A sneakier virus

There's a lot of Covid-19 in the news right now.  It's impossible to ignore how much it's affecting everyone's daily life.  However this is not the first time a lab-based virus has been inadvertently unleashed on an unsuspecting public.

Here's something I bet you didn't know:  Not long ago, a contaminated vaccine was given to millions of people all around the world.  This vaccine contained an unknown virus, and this virus and the diseases it cause were covered up for decades within the medical and scientific communities.

 And, 'authorities' in government, science, and medicine wonder why they are not trusted...

The vaccines that spread this unknown virus were the Sabin and Salk Polio vaccines produced between 1955 and 1961.  10-30% of all vaccines made using the Salk (killed injected) Poliovirus and the Sabin (oral live) Poliovirus were both found to be contaminated with this other virus.

Below, a computer-generated image of the Poliovirus.

Even after the viral contamination was discovered in 1960, the tainted vaccines continued to be administered to an unsuspecting public until 1963. Knowing how devastating Polio outbreaks were in those days is key to understanding why they continued to inoculate children, even with the knowledge that the vaccine was potentially unsafe.

Below, a Polio ward, full of people on early primitive ventilators, nick-named "Iron Lungs".

When Poliovirus infects an individual, about 70% of people show no symptoms.  A successful virus doesn't rapidly incapacitate and kill its host, because if it does this, it won't spread very far. 

25% of Polio patients have very minor symptoms, and just 5% of patients experience headache, stiffness in the neck, or arm and leg pain.  However, 0.5% of infections cause major muscle weakness in the arms and legs, and sometimes cause weakness in the head, neck and diaphragm, which is needed for breathing.  Polio was a frightening modern disease, easily spread in crowded cities around the globe.

So the vaccinations went on, with the secret knowledge that the Polio vaccine was contaminated.  The scientific and medical communities held their breath and crossed their fingers that very bad things would not happen (spoiler alert - they did).  Between 1955 and 1963 it is estimated that 90% of US children and 60% of US adults were inoculated with these contaminated vaccines.

That's the background for the subject at hand.  I'm sure you are curious about the virus that contaminated the Polio vaccine and its effects, so I won't keep you waiting.  The virus is SV-40, short-hand for Simian Vacuolating Virus, the 40th virus discovered in rhesus monkey kidneys.  Millions of people around the world became infected with it as a result of contaminated Polio vaccines.

Below: The SV-40 virus.

So how did SV-40 wind up in Polio vaccine?  It has to do with how vaccines are manufactured, how rapidly manufacturing was ramped up, and poor quality control.  To manufacture a vaccine, you need a sample that contains a lot of virus cells.  However, viruses don't generally live or grow outside of a living organism, so we have to provide a growth medium of cells for the virus to infect and multiply in.  This growth medium is called a "substrate", and the infected substrate is called a "tissue culture".

Salk selected a substrate of monkey kidney (you can already see where this is going) to grow his Poliovirus.  The concentrated virus was then killed with formaldehyde, and then injected in a series of three shots.  The killed virus provoked an immune response, which created a 99% effective immunity against all three strains of Polio.  Salk was hailed as a hero, and in fact, he was.  However...

Monkey kidneys, as one might expect, contain other organisms besides kidney cells - and one of those is the virus SV-40.  When Salk's laboratory process was ramped up to industrial levels of production by pharmaceutical companies, things got sloppy.

The formaldehyde used to kill the Poliovirus did not reliably kill SV-40.  Sometimes the formaldehyde didn't even kill the Polio virus.  Children were killed by live Polio virus that survived the vaccine manufacturing process.  This failure is detailed here - "The Cutter Incident". 

This was an embarrassing failure of the National Institute of Health, which undoubtedly has contributed to the deep suspicions of the anti-vaccination movement. Many medical experts would brush aside criticism of this and other events, because of their desire to see diseases eradicated.  Their hubris is a bit unnerving.

And so out went SV-40, to be injected into millions of people around the globe.  The orally delivered Sabin vaccine was also found to be contaminated, although the manufacturing process for that vaccine was somewhat different.  As an aside, the oral Sabin (weakened) vaccine was the more effective one, because it set up shop in the intestine, and blocked the Polio virus from even entering the body.

In 1960, SV-40 was identified by Ben Sweet and Maurice Hilleman when they discovered that 10-30% of the Polio vaccines in the US were contaminated with it.  In 1962 Bernice Eddy (another real hero) discovered that SV-40 is carcinogenic in hamsters - sarcomas and ependymomas (brain tumors).  In fact, every single one of the hamsters she infected with SV-40 developed cancerous tumors.

Most people now are infected with SV-40, as it is transmitted in-utero from mother to child.  It is believed to persist as a latent, non-lethal infection. And yet...

SV-40 is known to suppress the gene that causes cells to kill themselves when they experience uncontrolled growth (cancer).  Nearly all Mesothelioma cancers have been found to contain SV-40, suggesting that SV-40 is at least a co-carcinogen of asbestos.  Mesothelioma was virtually unheard of before modern times, even though asbestos has been mined for centuries.

SV-40 is also indicated as a possible cause of many types of previously very rare cancers - particularly in children - called blastomas and gliomas.  Many of these rare childhood cancers are linked to mutations in tumor suppression genes.  Some of these tumor suppression genes are hereditary, and some likely come from SV-40.

Below, children suffering from retinoblastoma, a cancer of the retina.  How much of this is due to SV-40?  

Below, a troubling trend in childhood cancers.  Unfortunately, the data begins 15 years after the contaminated Polio vaccine was spread globally.  

I would strongly suggest that you read this link for further reading, and a fascinating learning experience. Another interesting read is "The Virus and the Vaccine".

Lastly, I would be remiss if I did not mention the heroic efforts of Dr. Michele Carbone to bring the connection between SV-40 and Mesothelioma and other rare forms of cancer to light.