
independent laboratories on 1950s-era polio vaccine samples from The
Wistar Institute, Philadelphia, PA, failed to find any traces of SIV,
HIV-1, or DNA indicating that chimpanzee cells were used to prepare the
vaccine, according to the scientist who coordinated the testing. Dr.
Claudio Basilico, chairman of microbiology at New York University
Medical Center and head of Wistar's external AIDS/Poliovirus Advisory
Committee, announced the findings today at a Royal Society meeting in
London entitled "Origins of HIV and the AIDS Epidemic."
(http://www.eurekalert.org/releases/wi-nar091100.html)
In a 9/12/00 Washington Post article titled "Tests Fail to Show Link
Between HIV, Polio Vaccine," T.R. Reid stated: "Claudio Basilico of the
New York University School of Medicine told a seminar at London's Royal
Society that a study of seven samples of an oral polio vaccine used
widely in Africa four decades ago showed no evidence of either human
immunodeficiency virus (HIV), which causes AIDS, or its animal-world
variants."
In a 9/12/00 Guardian (UK) article titled "New row over origin of Aids
virus," James Meek stated: "But Mr Hooper's opponents were also
triumphant yesterday, pointing to results from tests on an archived
sample of the vaccine which showed that it contained no trace of DNA
from either a chimp or an HIV-type virus."
In a 9/14/00 Nature editorial titled "Time for a truce?", is it stated:
"Similarly entrenched positions greeted the news that samples of Wistar
vaccines dating from the period were produced using monkey, not chimp,
tissue, and are not contaminated with the virus."
In a 9/14/00 Nature article titled "Tests fail to support claims for
origin of AIDS in polio vaccine," by David Dickson, it is stated: "Tests
on samples of the vaccine, in storage for over 40 years, have shown no
trace of HIV or its primate antecedent SIV."
In a 9/15/00 Science article titled "Vaccine Theory of AIDS Origins
Disputed at Royal Society," Jon Cohen stated: "The theory took a hit
when researchers revealed that tests of old samples of the vaccine
provided no supporting evidence, and the main proponent of the theory,
British writer Edward Hooper, endured a verbal battering himself from
several prominent scientists."
In a 9/16/00 Lancet article titled "New data challenge OPV theory of
AIDS origin," editor Richard Horton stated: "Basilico reported findings
from three independent laboratories, which revealed not only that old
samples of OPV used in the former Belgian Congo during the late 1950s
contained neither SIV nor HIV but also that the substrates on which they
were made were monkey not chimpanzee cells."
In a 9/17/00 Philadelphia Inquirer article titled "AIDS theory logical,
yet likely wrong," Huntley Collins stated: "If that were not enough,
tests conducted on the last remaining vials of polio vaccine used in
Congo - announced by the Wistar Institute last Monday - found no HIV or
SIV in the samples."