ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, January 30, 1997 TAG: 9701300032
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-5 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: BETHESDA, MD.
SOURCE: Associated Press
Millions of Americans were exposed to a monkey virus by taking a contaminated polio vaccine in the 1950s. Scientists now are probing whether the exposure could increase their risk of certain rare cancers.
Government officials play down such fears, because the types of cancer involved do not appear to be increasing among people old enough to have received the tainted vaccine. Today's polio vaccine is tested to ensure it is free of this monkey virus, called SV40.
But scientists recently found genetic pieces of SV40 lurking inside tumors removed from cancer victims, and injecting the virus into laboratory animals gives them cancer.
That's far from proof that SV40 actually harmed a person. But international scientists who spent two days furiously debating the issue contend the virus might predispose some people to certain cancers of the brain, bone and lung.
``It may act independently or as a co-factor'' with known cancer-causers like asbestos, said Dr. Michele Carbone of Loyola University Medical Center, among the first to discover SV40 material inside human tumors.
And some question whether continuing to use monkey tissue to make vaccines might let as-yet-unknown viruses sneak in.
``Make it in anything but animals,'' said Barbara Loe Fisher of the National Vaccine Information Center, which advocates better vaccine safety.
``We have the technology to make vaccines in human cell lines that are clean,'' Carbone said. He added that Americans shouldn't fear polio vaccine and noted he recently had his child immunized.
The government held the SV40 meeting at the National Institutes of Health to see how serious the issue is. Officials concluded Tuesday that more research is needed, but they wouldn't commit to funding it.
LENGTH: Short : 41 linesby CNB