杏吧原创

SPARE a thought for Hilary Koprowski. He was a hero for creating the CHAT
polio vaccine in the 1950s. Today journalist Ed Hooper is accusing him and
modern medicine of accidentally starting AIDS via polio vaccines made using
HIV-infected tissue from chimpanzees.

Tests on some of those original vaccine samples found no trace of HIV or chimp tissue
(see 鈥淲ho started it?鈥�).
But if this week鈥檚 showdown at the Royal Society is
anything to go by, it looks as if the row between Hooper and Koprowski is going
to run and run. Tempers are frayed because the implications are staggering if
Hooper is proved right. It might even open the door to legal claims against
those involved in the polio vaccine project.

To some extent, Hooper promotes his theory on the basis that there鈥檚 little
else to explain the sudden emergence of AIDS in Africa. This is hardly a basis
at all. Now it鈥檚 Koprowski鈥檚 turn to accuse Hooper of putting lives at risk by
frightening people away from the current (safe) polio vaccination.

But Koprowski and his colleagues did themselves few favours by refusing to
test the remaining CHAT samples for so long. The polio vaccine-AIDS theory first
surfaced nearly ten years ago. But tests were only done this year. AIDS expert
Robin Weiss believes that the samples would not have been tested if it hadn鈥檛
been for The River, Hooper鈥檚 meticulous account of his quest for the
origins of AIDS.

Not surprisingly, African doctors at the meeting questioned the relevance of
the whole debate. Regardless of how the pandemic started, 16 000 people get HIV
every day. Most of them face AIDS without even basic medical care.

Regardless of whether Hooper is right or wrong, or as other scientists
suggest, widespread injection of penicillin with dirty needles spread HIV, we
should all sit up and take notice. AIDS is horrific enough. Medical research,
mustn鈥檛 inadvertently unleash a successor.