I will try to, as well as I can, without cut and pasting any more of the copyrighted story. I recommend ** Science ** magazine, probably available at your local library, for the entire article, and much other good information on science news, politics, and theory. The CDC maintains many thousands of articles, as well, if you have the time, and patience to search through them all.
Dr Weiss examined the book mentioned, and its claim that chimpanzee kidney tissue was used in the preparation of polio vaccines during the politically important search for a vaccine during the 1950’s. Wistar, the company that did the work insisted that no chimpanzee tissue was used, and provided samples for viral testing, in 1993, when the original article was published in Rolling Stone. Independent agents did the testing. No virus was found, but no tests were done to determine if chimpanzee DNA was present. Wistar also sued the author, and Rolling Stone, and everyone else in sight.
The current book has brought out new acrimony, on both sides, of the argument, and new lawsuits are in the offing. Wistar has offered its samples again, for testing for virus, and for DNA. The major area of contention is not the science, but the legal liability, and the academic prestige of the various participants. Dr. Weiss finds those matters of unconvincing scientific importance.
There is also the fact that such things as vaccine testing are now being conducted in the AIDS field, even though the data available, and the opinions of the developers themselves indicate that the vaccine under consideration would not be effective in broad application. No one argues that there should not be research into vaccines, but that the decision to make trials should be driven by peer review, and scientific protocols generally applied to any research in human disease. That is not the case, in AIDS research, because of the overwhelming political need for good news from scientists, just as was the case with Polio, in the fifties.
The risks of iatrogenic disease vectors in the search for new antiviral medicines is real, and of unknown magnitude. In addition, there is insufficient understanding of the possible consequences of transplant technologies from non-human tissues. There is no current case that shows the introduction of animal specific disease into humans from these sources, but it is not unreasonable to believe that it should be rigorously examined before the use of these technologies becomes common. When the consequences of lawsuits, political favoritism, and social wishful thinking begin to take precedence over the scientific method, the danger only grows.
So, while rejecting the specific claims of the author of “The River” as unproven, Dr. Weiss, and many others speak of the unexamined risk inherent in allowing our desire for effective treatment of one disease to cause us to create an opportunity for another. Ever since the domestication of animals, our technology has exposed us to new risks, and at times, that risk has devastated our society. We do not need to abandon technology, but we do need to use our tools to assess our choices. Politics is a tool ill suited for this task.
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