polio vaccine causing cancer
"By 1960, Horwin notes, the Salk injectable polio vaccine had been given to about 98 million American children and adults, while Sabin's oral version had been given to about 10,000 Americans and tens of millions of Soviet citizens, where trials had been conducted. "It was estimated that 10% to 30% of the vaccines contained live SV40," he wrote, noting that despite the link discovered by Dr. Eddy, no federal agency and no new federal rules that regulated the manufacture, sale and distribution of vaccines required makers of the polio vaccine to "discard their SV40-contaminated poliovirus seeds which were the source for all subsequent polio vaccines."
Subsequent federal testing of the vaccines, which occurred in the mid-1960s, were also inadequate, Horwin notes, because "the fourteen-day SV40 tests were not long enough to detect the virus." Yet in the years afterward, the incidence of pediatric cancer increased.
"Indeed, the pediatric cancer rate continued to climb through the 1960's, 70's, 80's and 90's," he wrote.
That claim is backed by other research as well.
"Whether childhood cancer is becoming more common is a controversial question among scientists," writes Amy D. Kyle, for EnviroHealthPolicy.net.
"Data from the cancer tracking systems in the US suggest that childhood cancer is increasing," she adds, noting a graph which tracked the increase in pediatric cancer rates in the latter part of the 20th century.
The American Childhood Cancer Association goes a step further, stating that according to statistics, cancer is the number one killer of children in the U.S.
In 2005 the National Network for Immunization Information published a somewhat conflicting report regarding a link between SV40 and increased cancer rates.
"Although SV40 has biological properties consistent with a cancer-causing virus, it has not been conclusively established whether it has caused cancer in humans," said the report. "Epidemiological studies of groups of people who received polio vaccine during 1955-1963 do not show an increased cancer risk."
But later, the same report seems to contradict itself:
However, a number of studies have found SV40 in certain forms of cancer in humans, such as mesotheliomas - rare tumors located in the lungs - brain and bone tumors; the virus has also been found to be associated with some types of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.
In 2002, the IOM's (Institute of Medicine) Immunization Safety Review Committee considered that the available data was inadequate to conclude whether or not the contaminated polio vaccine may have caused cancer. Because there is biological evidence supporting the theory that SV40-contamination of polio vaccines could contribute to human cancers,the committee recommended continued public health attention in the form of policy analysis, communication, and targeted biological research."
"Real Cases - Real Conclusions
In a July 15, 2001 report, the San Francisco Chronicle published a story detailing an increased concern among researchers that the SV40 virus found in those early polio vaccines was indeed responsible for higher cancer rates.
"For four decades, government officials have insisted that there is no evidence the simian virus called SV40 is harmful to humans. But in recent years, dozens of scientific studies have found the virus in a steadily increasing number of rare brain, bone and lung-related tumors - the same malignant cancer SV40 causes in lab animals," the report said. "Even more troubling, the virus has been detected in tumors removed from people never inoculated with the contaminated vaccine, leading some to worry that those infected by the vaccine might be spreading SV40."
Dr. Michele Carbone of Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood, Ill., told the paper he believed the virus was carcinogenic in humans.
"We need to be creating therapies for people who have these cancers, and now we may be able to because we have a target - SV40," he said."