One of my good friends was just diagnosed with mesothelioma. It can have up to a 50 year incubation time. Up to 83% of the people with mesothelioma have the SV40 virus. There is a bill before the house to provide money for research and victims. President Bush is helping to push this.
Here is what the CDC says:
"Soon after its discovery in 1960, SV40 was identified in polio vaccine. It was found in the injected form of the vaccine (IPV), not the kind given by mouth (OPV). At that time, rhesus monkey kidney cells, which contain SV40 if the animal is infected, were used in preparing viral vaccines. Because SV40 was not discovered until 1960, no one was aware that polio vaccine made in the 1950s could be contaminated. In 1961, the virus was found to cause tumors in rodents (Eddy et al., 1961). That same year, the federal government required that new stocks of polio vaccine be free of SV40. However, existing polio vaccine stocks were not recalled and were used until 1963. When SV40 was discovered, researchers did not know if the virus could negatively affect people's health. Many viruses that harm animals have no effect on people because of the biological differences between animals and humans.
Interest in SV40 has increased in the last several years because the virus was found in certain forms of cancer in humans, for instance mesotheliomas (rare tumors located in the lungs), brain, and bone tumors (Carbone et al., 1994; Jasani et al., 2001). More recently, SV40 has also been found to be associated with some types of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (Shivapurkar et al., 2002; Vilchez et al., 2002)."
"SV40 is known to cause tumors in rodents. Have research studies found an association between SV40 and cancer in humans?
Yes. An association has been found between SV40 and certain types of cancer in humans. However, though the virus or its DNA have been found in certain types of cancer, it has not been determined that SV40 causes these cancers. Finding that two events are "associated" is not the same as establishing that one event caused the other.
SV40 was linked with mesothelioma after tumors developed in hamsters that were injected with SV40 into the lungs, heart and abdomen (Cicala et al., 1993). Mesotheliomas are rare cancers usually located in the lining of the lungs in humans and are associated with asbestos exposure. SV40 has been found in 47% to 83% of human mesothelioma tumors (Carbone, 1999). In addition, reports have documented an association between SV40 and brain and bone tumors (Jasani, 2001)."
Two recent studies also found an association between SV40 and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (Shivapurkar et al., 2002; Vilchez et al., 2002). These studies identified the virus in 42 to 43 percent of non-Hodgkin's tumors, while finding no SV40 in tissue from healthy study volunteers. Lymphoma is a general word for cancers that develop in the lymphatic system – the tissues and organs that produce, store and carry white blood cells that fight infection and other diseases. Hodgkin's disease is one type of lymphoma; all others are called non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. Lymphomas account for about 5 percent of all cases of cancer in this country.
I also read that they are starting to see cases where people have the SV40 virus and were born after 1960 suggesting that once a person has it, it can spread from human to human.
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Originally Posted by Janet
I'm confused Michelle, can you tell me why you were concerned with this? I don't remember hearing/reading anything. Is this something new to worry about? I know I had the polio vaccine, I'd have to check my son's records to see if he did. I just don't remember these things very well.
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