The Virus and the Vaccine; The True Story of a Cancer-Causing Monkey Virus, Contaminated Polio Vaccine, and the Millions of Americans Exposed

by Debbie Bookchin and Jim Schumacher

• ISBN13: 9780312278724
• ISBN10: 0312278721
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Trade Book
• Copyright: 2004-04-29
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press

Summary

Jonas Salk's polio vaccine has taken on an almost legendary quality as a medical miracle, for it largely eradicated one of the most feared diseases of the 20th century. But the story of the vaccine has a dark side, one that has never been fully told before... Between 1954 and 1963, close to 98 million Americans received polio vaccinations contaminated with a carcinogenic monkey virus, now known as SV40. A concerted government effort downplayed the incident, and it was generally accepted that although oncogenic to laboratory animals, SV40 was harmless to humans. But now SV40 in showing up in human cancers, and prominent researchers are demanding a serious public health response to this forgotten polio vaccine contaminant. A gripping medical detective story, The Virus and the Vaccine raises major questions about vaccine policy.

Author Biography

Debbie Bookchin is a prize-winning journalist who has written for The New York Times, The Nation, and The Boston Globe, among others.

Jim Schumacher has written science articles for periodicals including the Atlantic Monthly and Boston Magazine. They are married to each other and live in Burlington, Vermont.

Table of Contents

Introduction	p. XI
The Paralyzed President	p. 1
A Nation at War with Polio	p. 10
A Young Man from Pittsburgh	p. 19
The Vaccine that Opened Pandora's Box	p. 31
Triumph and Disaster	p. 46
Does Anyone Know What's in This Vaccine?	p. 57
The Virus Discovered	p. 69
"We Were Scared of SV40"	p. 86
"The Worst Thing in the World"	p. 99
Why Not a Safer Vaccine?	p. 118
Everyone Knows SV40 Doesn't Cause Cancer	p. 132
"A Wild-Assed Idea"	p. 146
Don't Inflame the Public	p. 161
A Call to Turn Aside the Dogma	p. 175
On the Scientific Map	p. 187
The Perfect War Machine	p. 203
A Study Marred by Strife	p. 218
Wasted Time, Wasted Money	p. 229
No Funding, No Research	p. 245
Alexander's Tumor	p. 259
Conclusion	p. 278
Notes and Sources	p. 287
Association of SV40 with Human Disease	p. 333
Correspondence between Bernice Eddy, Joseph Smadel, and Roderick Murray (chapters 6 and 7)	p. 343
Documents and Articles Concerning the Discovery of SV40 in Salk's and Sabin's Vaccines (chapters 8 and 9)	p. 347
Memos and Correspondence Relating to Multi-Laboratory Study and Carbone-Pass Rapid Access to Intervention Development (RAID) Grant (chapters 17 and 18)	p. 353
Acknowledgments	p. 365
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