The 3 people who supposedly got AIDS from 'purified' or
'concentrated' virus are sure slippery types. As far as I can tell,
no scientific paper has ever been published about them. The best that
I can find is a 1994 Science News Report (not a peer-reviewed paper,
and without any references):
"new evidence emerged from tragic accidents: the infection of three
laboratory workers with a pure, molecularly cloned strain of HIV. As
reported at the 1993 international AIDS conference in Berlin by the
NCI's William Blattner and his colleagues, one of the three lab
workers developed Pneumocystis pneumonia, an AIDS-defining disease,
68 months after showing evidence of infection. This lab worker had
not received AZT...or any other anti-HIV drug, until 83 months after
infection, when the patient had fewer than 50 CD4 cells...a second
lab worker, who also received no anti-viral drugs, had 250 to 400
CD4s at 83 months. The third lab worker had CD4 counts of 200 to 500
at 25 months and had been given anti-virals...Duesberg told Science,
that, in his view, the lab-worker data don't prove that HIV satisfies
Koch's postulates. Two of the lab workers, he notes, did not have
AIDS, but only a severe decline in CD4 counts."
And, the NIAID paper is not much more forthcoming
(www.niaid.nih.gov/publications/hivaids/all.htm). It states:
"All four postulates have been fulfilled in three laboratory workers
with no other risk factors who have developed AIDS or severe
immunosuppression after
accidental exposure to concentrated HIVIIIB in the laboratory
(Blattner et al., 1993; Reitz et al., 1994; Cohen, 1994c). Two
patients were infected in 1985 and
one in 1991. All three have shown marked CD4+ T cell depletion, and
two have CD4+ T cell counts that have dropped below 200/mm3 of blood.
One of these latter
individuals developed PCP, an AIDS indicator disease, 68 months after
showing evidence of infection and did not receive antiretroviral
drugs until 83 months after the infection. In all three cases,
HIVIIIB was isolated from the infected individual, sequenced, and
shown to be the original infecting strain of virus. "
And, it references only Blattner's abstract from the Berlin
conference, the Science news report above (by Jon Cohen), along with
one real paper:
Reitz MS Jr, Hall L, Robert-Guroff M, Lautenberger J, et al. Viral
variability and serum antibody response in a laboratory worker
infected with HIV type 1 (HTLV type IIIB). AIDS Res Hum Retroviruses
1994;10(9):1143-55.
Does anybody have any more information about these three people? What
is amazing, apart from the possibility that no scientific papers may
have ever been written about at least 2 of these three people, is
that there have never been any further reports, even though these
situations must have occurred no later than 1993.
- David Crowe
TORONTO
tel/fax:(416) 406-HEAL
Webmaster: Robert Johnston
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