Molecular Analyses of Oral Polio Vaccine Samples
Hendrik Poinar,
Melanie Kuch,
Svante Pääbo*
It has been suggested that the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV),
and thus the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) it causes, was
inadvertently introduced to humans by the use of an oral polio vaccine
(OPV) during a vaccination campaign launched by the Wistar Institute,
Philadelphia, PA, USA, in the Belgian Congo in 1958 and 1959. The
"OPV/AIDS hypothesis" suggests that the OPV used in this campaign
was produced in chimpanzee kidney epithelial cell cultures rather than
in monkey kidney cell cultures, as stated by H. Koprowski and
co-workers, who produced the OPV. If chimpanzee cells were indeed used,
this would lend support to the OPV/AIDS hypothesis, since chimpanzees
harbor a simian immunodeficiency virus, widely accepted to be the
origin of HIV-1. We analyzed several early OPV pools and found no
evidence for the presence of chimpanzee DNA; by contrast, monkey DNA is
present.
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Inselstrasse
22, D-04103, Leipzig, Germany.
*
To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail:
paabo{at}eva.mpg.de
